HUMOR: The Best Medicine?

Humor in inspirational fiction: Is it OK to laugh?

by James Yarbrough

Do we Christians have a problem with humor?

I love writing humor and comedy. So, this is a personal question for me!

We know not to laugh at bad situations or crude jokes. We don’t want to dispense ill will or magnify the suffering or discomfort of our fellow man. We understand those boundaries of humor and should stay far away from them.

But has all the out-of-bounds “humor” the world pummels us with every day jaded us Christians? Jaded us to the extent that, well, we may avoid humor in our writing?

Whoa! As a famous TV character used to say, let’s back up the truck!

Not only is it OK to laugh, positive humor is a blessing! Humor is a refreshing balm, a tension-reducer, a unifier, and at times, an appropriate humbler. And there are plenty of great examples in the Bible.

Can you sense in Matthew 4:19 (NIV) the good-natured banter by Jesus with the veteran fishermen Peter and Andrew, when He said “I will make you fishers of men”?

And how about the story of Baalam in Numbers 22:21-30? Proud and greedy Baalam is forced to converse with a simple donkey, getting a much-deserved comeuppance in the process.

Then there’s the clever wording and turn-of-a-phrase that appear in many Bible books. As in Proverbs 11:22 (NIV):  “Like a gold ring in a pig’s snout is a beautiful woman who shows no discretion.” I can tell you my tactical recitings of that verse have brought laughs to both of my daughters, if sometimes reluctant ones!

So, what does humor in inspirational fiction look like?
There are so many humor variations, but try this for a basic outline:

• Start with an unusual situation
• Add a person who tries to ignore, or manage the unusual situation but for some reason finds that he can’t
• Then the person gets deeply involved with the unusual situation that he can’t ignore or manage and in doing so, funny outcomes result

How many good TV comedies from the 1950s and 1960s followed this outline? Think the show with a zany red-headed lady and her Cuban-born husband. Or the one with a talking horse.

If you’re interested in sampling some of my humor writings, and see how I embellish the basic outline above, check out these short stories and short story collections:



Or my romantic comedy novella for the Christmas season, Jingle Belles and Christmas Beaus:

All these are available at www.amazon.com/books.
 
James Yarbrough and his wife live in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and have three adult children. After a long technical career, James began fiction writing in earnest in 2014 and enjoys writing positive, inspirational stories that entertain as well as prompt the reader to enjoy thinking. Follow him on Facebook at James Yarbrough - Author
Thank you for reading, and I hope you have a blessed and humor-filled day!