God: "I looked for someone to take a stand for me, and stand in the gap" (Ezekiel 22:30)
God wants us to follow a recurring pattern of intense work and then rest, intense work and then rest, and so forth. Whatever view one takes of the Sabbath, surely the six days of work and the one day of rest embedded in the creation remain relevant in some sense. Any routine of life that is unsustainable long-term cannot be of God. He calls us to work. But he also calls us to rest, in order to work most fruitfully. What sets us apart is this. We rest, in order to work; we do not work, in order to rest. We who believe the gospel are not living for the weekend, but for The End. In the meantime, we figure out rhythms of life that make fruitful labor sustainable.
For example, there is a special favor placed on the firstborn because of the excitement that surrounded your first child or the maturity she has as the oldest when compared to her siblings. There is a special favor placed on the youngest because he or she needs an advocate as the “baby” of the family. Gender can be a source of favoritism as dads can overly gravitate to their sons and moms to their daughters. Favoritism can also be developed when one child, like Esau, appeals to the interest of a parent – the dad who always wanted to be an athlete and is now living his dreams through his gifted son. Maybe it is the child who everybody loves or is highly successful in school and the parents show greater fondness toward her because of what she contributes to the family’s reputation and the parents’ esteem as to what they produced. The examples continue…
