The Best I Like

Monday 2/20/2012 6:53 AM

Earlier this morning I read my brother’s recollection of a childhood memory.  Our cousins would come to our farm to play and we each had our favorite cousins.  My oldest sister would often say, “Howard is the best I like.”  My siblings would argue that I am the favorite child of our mother but this moniker has always made me feel uncomfortable and I feel the need to provide evidence to the contrary to deflect that status whenever we are together.  Of course, my siblings don’t buy it.

We all have favorite colors, favorite days of the week, favorite sports teams, etc., that we proudly state to any who will listen.  My favorite subject in school was mathematics and I despised any class that required me to write a term paper; so English, social studies, psychology and education classes were on my “To Be Avoided at All Costs” list.  Unfortunately many of those classes were required general education classes or, worse yet, required for my secondary education focus that accompanied my math major.  I always viewed them as necessary evils, things to be tolerated to reach my goal.

This morning I read Psalm 19 and verse 6 drew my attention.  David is writing about the sun, which is declaring the glory of God, and he describes it this way, “It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is deprived of its warmth.”  It seems that the sun doesn’t play favorites; the sun warms everything.  In the Reformed community in which I was raised that is known as common grace; it rains on both the just and on the unjust.

I began to think about whether or not God has favorites.  Does he like some people more than others?  I have been blessed with good health throughout my life while others, like my Dad, are stricken with disease and die at an early age.  I have been blessed with loving family relationships while others I know have fractured relationships with their spouses that have ended in nasty divorces or they haven’t spoken to their children in years.  I have been blessed with steady work that I find energizing while others I know are stuck with a job they hate or they go through extended periods of unemployment, which exerts its own stresses upon their lives.

From a human perspective it seems like God plays favorites and he doesn’t try to hide it.  I often wonder why my life seems to move along without serious difficulties while others around me seem to move from one major setback to another.  I am grateful for what I consider to be great gifts from God but there is often a sense of shame that I experience when I talk with others who are in the midst of troubling circumstances.  I have a hard time truly celebrating the goodness in my life when others around me seem to be hit with one difficulty after another.  It seems to me that God should spread the bad things and the good things we experience in life equally so that everyone experiences some of each.