I consider humor to be an essential – I enjoy it, and it’s a coping technique, when coping is needed. The tension between my fallen nature as a “natural” woman (Mosiah 3:19) and my efforts to live my faith provide ongoing opportunities for humor. Humor is so innate to humans that I believe our creator, in whose image we are made, must also have a sense of humor.
I find nuggets of humor throughout the scriptures. Of course, humor is in the eye of the beholder, but I find it gently funny when, in John 4:33, a disciple is confused by Jesus’s use of the word “meat” to indicate something other than food. “Hath any man brought him ought to eat?” the disciple asks another in confusion. And I think Jesus must have had at least a brief smile on his face and maybe a wink to one of his shorter or younger-and-impatient-to-grow disciples when, in Matthew 6:27, he says, “Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?”
A comedy-worthy incident occurs when Paul, freed from prison by an angel in Acts 12, knocks on the door of the gate of some friends, and the young woman who responds is so excited to see him that she forgets to let him in and instead runs to announce his presence to his unbelieving friends, leaving poor Paul to continue knocking.
