Filled Smiles

This entry came about from a song in church this morning. It was the first song of the service (yes I was there in time for the first song, thanks to some Holy Spirit conviction delivered via a Chip Ingram Living On the Edge podcast) and was a fairly typical, contemporary, not very theologically deep, worship song, (don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to bash those types of songs, I have a playlist full of them on my ipod) when a line came up that caught my attention:

When we laugh fill our smiles with You.

My first thought was "huh. . . what is that supposed to mean" and seeing as I was now fully distracted from singing the song, I thought about it and I don't know if I came up with what the writer intended it to mean (I later found out it's the song Our Love is Loud by the David Crowder band) I did come up with my idea of what it could mean.

The gist of it is the question: what do we smile at or what do we laugh at? In other words: what's the motivation behind our smile or laugh?

There are a lot of things in our society, media in particular, that people laugh at, that—from a Biblical or Christian world view perspective—we should not be laughing at. From sexually explicit "humor" to the Don Rickles extreme-put-down, make-fun-of-others, sort of "humor" (much of which I've laughed at) television, movies, and the rest of it, is full of stuff that is meant to be funny. However, at the time we are smiling or laughing at any of it, it is very safe to say that are smiles are not filled with—as the song puts it—You.

There a couple of quotes related to this that I like and were in fact what set me on this line of thinking in the first place. There are two from Joshua Harris's book Not Even a Hint (about sexual purity) and one from a John Piper Sermon. Even though they are very similar, I include all three.

Jesus Christ died to rescue me from darkness and sin. How can I willingly immerse myself in that darkness for the sake of entertainment? What a tragedy it is that I’ve sat idly by during movies and television shows and watched the very sin for which Christ had to die being laughed about, even celebrated.

Joshua Harris “Not Even A Hint” p124,125

Why would I want to gain enjoyment or soak my mind in the sins that Jesus had to shed His blood to free us from?

Joshua Harris “Not Even A Hint” p125

My parents almost never went to movies and I almost never go to movies. The reason is very simple: there are almost no movies that don't ask me to be entertained by attitudes, motives, and actions which Jesus died to eradicate.

John Piper


Strong but very true words. I really could have just posted the intro, the quotes, said Amen and been done.

So where does that leave us? Does that really mean we shouldn't watch Seinfeld reruns? I'll leave that up to you, however, speaking as one who has watched a lot of Seinfeld reruns (I really don't watch TV at home but when I'm in Branson for three months with cable and time. . .) let's just say that some of my other options could have been: reading one of the many books I brought with, video chatting with my wife without trying to read the closed captioning at the same time, going to bed, and dare I say it—praying. Which is to say, when I stand before my Maker someday and am asked to give account for the time I spent watching Seinfeld reruns in Branson, MO . . . I got nothing.

Watch little kids at play. More often than not, their smiles and laughter have a You filled, innocent wonder, excitement, and joy of living, that we don't tend to show enough of in our adult lives. It's worth trying to cultivate more of that, as well as being more aware of when our smiles have a less than wholesome filling.

When we laugh let our smiles be filled with You.

A fluffy, meaningless line from a feel-good worship song? You be the judge. As for me, I say no.