Encouragement

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His laughter is like a rolling melody that changes just enough to keep your interest -- and make it impossible to sing along.

He can laugh while he dances to music no one else can hear, dizzily watching his own pounding feet or spinning with an angelic "praise the Lord" grin that puts the sun to shame.

He laughs when he runs, pulled willingly around the T-ball bases with my helping hand, orbiting wide around first base, feet just far enough out of sync to tangle into a giddy slide into second.

He laughs with a trickle of blood pouring from his first "sports-related injury" and runs some more, signing hand-to-mouth "Good, good" and pounding for third.

And I think, "Oh, how I would love to be in that inner circle, that lightness of spirit never dampened by fear or want or lack of faith."

All I get in response is a knowing laugh from my son, as if to say, "Its's easy. Just let yourself go!"

There is more laughter in the book of Genesis -- more heartfelt, fun-filled laughter -- than the rest of the Bible combined. And almost all of it revolves around Abraham and Sarah and Isaac, whose very name means "he laughs."

God, you may remember, tells 99-year-old Abraham that he and his 90-year-old wife will have a child.

"Abraham fell facedown; he laughed and said to himself, "Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?" (Genesis 17:17)

Sarah, hearing the news, was similarly amused: "So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, "After I am worn out and my master is old, will I now have this pleasure?" (Genesis 18:12)

True to God's word, Isaac is born and brings great joy and laughter to everyone -- until God asks Abraham to take his beloved son to a mountain and prepare to sacrifice him.

There ensues one of the most poignant dramas of the Bible:

"When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.

"But the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven, "Abraham! Abraham!"

"Here I am," he replied.

"Do not lay a hand on the boy," he said. "Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son." (Genesis 22:9-12)

I relive that drama -- any father's nightmare -- and look at my own laughing son and ponder the autism that God has transformed from a curse -- into a blessing.

It is no secret that this boy, in his "brokenness" led his own father to Christ. And I have seen other grown men seek him out, holding his hands to their heads as if seeking his blessing.

And I think of all the broken offerings of the Bible: The loaves and fishes that fed thousands, the alabaster jar of fragrant perfume poured out on Jesus, and Christ himself, broken on the cross at Calvary.

We, too, are asked to sacrifice ourselves -- in all our brokenness -- to God.

"Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship," says the Apostle Paul in Romans 12:1.

We may think we are unworthy, but I think of God's providence and a verse I love from the song "Thousand Miles" by Caedmon's Call:

"Take this broken offering and make it whole
"And set my feet upon the road that leads me home
"Let me walk as one who’s fixed upon the goal
"Even though I've got a thousand miles to go."

I look at my laughing, dancing son and think -- if only I can be that broken, the thousand miles will fly by.

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