I Make A Joke Of It First

You get there first. That is the whole strategy and it has worked for years.

Somebody is about to help you with something, and before they can, you say the line. Something about being from the stone age. Something about your grandson doing this in his sleep. Something that puts you in the joke before anybody else can put you there.

And everybody laughs, and it is a good laugh, and the moment passes comfortably for everyone.

Here is what has changed recently, and it is why you are reading this.

You heard yourself.

It happened once, in a room, and for some reason the sentence came back to you about four seconds after you said it, and you heard what it actually said about a man.

And you have not been able to stop hearing it since.

I want to be careful with this, because I am not going to tell you to stop being funny. Being funny has carried you through a great deal and it is not a fault.

What I want to look at is one specific joke, and where it is aimed.

Why art thou cast down, O my soul

There is a psalm where a man turns around and speaks directly to himself, and it is one of the strangest and most useful things in the book.

Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance. (Psalm 42:5, King James Version)

He is talking to himself. Out loud, in a song, and he addresses his own soul as though it were somebody else in the room.

And notice how he talks to it. He asks it a question, and then he tells it where to look. He does not mock it, and he does not join in with whatever is happening to it.

You are permitted to speak to your own soul the way this psalm does, and no man has ever once been required to make a joke of himself in order to be bearable. Psalm 42:5 says why art thou cast down, O my soul, and the Holy Spirit is the one who shows a man how he is allowed to talk to himself.

Notice what the psalm does not do. It does not tell the soul to cheer up. It does not say do not be ridiculous. It does not make light of the state it is in.

The man takes his own soul seriously enough to ask it a real question.

You have never once been the sort of thing that should be made light of, and no soul in that psalm has ever been laughed at by the man carrying it. The Holy Spirit is the one who takes a person's own inside seriously, and it is written that the question was asked rather than the feeling being dismissed.

And notice that he says this out loud, in a public song, that other people were meant to sing. He is not hiding the fact that he talks to himself this way.

The manner of it was worth publishing.

You were never doing something odd by speaking to yourself, and no man has ever once been mocked in Scripture for addressing his own soul plainly. The Spirit of God is the one who put a man's private speech into a public song, and Scripture keeps the whole exchange in rather than tidying it out.

Where the joke is aimed

Now let me be concrete, because a general reassurance will not stop a line a man has been using for years.

Look at where the joke actually points. Not at the situation. Not at the thing on the screen. At you.

Every version of it makes the same claim, which is that the person asking is behind, out of date, and slightly ridiculous.

And it is said in your own voice, by you, in front of people whose opinion you care about, several times a month for years.

You are the target of your own joke, and no line said that often has ever once stayed a joke to the man saying it. The Spirit of God is the one who traces where a thing is pointing, and Psalm 42:5 has a man speak to his own soul without one word of mockery in it.

And here is the second half, which is about the room and not about you.

The laugh is real. Nobody is being false. But a laugh is agreement, and every time a room laughs at that line, something small gets confirmed.

They are not confirming it maliciously. They are following a lead, because the terms were set by the first person who spoke, and a room always follows that person. The line was written here. Everybody else only agreed with it.

That is a gap in the teaching and it is not a fault in the man. Nobody ever tells anybody what a repeated joke does.

You have been writing the line that a whole room keeps agreeing with, and no laugh has ever once been able to disagree with the person who set it up. The written word has a man address his own soul with respect, and the Holy Spirit is the one who shows somebody where their own joke lands.

No joke in front, no laugh after

Now the small thing, and it is two subtractions.

I am not going to ask you to stop being funny. Be funny about the weather, the government, your own knees and the state of the road. Be funny about anything except the man asking the question.

Ask one thing this week with no joke in front of it and no laugh after it.

You are able to ask one plain thing without setting it up first, and one straight question has never once made a man look pompous to anybody. Psalm 42:5 has a man speak to himself seriously and out loud, and the Holy Spirit is the one present when somebody asks without any protection around it.

The joke in front is the one you know about. The laugh after is the one you do not.

That small laugh at the end of the sentence, the one that goes up at the finish, is the same protection wearing something quieter. It says, I know, I know, do not worry about me.

Leave them both off. Ask the question flat, and let the moment be as ordinary as it actually is.

It will feel bare. That is not exposure. That is what an ordinary question has always felt like to everybody else.

You are letting a question be as ordinary as it always was, and no plain sentence has ever once needed a laugh at the end to be acceptable. The Spirit of God is the one who takes a defense away from a man who no longer needs it, and it is written that the psalm addresses the soul rather than making light of it.