The Holy Laughter of God

Mirth, the holy laughter of a God who seizes everything wrong and assures that it all turn out right… there all the time, but never heard unless it’s attended to.  I hadn’t been silent enough.  I hadn’t learned to wait.  It was the sound of my name in God’s mouth, the word that I was created and chosen to be, the part that I have been given in the chorus to shape into song.

Harold Fickett, The Holy Fool

How does it make you feel to know that you bring joy to the living God – that the sound of your name in His mouth is the sound of mirth – the holy laughter of God?

Consider the words of Zephaniah 3:17 that reveal a God who delights in you – who rejoices over you with singing:

For the Lord your God is living among you.
He is mighty to save.
He will take delight in you with gladness.
He will quiet you with his love.
He will rejoice over you with singing.

It has taken me most of my life to know THIS God – this Abba Father whose love is a reaching, restoring, delighting love;  whose might is the same as His joy: to save me from a passionless existence apart from Him; whose quieting me with love is rejoicing over me with singing.

How well do I know this – taught to me by my own children over whom I sang – each one having their own song, along with the songs of worshipping You.  If I know this as a fatherless man, through the curriculum of raising my own children – it is because it is the foretaste of You, Heavenly Father, who made us in Your image – a finite correspondence to Your own infinite qualities of joyful delighting love.

So go ahead.  Listen to the sound of your name in God’s mouth. Listen to Revelations 2:17:

I will also give that person a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to the one who receives it.

Consider the intimacy of such a secret – the profoundly beautiful sound of your name in God’s voice.

For more, see What Joy (χαρα) means to Me,

 or go to Oceans of Joy.