When God laughs
My boys do push-ups regularly throughout the day so that they can have muscles like superheroes. They want to feel strong. They look at their father’s arms and notice that they are very tight, capable of much that they’ve seen my husband carry with his strength. Push-ups not only give my boys the muscles they so desire but also the appearance of manliness, of strength. They do the push-ups because they want to feel like they are growing up. My eldest, in particular, does the push-ups because he doesn’t want to feel like he isn’t able to do something, as my mother is careful to put particular restrictions on how he can help her around her yard. She is overly careful but is eager to have him pitch in whenever he can, yet he notices that she doesn’t see his full potential. He likes the challenge. He likes testing himself.
All this to say one thing: it is amusing to see my boys motivated in this way; to see them exert themselves on the floor, competing and then encouraging each other at the same time.
I laugh. My husband laughs. It’s amusing. We know the limited strength of our children.
Likewise, God knows the limits of our bodies.
He knows the boundaries of a nation’s power. Every nation is limited, but God is omnipotent.
Is it a strange thing, then, to consider that God laughs? He does laugh, not at the nations, but at their confused thoughts about power.
I continue to read and study the Psalms. This time, I found some golden nuggets in chapter 2:
Given this election season, as a body of Christ, the lesson here is to decide whether we will choose between confidence in God, or confidence in our nation’s power.
We choose God because He is marvelous and omnipotent. He is stronger than we are and will always overpower anything and anyone. He knew the empires of the earth long before they came into existence (Daniel 2). We know that pride and power cause nations and leaders to rebel against God and try to break free from Him.
As many leaders boast of their power, rant and rave against God and His people, and promise to take over and form their own empires, we must remember that He laughs!
He laughs because any power that world leaders have comes from Him- and He can take that power away.
This gives me comfort because knowing that although corruption will exist within those in power, that greed, pride, and filthy lucre in our leaders is nothing to be astonished about, we can trust that all the boasting they do will eventually end up in the hands of a mighty God who will judge them Himself.
And He knows better than we do.
He will break them with a rod of iron, and they will be in pieces like a potter’s vessel.
