Joseph, the favorite

Devotional for Kids

“Love is very patient and kind, never jealous or envious, never boastful or proud, never haughty or selfish or rude. Love does not demand its own way. It is not irritable or touchy. It does not hold grudges and will hardly even notice when others do it wrong.” 1 Corinthians 13: 4 and 5 [The Living Bible]

If you are at all like the other millions of kids in the world, there are many times when you do not feel like loving your brothers or sisters. There are different reasons for this. Often wrong feelings of envy or jealousy come over us because we think our siblings are treated better than us. Sometimes they block our way of getting what we want most. When we envy our brothers or sisters we do not feel like loving them.

Joseph’s brothers had this problem. Joseph grew up in a large family. He had ten older brothers and one younger one, plus a sister.

Joseph was his dad’s favorite child. Joseph was so special to his father, Jacob, that he made him a tunic of many colors. His brothers hated Joseph because he was Dad’s favorite.

When Joseph was seventeen and caring for his father’s sheep alongside his brothers, he came home and gave a bad report to his dad about his siblings. Of course the brothers resented Joseph for this. Whatever he said was probably true because the Bible shows Joseph as a man of integrity. But his brothers thought of him as telling tattletales. They thought he was making himself look better than them. The Bible says the brothers hated Joseph for this.

Then to make matters even worse for the brothers, Joseph had two special dreams. In the first dream he and his brothers were binding sheaves in the field. That was part of their harvesting grain in those days before they had all our machinery. In Joseph’s dream his sheaf stood upright and his brothers’ sheaves bowed down to his.

In the morning when he told his brothers his dream they were outraged. “Who do you think you are?” they said. “Do you think you are going to rule over us?” Now they hated him even more.

Then he had the second dream. This time the sun, the moon, and eleven stars bowed down to him. Again he told his brothers. This time the Bible says that his brothers envied him.

Bad things follow when we begin to envy others. People do just about anything when they want what someone else has. That’s why God tells us not to envy. He wants us to be happy for our siblings when He blesses them. And we can trust God to bless us just as much or even more when it’s our turn, as long as we are loyal to Him.

Joseph’s brothers did something awful to him. I will tell you about it in my devotional tomorrow.

I too grew up in a large family. I had six brothers and seven sisters. There was a lot of sibling rivalry in our family, too. Everyone wants to be important.

We had our share of arguments and disagreements. I’m sure there were days when I wanted to do to one of my siblings exactly what Joseph’s brothers did to him; especially when I didn’t get my way. I’m sure there were many days also when one of my brothers or sisters wanted to do to me what Joseph’s brothers did to him. But those feelings passed quickly because basically there was a lot of love in our home.

When I was a young teenager my brother, Ervan, had a bad car accident and nearly died. That bad time make me realize how special each of my brothers and sisters were to me inspite of the rivalry we felt at times.

I couldn’t imagine my brothers or sisters going through the awful things that Joseph had to go through because of his brothers’ envy and the terrible thing they did to him.

In the Bible God reminds us again and again to love one another. He talks a lot about loving our brothers; which also means sisters. I think maybe because it’s hard to love someone all the time when you live with them day in and day out and they know all our weakness and we know all their weaknesses.

But there is also another reason. In 1 John 2:9 to 11 God says: “Anyone who says he is walking in the light of Christ but dislikes his fellow man, is still in darkness.
“But whoever loves his fellow man is ‘walking in the light’ and can see his way without stumbling around in darkness and sin.
“For he who dislikes his brother is wandering in spiritual darkness and doesn’t know where he is going, for the darkness had made him blind so that he cannot see the way.” [The Living Bible]

Envy leads to hate and hate leads to worse things. Envy and hate blind us and we begin to do things we would never do if we weren’t obsessed with these emotions. When we choose to love, good actions follow our emotions too.

Memory verse for this week:

“And this is what God says we must do; Believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another.” 1 John 3: 23 [The Living Bible]

Going deeper for parents:

I believe these words for our kids touch us right where it touches them and are as applicable to us as to them. God Bless You!

Ruth Willms

Author: The Lion Tree
http://ruthwillms.com
ruth.willms@gmail.com

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