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OUR DAILY BREAD                        Monday,  May  16,1994
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READ: Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

  "GOOD AND BAD LAUGHTER"

     To everything there is a season,
        a time  for  every  purpose
        under  heaven: . . . a time to weep,
        and a time to laugh.

      - Eccl. 3:1,4

Doctors and psychologists tell us that laughter is good  for
us.   This  is undoubtedly true, because the Bible says that
"a merry heart does good, like medicine" (Prov. 17:22).

But  the  Scriptures  distinguish  between  good   and   bad
laughter.   The  author  of  Ecclesiastes  declared that the
laughter of people who have no place for God in their  lives
has  no  more  value than the noise of crackling thorns in a
fire (Eccl. 7:6).  God disapproves of any humor that  belit-
tles  people  or  makes light of immorality.  Sin is never a
laughing matter.

Joe E. Brown was a top-notch movie and Broadway comedian  of
the  World War II era.  When entertaining American troops in
the South Pacific, he was asked by a  soldie  to  tell  some
"dirty jokes."  He responded, "Son, a comedian like me lives
for applause and laughter . . . But if telling a dirty story
is  the price I must pay for your laughter, then I'm not in-
terested.  I've never done an act that  I  couldn't  perform
before  my  mother,  and I never will."  The soldiers rocked
the jungle with their cheers.

Lord, give us a merry heart.  And help us be  discerning  so
that we will laugh for the right reasons and about the right
things.

Author:  Herbert Vander Lugt

Laughter is like music
That lingers in the heart;
And  when its melody is heard,
The ills of life depart.  -Anon.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
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Wholesome  laughter has great face value.

The Bible in One Year:  Psalms 106-108

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