How well do you love your children? If you have more than one, do you love each of them differently? Do you love one of them more than the others? Do you do more for one than the others? Do you think your children see the difference? Do you think other people see the difference?
When we have more than one child, we nearly always do different things for the different children. We will often state we do not love any child less than any other, we just love them differently. But in doing so, we may demonstrate loving one more than the other without realizing it.
Loving our children comes naturally to nearly all of us. We love each one’s personality, skills, talents, achievements, interests. We do our best to celebrate each one differently, yet equally. We may find that it becomes a struggle at times. One child may have a specific need during a certain period of their life, and we help them with it. Even though we may do the same thing for another child, if they were in the same situation, it can be misconstrued by our other children that we are showing favoritism.
We see in Scripture that Israel (Jacob) clearly loved Joseph more and made him a brilliant coat. Scripture also explains why Israel loved him more. For Jacob had loved Rachel first and had to work twice as long to have her father give her to him for a wife. For Laban, Rachel’s father, had given Leah to Jacob first since she was the oldest. Additionally, Rachel struggled to become pregnant, but finally had Joseph, then his younger brother Benjamin. Jacob, perhaps inadvertently, made his other children jealous of Joseph. Our lesson in this is to carefully consider how we show our love for our children.
I pray we all love our children deeply. I pray we show our love to all our children. I pray each one of us consider carefully how we show our love so that we do not inadvertently show partialism. Love your children. Show your love to your children. Do not show partiality.
Genesis 37:3-4 Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his children because he was the son of his old age, and he made him an ornamented robe. But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peaceably to him.
Marty Pressey 