Today's encouragement comes from Psalm 59:8, where we read these words:
"But You, O LORD, shall laugh at them; You shall have all the nations in deri-sion."God's "belly-laughs" are not always brought on by some silly (or funny) things that His creatures do (perhaps, even innocently). In the verse above, the Lord is chuckling over the foolishness and stupidity of His enemies, who think they can take Him on and overcome the Creator (who made them).
In reality, life is no "laughing matter"; and God calls on His whole world to worship Him (alone)—through Jesus Christ alone. The fact of the matter, however, is that only the faithful church actually practices this (proper wor-ship). Those who love Jesus will be vilified by those who hate Him. But the same Lord who "laughs" at the wicked also blesses His true children.
[Puritan quote of the day: "What peace or comfort had Judas in the sight of his thirty pieces of silver?” —William Bridge, in, "A Lifting Up for the Down-cast"]