God’s Favourite

Does God have favorites? 

Nephi believes he was “highly favored of the Lord.”  

The Angel Gabriel says a similar phrase to Mary when announcing the birth of her child. 

In other instances Jesus declares some will be on his right and some on his left and He calls His disciple John, “my beloved.” 

And then there is the truth that God is no respecter of persons.  

There is a paradox here, then, to work out it seems. 

Can we all be God’s Favorite? 

I love how Elder Karl D. Hirst talks about God’s love in the context of “divine economy.” He explains that “Our Saviour’s love is the ‘highest, noblest, strongest kind of love,’ and He provides unit low e are ‘filled.’”  There is no scarcity of love from God which means we can all claim to be His favorite! 

Oftentimes (and even in this particular talk) we compare God’s love to our own parental love.  Maybe I’m the only one, but that’s a hard one for me to relate with because yes, I do love all of my children; but if I’m honest sometimes I have a favorite.  That favorite might change from time to time, but in any earthly relationship, there will be stronger connections to some of our children than others. 

I like to think of God’s love instead by asking the question: How does it feel when someone likes you? When you know they genuinely want to be your friend, to be around you and to take care of you?  How does that feel?  That’s a glimpse of God’s love for me. And the beautiful thing about God is, even when we don’t feel lovable, He’s showering us with that same beautiful warmth, kindness and longing to be with us! 

“…perhaps you feel a long way from the love of God (Hirst).” 

What keeps us from feeling the love of God? 

Maybe we think that if God loves everyone how could he love us? 

We also have many voices competing for our attention.  Words that tell us we are too flawed, too weak, overlooked, too different, etc.  Elder Hirst declares “those voices are just wrong!” 

Some of us might not let ourselves feel God’s love or believe that we’re His favorite because thenw e might become prideful. It’s good to keep ourselves humble, ish’t it? 

But what about this thought… 

If it’s neither true that we are less than worthy of His love or that we will become prideful if we believe we’re His favorite because— why not choose the more positive viewpoint? 

My dad passed away over four years ago.  It was interested to hear others talk about him after his passing.  Many, many people truly believed they were his favorite person!  When we believe we’re someone’s favorite, we rise to the expectation. Like John, the Beloved, if we are called the beloved we just might act like a beloved disciple of Jesus Christ. So, why not believe the positive instead of the negative of this coin? 

Elder Hirst continues, “can you take a step back from whatever is in front of you and maybe another step and another, until you see a wider landscape, wider and wider still if necessary, until you are literally thinking celestial because you are looking at the stars and remembering worlds without number and through them their Creator?” 

In her book, Made for More, Hannah Anderson similarly says, “We need to recover a vision for hte big picture.  We need to be able to see the things that are at a distance. To understand that we are defined, no by our categories, but by being made in the image of God and that our ultimate identity is to reflect and represent Him on this earth.” 

When we can literally take a step back and remember in whose image we are made, we can allow His love to fill our hearts.  There is no place for self-loathing when we enter in the divine economy of God’s love. When we do so, we can truly call ourselves God’s favorite! 

* * * * * *