1 Chronicles 4:9-10 (ESV)
Jabez was more honorable than his brothers; and his mother called his name Jabez, saying, “Because I bore him in pain.” Jabez called upon the God of Israel saying, “Oh that you would bless me and enlarge my border, and that your hand might be with me, and that you would keep me from harm so that it might not bring me pain!” And God granted what he asked.
Jabez is one of the lesser-known characters in the Bible. Unlike some of his Old Testament peers such as David, Solomon, Joshua and others, we don’t get a lot of information about Jabez. There isn’t a book dedicated to his conquests, a list of battles that he won or even a lot of examples of God performing miracles in his life. Instead, virtually everything we know about Jabez is contained in these two verses, tucked away in the book of 1 Chronicles. Most of what we know about Jabez is found in his prayer.
It’s important to understand the importance of names in Old Testament culture. The name that a baby received was often indicative of what their family believed they would become when they grew up. Jabez’s name meant “pain and sorrow.” According to his mother, she gave him that name because his birth brought her so much pain. In ancient times, this meant that Jabez was behind the eight ball from the word “go.” How was he going to conquer that disadvantage? Through a powerful prayer that focused on God’s ability to turn a life of pain into a life of prosperity.
When you take a look at the prayer of Jabez, you learn a lot about his character while also discovering a good template for your own prayer life. Let’s break down Jabez’s prayer and take a look at each part to determine how we can apply it to our own lives.
“Bless Me”
It’s crucial that we understand that asking God for blessings isn’t about being materialistic. It’s unfortunate that so many people have taken the Word of God and twisted it into something that it isn’t in the name of financial prosperity, but that’s the sad reality of dishonest false prophets that Jesus promised us would come (Matthew 7:15).
God promises provision but He never promises prosperity. That doesn’t mean that God won’t bless you with abundance in your finances, but there is no “get rich quick” scheme anywhere in the Word of God. When Jabez asked God to bless him, he wasn’t asking for a windfall of cash to hit his bank account. Instead, Jabez was asking God to give him whatever God had for him.
It’s crucial that we understand that God wants to bless us. In Deuteronomy 28:8 (ESV), Moses wrote that “The Lord will command the blessing on you in your barns and all that you undertake. And He will bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.” God’s plan for you is blessing. That may not mean that a million dollars magically hits your bank account tomorrow morning, but instead, it means that God will continually meet all of your needs, and generally leave you with more than you need to get by.
“Enlarge My Border”
Again, if we take this part of Jabez’s prayer out of context, it can seem selfish. “Give me more land!” Again, when we read these verses in the Old Testament, it’s important that we read them in context. A person’s wealth wasn’t counted in dollars and cents during these days. Instead, the amount of land that you owned and the number of animals that made up your herd were the indicators of your net worth. With that in mind, it’s easy to look at Jabez’s prayer and think that he was just asking God for more wealth.
However, that’s a skewed view of what Jabez was addressing. Instead, Jabez asked God to remove the limitations that his mother had put on him. Remember, when he was born, Jabez’s mother prophetically attached a life of pain and anguish onto him. With that name, he carried around the limits that his mother had put on him at the moment he was born. A prayer to “enlarge his borders” was actually a prayer to lift the limits that his family had put on him and that he had put on himself.
Jabez’s prayer was that God would give him more influence. Instead of living within the limits of his own history, Jabez wanted to further his influence so he could further the Kingdom of God. That should be our prayer as well. No matter how our life has worked out, we’ve all got baggage. The only thing that varies from person to person is how much baggage you’ve got and how heavy it is.
We should ask God to enlarge our territory, not so we can have more but so we can do more. With more influence, we can point more people to the Gospel of Christ and His plan of salvation for each and every person.
“Let Your Hand be With Me”
In the Bible, God’s hand is symbolic for God’s power and God’s presence. There are several examples throughout Scripture of God’s hand empowering and encouraging His people (Numbers 11:23, Joshua 4:23-24, Acts 11:20-21). When the hand of God comes into a situation anywhere in Scripture, things change instantly. That’s why the third part of Jabez’s prayer included asking for the hand of God to be at work in His life. Jabez asked for the same hand that threw the stars in the sky and made them stick there would be with him wherever he went. He wanted the same hand who made Adam out of the dust of the earth to make something beautiful out of his life.
Jabez knew that when he received more blessing and a larger territory, he would need more of God’s power to be able to manage it all. The same could be said for us. When we want God to give us more responsibility, we will need more of His presence and power to be able to properly manage it all.
When we ask for God’s hand to be on our lives, we’re completely surrendering our own abilities to Him. God’s hand takes away the need for our own self-sufficiency. That’s what Jabez was doing here. He hadn’t hesitated to ask God for more. He wanted more blessing and more influence. However, he knew that doing so would increase his need for more of God’s power.
“Keep Me from Harm so it Will Not Bring Me Pain”
Jabez was labeled as a man of pain and sorrow the minute he took his first breath outside of his mother’s womb. With that in mind, the closing of his prayer was that God would protect him from what everyone else had labeled him, even what he had labeled himself as. There is nothing wrong with asking God to save us from our own preconceived destinies. God’s plan for us far outweighs our own plans. Jabez asked God to protect him from himself so he wouldn’t suffer the pain that he believed his life was destined to be.
Jabez was also aware that when God provided him more blessing and more territory that there would be more detractors. There would be more people who were trying to bring him down, but he knew that God could keep them from harming him.
When you turn your life over to God in full and allow Him to bless you and enlarge your borders, there will be people who try to tear you down. It’s tragic, but some of the people who try to destroy you may be the very people who you thought had your back. However, God can protect you from experiencing that pain.
A Closing Prayer:
God, quite simply, I want the same thing that Jabez asked for. Bless me and enlarge my territory. Not so I can have more but so I can do more for Your kingdom. Let Your hand be with me everywhere I go and in everything I do so I can walk in Your power and presence. Finally, keep me from harm so it will not bring me pain. In Christ’s name, Amen.