Once there were two young brothers, with one of them three years younger than the other. He was not only younger, but he was also slighter in build, and, though he was intelligent, he was not quite as sharp as his brother. They played a lot together, but in everything they did, the older brother always had a step or two on him, and any competition was almost always lopsided.
Over time, the frustration over this started to build, and one evening the younger brother burst into complaining to his mother about it. “It is just not fair,” he said.
His mother looked puzzled. “Why should it be fair?” she asked.
It was her son’s turn to be puzzled. “What do you mean? Shouldn’t everything be fair?”
“No,” she said. “That would be awful.”
“I don’t get it,” he said. “What am I supposed to do? Just give up?”
“No,” she said. “Say you are running footraces like I saw out the window this afternoon. You should try to beat your brother with all your might. And if he beats you, you should laugh and rejoice for him. He is your brother.”
“But in the Bible, sometimes the younger brother wins. Like Jacob. I noticed that particularly.”
“Yes, in order to display His sovereignty, God has often made the second born the first born. But He also made Jesus, His first born, His first born.”
“You’re confusing me,” her son said.
“Second sons who rejoice in what God has given their brother are blessed second sons. Second sons who chafe under this arrangement are often cast away as sons altogether. First born sons who act like resentful second sons are set aside also. The key thing is to rejoice in what God has done.”
“You mean that I have to like losing?”
“Yes, if it is a certain kind of losing,” she answered. “But if it is the losing of resentment, you have to hate it. You should never agree to lose in that way. Because I can promise you that that is the kind of losing that never goes away. You know that your father is the oldest of four boys. And you know how your Uncle Peter won’t come to any family events? That all started in the back yard, with footraces just like yours today. Losing one way is blessed by God. But losing another way never stops losing.”