The Favorite Child

(Geneses 37:3 KJV) Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colors. 

When one knows they are a favorite child it seems to give them an unusual amount of self-confidence. This was certainly true with Joseph because he not only knew he was his father’s favorite child, but so did the rest of the family.

Joseph’s brothers found such favoritism hard enough to tolerate, but when his arrogant spirit was thrown into the mix…it was almost unbearable. While his brothers were off working hard and caring for the family business, Joseph was at home wearing his coat of many colors and dreaming of his brothers bowing down to him.

I am not suggesting that every favorite child is arrogant or spoiled, but I am suggesting that every favorite child does seem to have an unusual amount of self-confidence. If this is true, then it would behoove every parent to make sure that each of their children feels they are the favorite child. Without such assurance a child could very easily go through life lacking in self-confidence...which is the basis for failure.

I have personally gone from one extreme to the other on the “security and self-confidence” issue. I was very insecure as a child and did not feel there was any reason for others to like me because I did not like myself. From the time I was very little I was repeatedly told by my drunken step-father that I was no good and would never amount to anything…and I believed it.

However, in spite of my insurmountable insecurity I would always risk doing things that I was totally unqualified to do. As a matter of fact I even went out on my own as a bashful twelve year old kid...and I never returned home.

As I look back on those days I have no idea how a kid as insecure and rejected as I was would have the gumption to risk everything…every time...on what he believes to be right. Perhaps those experiences were a setup for my future just as Joseph’s experiences in the well and the jail were also a set up for his future.

The thought of being a favorite child was not on my radar screen at all until a few years ago when it just happened. I am not exactly sure what happened, but one day I suddenly realized that I was my heavenly Father’s favorite child. This experience was not a figment of my imagination any more than Joseph’s experience of becoming “prime minister” was a figment of his imagination. This experience was real and it was supernatural and I still cannot explain it.

It was not until years later when many people were looking to me as their spiritual father that I began to realize that my life had been transformed by God. I had become what I had never seen or experienced...a favorite child…and so can each one of you through Jesus Christ. When we accept Jesus as Savior we are no longer bound by the words and actions of others, but we are taken into heavenly places with Him.

Father,

I thank You for taking us past the natural into the supernatural. I also thank You that through Jesus all of us are your favorite children, regardless of our natural environment.

Amen