By RTF Assistant Editor Halee Matthews

Let’s pretend you’re barely past your teens, dedicated to your family, and a hard-worker. You’ve been working on your father’s farm since childhood. You have one younger brother who can be a pain, but, well, he’s your brother.

One day, that brother decides he’s had enough of hard work. He hits your dad up for money and takes off. So you step up. You do extra chores and work harder to make up for your brother’s absence. It’s tough but you’re dedicated to making sure the farm runs well.

After a hard day of work in the field, you return to the house to find a party. You find out that your brother has returned so your dad decided to celebrate.

The news throws you for a loop. A party… for what? For running away and leaving you with extra work? For wasting his money and coming home only because he was starving?

The whole thing makes you mad, so you refuse to go in to such a party, but your father comes out and pleads with you.

“No way,” you say. “I’ve been the good one. I stayed here and slaved out in the fields for you and this farm. I’ve been responsible every single day and what do I get for it? Nothing! Now my brother comes back from wasting money on who knows what and you throw him a party?!”

It looks like the younger brother is favored while you’re taken for granted. Completely unfair, right?

But your father has something else to say to you: “My son, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.” (Luke 15:31-32, NIV.)

That’s right. We just lived the story of the prodigal son, but from a different perspective than what we normally hear or read.

It’s so easy to get jealous when someone receives special treatment. We want life to be fair, and we want a reward for our good behavior. But what the older brother failed to realize was that what little bro came back and groveled for was everything that big bro had the whole time: food, shelter, and family.

Little bro had to suffer through famine and poverty before he realized what was important in life. So really, you could say that big bro was actually jealous that little bro was a bit dense. Seems funny when you think about it that way.

Instead of being overcome with jealousy and bitterness when other people are given special treatment, let’s celebrate with them. Let’s throw a party any time someone realizes that what they really want is what we’ve had all along. And instead of stewing outside, get inside, join the party, and know this- the party’s for you, too.