The VERY last of my paternal great aunts died last night.  She was the last vestige of my grandfather’s “extended family.”  All his brothers, sisters, and all of their spouses have now passed away.  I never referred to my Aunt Ethel as my great aunt, thought she was GREAT.  She felt as much like an aunt as anyone ever has to me.  
 
She had the most infectious laugh you can imagine.  If you spent much time around her, you would end up laughing.  It was like shaking hands with a snotty preschooler, do it and you are going to catch cold.  Well hang out with Aunt Ethel and you were going to laugh.
 
The “effect” of Ethel was more than just comedic though.  She made you feel like you were the most important person to her every time you visited.  She thought nothing of stopping EVERYTHING she was doing to sit with you, laugh and talk.  Different people in my family have told me on different occasions that they were absolutely sure they were her favorite grandchild/son/nephew/niece because she treated them so special.  Each would fill in the blank after “I was her favorite” with their relation to her, and each said it with conviction.  Aunt Ethel had a way of letting the world melt away, blocking out all the issues and problems of the moment, and giving you her undivided attention.  She made you feel like you were her favorite.
 
None of us is God’s favorite, and yet we are all His favorite.  Our finite minds have trouble with this, but it is no less true.  Even when two of the disciples asked Jesus about “being favorites” His words are not those of chastisement.  In Mark’s account of the request by James and John to sit at the right and left hand of Jesus, our Lord never makes them feel as if they were anything BUT His favorite.  So much so in fact, Mark records in verse 41 of Chapter 10 that
 
And when the ten heard it, they began to be greatly displeased with James and John.
 
Jesus responds by making them all feel the same way, like they were His favorite.  The Bible says at that point that Jesus “called them to Himself . . .”
 
By any single person’s definition, the most holy and the most vile are BOTH His favorite.  And He makes us feel that way all the time.  He died for all and for each.  I don’t understand it, anymore than I understand how it was that Aunt Ethel made me, and my brother, and all my cousins, and . . . well, each of us feel like we were her favorite.  
But she did.  And He does.