Loved Him More

Jacob loved Joseph more than any of his other children because Joseph had been born to him in his old age. So one day Jacob had a special gift made for Joseph —a beautiful robe. But his brothers hated Joseph because their father loved him more than the rest of them. They couldn’t say a kind word to him. Genesis 37:3-4

JACOB SHOULD HAVE REMEMBERED the pain inflicted upon him by the failings of his father, Isaac, who obviously favored his brother, Esau. But evidently he didn’t. He should have been determined not to inflict the pain of parental favoritism on his own sons. But evidently he wasn’t.

Favoritism. It’s one of the many ways we sin in parenting our children —one of many ways we may make adverse, lasting impressions on our children. So what do we do with our inner agony over the way our sin has impacted our children? Joseph helps us with that.

It was Jacob’s sin of favoritism that filled Joseph’s brothers with murderous hate toward him and led them to sell him into slavery. And yet when his brothers came to Egypt years later, he said to them, “Don’t be upset, and don’t be angry with yourselves for selling me to this place. It was God who sent me here ahead of you to preserve your lives” (Genesis 45:5). Joseph was able to see how God used even the great sin against him to accomplish his good purposes in his own life and that of his people.

Joseph’s God is our God. We can trust that he is able to use our sins and failures as parents —our inconsistencies and our hypocrisies and even our cruelties —to accomplish his good purposes in the lives of our children.

Lord, I see again and again in the Scriptures that you redeem the worst situations and the most stubborn people. But sometimes I find it hard to trust that you can redeem the things I’ve done and failed to do in the lives of my children. Will you show me how my attitudes and actions impact ________ in ways that pain him and shape who he will be as a parent someday? And will you give me the faith to trust in your providential plan for ________ as well as your grace toward me?