Favorites

There it stands. Leaning up on the front of the couch. An old guitar. It's plain looking at first glance but though it looks simple and dull of finish, when you pick it up and begin to strum your fingers across the new strings it sounds incredible. It always did, but with time, it just gets better and better. Sitting next to it is another guitar. It is fancier looking with more inlays and embellishments. It even has the signature of its maker emblazoned on the face. They are both from the same maker, and they are the same year model, but while one is plain and worn, the other is fancy and more pristine in nature. If they were hanging on the wall in a little music shop or pawn shop, the fancier one would garner most, if not all, the attention from both serious enthusiasts and casual passersby. They were so expensive new that I didn't think I could ever afford them. The first one I bought brand new in a nice music store in Texas that was closing them out, to carry that brand no longer, so the price was greatly reduced. The second, I bought over twenty years later in a pawn shop in a small tourist town in Idaho. Surprised I'd ever find the companion model to my other one, I bought it as well. I paid less for both than just one of them was supposed to cost new. But it isn't the cost or the finish that makes one of them my favorite. There are more intangible reasons. Though they are very similar in almost every way, one is more like an old friend than an instrument. That's the way we are with most favorites. I have a favorite horse I own and a favorite horse I've ever ridden, that someone else owns. I have a favorite place to eat, shop, brands of clothing I wear, not to mention all the different kinds of food there are and my favorite place to get them. There are places in the world that we are drawn back to time and again, because of all the places we have gone in our lives, that's our favorite. You may never be able to live there, nor would you for fear of the mystique of the place somehow going away, but you love to visit. However, there are some things of which we do not have a favorite. You can't pick favorites of your children. Some families are close and others are not. Some families have one child, brother, sister or something else that is estranged or distant from the rest but you still can't pick a favorite. Some people may but that can only cause problems, and rightly so! Can you imagine, well maybe you can, but I hope not, how you would feel if you knew, or worse yet, were told by a parent that one of your siblings was their favorite, but not you? Can you imagine how terrible it would be to your own child to hear that the other one was your favorite. Some have been treated that way without the words being actually said and that is bad enough, but the words could be devastating. I gave my sister a birthday card several years ago that said, "Happy Birthday to a beautiful, intelligent, and talented, little sister...from Mom's favorite." It was meant as a joke, and she knows that but it really wouldn't be funny if it were true. We have tried our best to love and treat our children the same. If you have children you know that can be hard because each one is so different, with different needs, wants, gifts, and talents. But it is easy to favor your children over others. When a mother of a couple of Jesus' disciples came to Him and asked if her two beloved sons could sit one on His right and the other on His left in "His Glory" or His kingdom, He asked her, rhetorically, "Where's God the father gonna sit?" That hadn't even crossed her mind. She wasn't worried about where God would sit because He wasn't her child. She was only worried about herself and her little cubs. The human in me hopes Jesus' reply in the form of a question was somewhat snide and sarcastic in nature so she got the point of just how ridiculous her request was. But that's just me. Jesus could not grant her request nor would He because He cannot and will not play favorites. He told all those around Him at the time that the one who makes himself first will be last and the one who makes himself last will be first. The one who wants to be seen as the best should be a servant to others. Actually, as impossible as it is for our feeble little minds to comprehend, we are all his favorites. I can't play both guitars at once. I have to chose. I can play the favorite sometimes and the other one at other times but not at the same time. I am glad that God loves us all equally. No matter what we look like. No matter what we have done. No matter how beat up and scarred we may seem to be to others. We are all His favorite. So as I ponder these things, I'm gonna go play my favorite guitar. You'll have to guess which one that is.