Genesis 48:19

Second Fiddle

He also shall be great: howbeit his younger brother shall be greater than he. Genesis 48:19.

There is a beautiful story near the end of Genesis which tells how Jacob blessed Joseph's two boys Manasseh and Ephraim.

Jacob was old and frail, and he knew that his end could not be far off. Word came to Joseph that his father was ill and he took Manasseh and Ephraim with him to say “Good-bye” to their grandfather and to receive his blessing.

Jacob was delighted to have his favorite son with him, and he told Joseph that Ephraim and Manasseh were to count as his own sons they were to take their place with Reuben and Judah and the rest. Any other boys that Joseph might have he could keep, but these two were to be Jacob's own.

Then Joseph brought the boys to Jacob to receive his blessing. He took one in either hand and he placed Manasseh, the elder, in the place of honor at Jacob's right hand, and Ephraim, the younger, at his left hand. But Jacob crossed his hands, and he laid his right on Ephraim and his left on Manasseh.

Now Joseph knew that his fathers eyes were dim with age, and he thought he had made a mistake. So he lifted Jacob's right hand off Ephraim's head and tried to lay it on Manasseh's; and he told his father that Manasseh was the elder. But the old man refused to alter. “I know it,” he said, “I know it: he also shall be great: howbeit his younger brother shall be greater than he.”

And so it came to pass. Ephraim became the strongest among the tribes and the foremost in leadership, and in later days “Ephraim” was practically another name for Israel.

Now I wonder if any of you know what it is to be beaten by a younger brother or sister, I wonder if you know what it is to be beaten by any of your brothers or sisters. If you do, you will be able to sympathize with Manasseh. It is a hard experience. It is difficult to bear it and at the same time keep sweet and generous and free from jealousy. You plod along and wrestle with your difficulties, and then your brilliant brother comes along and in a very few minutes accomplishes what you have been struggling for hours to do.

And if you haven't any specially clever brothers and sisters, at least most of you know about being outperformed at school. You learn your lessons faithfully, but somehow you are always just about the middle of the class. Some brilliant boy at the top goes off with all the prizes.

Now if that is your experience, you have a big temptation to face. And the temptation is to give up trying altogether. You never do much good, you say, so what's the use of striving when somebody else can do the thing so much better without trying at all. It's no fun playing second fiddle.

Now I want to tell you a story. It isn't about a fiddle, but it is about a piccolo, which is a small wind instrument something like a flute.

The great musician, Sir Michael Costa, was one day conducting an orchestra of several hundred performers. Suddenly he missed something, and he called out “Where is the piccolo?” The piccolo-player had thought that in that great volume of sound his silence would never be noticed, and he had stopped playing for one moment. But the trained ear of the master musician missed his music at once.

And God will miss your music too, if you refuse to play. God needs His “second fiddles.” He has a place for them and a great work for them to do. The world is largely made up of “second fiddles,” and we couldn't get on without them. We need our geniuses, but we need our plodders too.

If you lay down your fiddle and refuse to play because you are only playing second, then you are selfish and a coward. But if you go on bravely playing second, because God has need of you and it is the work He asks you to do, then some day you may get a surprise and awake to find yourself a hero.