The Game No One Ever Wins in Favouritism
Have you been the favoured child?
Jacob and Esau have a story to tell about favouritism in the family and it is not pretty nor lucky.
Biblical Ground Work: Genesis 24-28
Sarah dies and Abraham sends his servant out to find a wife from his own family for Isaac. He arrives at Abraham’s family and meets up with Rebekah just as he had asked the Lord to do.
The servant retrieves Rebekah and bring her home to his master. Isaac and her fall in love.
The familiar story of infertility plays out with Isaac and Rebekah for 20 years. Isaac pleads with the Lord for her, and his plea is granted. Rebekah becomes pregnant with twins. They are struggling in her womb so she enquirers of the Lord to find out why.
And the Lord said to her:
“Two peoples shall be separated from your body;
One people shall be stronger than the other
And the older shall serve the younger.” (Genesis 25:23)
When Rebekah gives birth another struggle ensues (Genesis 25:24-28) and will continue all the days of Isaac and Rebekah’s life. Jacob, Rebekah’s favoured child, means “supplantor or deceiver”. We watch as Rebekah trains up her son to live up to his name and Isaac trains Esau (hairy) to live up to his new name Edom, red faced with negativity.
Our Biblical Life Lesson – No one ever wins with favouritism.
I know exactly what it is like to give birth to twins. My eldest boys are fraternal twins. I never favoured one over the other because I saw in my own family what favouritism had done. It was loud and proud. We have all lost each other. No one is winning in my family. We are separated by the animosity we have toward each other just as Jacob and Esau are separated by their animosity toward each other.
Do you want your kids to love, admire and respect each other? Then you must put an end to the favouritism that either you grew up in or you are subjecting your children too. No one wins, including you. You will have constant bickering in your house because your kids will be jockeying for position.
Your job as a mother, sister, daughter, boss, grandmother, co-worker, servant of God, is to reflect Jesus without favouritism toward anyone. Even the Apostles were jockeying for position (Matthew 18:1-5; Mark 9:33-37) in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Ponder this.
What if your favoured daughter becomes a spoiled brat who wants everyone to serve her. Will you be proud? What if your lesser than child becomes a great leader? Will you be proud? What if the child you ignored becomes someone no one can ignore again by shooting hundreds of people? Will you be proud?
BUT
What if you didn’t favour any of your kids and all of them become who God created them to be? That is what should make you proud.
Kathleen equips and empowers women to be active and productive in the Body of Christ because they are highly needed. Astound yourself by doing all the things you are capable of doing and more with the:
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So accurate, but difficult. As a child, I was in a car accident, so my parents needed to give me special attention, which my siblings saw as favouritism. But because of my brother’s character traits, he has always had a closer relationship to my father.
Every time I read this story I am reminded of my family and how I tried to avoid it. Unfortunately though even though you try to avoid it the kids see it as different.
Either they voice it or they use it to try and get what they want.
As I look back I know I did my best to avoid it and I will not allow my kids to use it.