Oh, To Be Chosen!
Opening Prayer
O Father in Heaven, what a privilege to come boldly into Your gracious presence. Help me to hear Your voice and to know Your love.
Read Genesis 37:1–11
For additional translations of the passage, use this link to Bible Gateway.
Jacob lived in the land where his father had stayed, the land of Canaan.
2 This is the account of Jacob’s family line.
Joseph, a young man of seventeen, was tending the flocks with his brothers, the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives, and he brought their father a bad report about them.
3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age; and he made an ornate robe for him. 4 When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him.
5 Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more. 6 He said to them, “Listen to this dream I had: 7 We were binding sheaves of grain out in the field when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it.”
8 His brothers said to him, “Do you intend to reign over us? Will you actually rule us?” And they hated him all the more because of his dream and what he had said.
9 Then he had another dream, and he told it to his brothers. “Listen,” he said, “I had another dream, and this time the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.”
10 When he told his father as well as his brothers, his father rebuked him and said, “What is this dream you had? Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow down to the ground before you?” 11 His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind.
New International Version (NIV)
Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide
Reflect
You are God’s favorite. God loves each one of us wholly and completely in a special and unique way.Favoritism is poisonous—in a family, in a classroom, in a workplace. But we’ve all experienced it, seen it or shown it. It rankles. It’s hardly surprising that Joseph’s brothers resent him: he’s sneaked on them, and he is the favorite son of a father who makes no effort to hide it. Look at that magnificent cloak! Joseph is driving around in a Ferrari; his brothers are on donkeys.
Joseph is often presented as a paragon of virtue, but he doesn’t start out very loving. His treatment of his brothers is insensitive, foolish, even cruel. And his response to the dreams makes it worse, waving an unpalatable future in their faces (7,9).
Tragically, no one turns to God for perspective. But we can, whatever our circumstances or wounds. We are created in his image and were chosen from before the foundation of the earth by a perfectly loving Father. And the gifts that our Father in heaven lovingly gives us or others are intended for all our benefit.
Apply
How do we respond when others are preferred? How do we respond when we are preferred?
Closing prayer
Loving Father, I praise You that each one of us is Your favorite. Help me to rest in Your tender love.
Click here to sign up to receive the EXTRAs via email each quarter.
© 2025 Scripture Union U.S.A. All rights reserved. Reproduction of the whole or any part of the contents without written permission is prohibited.
Discovery is published in the USA under license from Scripture Union England and Wales, Trinity House, Opal Court, Opal Drive, Fox Milne, Milton Keynes, MK15 0DF.