Side Effects of a Life in Comedy
* Recurring nightmare: as your “Harpo Meets Teller” routine is bombing, you realize you’re doing a radio show.
* Your social status is one small notch above mimes and rodeo clowns.
* People are always asking, “Ooh, do you know Adam Sandler?”
* Wisenheimer’s Syndrome.
* You laugh on the outside, but inside you harbor a bitter resentment toward people who have enough money for food.
* Instead of crow’s feet, you get punchlines.
* You have to start the day with a couple of quick knock-knock jokes to get rid of “the shakes.”
* The grandkids keep breaking your dentures trying to wind them up.
* Mom was right: your face *does* freeze that way, after a couple of decades.
* Everything tastes funny.
Twenty Minutes a Day
I thank my God in all my remembrance of you. PHILIPPIANS 1:3
Bill Eyster told about a friend of his who had received a new guitar as a gift. It was something this man had always wanted he had hoped he could learn to play the guitar at some point in his life. So with the encouragement of his wife and children, he started spending about 20 minutes each evening learning chords and picking out notes.
Funny what 20 minutes a night can do. Before long, he had worked up to playing a few simple songs. His family was getting a big kick out of it, singing along as he began playing things they could actually recognize. How fun! A new, learned skill was bringing music (and sometimes laughter) into his home and the joy of accomplishment into his heart.
This resulted in Bill wondering: Everybody has at least a little free time, prinkled here and there through the day or in the evening. Some spend it on the Internet. Some spend it watching TV or movies. Some spend it shopping or reading or scrapbooking. But what if we invested 20 minutes, spending concentrated time and effort on our most important earthly relationship, our marriage?
What if, instead of using our free time to get better at golf or photography or Cajun cooking, we used it to become a godly wife or husband? What if we used that same amount of time to take a walk together? What if we used it just to deliberately think about how to invest in our spouse, to plan a romantic evening, to choose a certain chore we could take off our spouse’s hands? It takes focus for a marriage relationship to grow. And focus takes time.
PRAY
Ask God to help you see your marriage as a daily adventure.