The Prayer of Jabez

When God wants to get your attention in the Bible, He ofttimes repeats Himself in what are called "twinning passages". Either He simply says the same thing again, as He did with the Abrahamic Covenant in Genesis - He must have told the poor man five times what was going to happen after he DIED! - or He has someone quote an OT passage in the NT, often Paul or one of the disciples; sometimes Christ Himself.

There are a few passages that get repeated more often than that - the obvious one is Habakkuk 2:4, "The Righteous shall live by Faith". This is the one that Martin Luther latched onto and started the Reformation with - and HE didn't even read it in Habakkuk! He read Paul's quotation of it in his NT epistles. Thank you, multiple passages!

But sometimes, the Lord sneaks a gem in somewhere that it can slip by unseen. That's hard to do, because the Bible is parsed into such fine portions that theology experts can analyze the Scripture using Zipf's Law if they want. (Zipf's Law is the most amazing thing in the universe. Look it up. It deserves a post of its own, and we don't have room here.)

Hidden within the "begats" of First Chronicles' opening nine chapters - the "flyover states" of the Bible - is a brilliant prayer that I say every day for myself and my children, and it has done nothing but wonders for me over the year or more I've prayed it. This is First Chronicles 4:9-10 ...

9Jabez was more honorable than his brothers; and his mother called his name Jabez, saying, “Because I bore him in pain.”^b 10Jabez 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^cso that it might not bring me pain!” And God granted what he asked. 

There's at least one book written on this prayer - I know, because I bought it, on the recommendation of a woman I don't think very highly of otherwise, to be honest. But this verse spoke to me, and while the book's author works hard to make enough hay out of it to produce an entire bale, there's not much you really need to add: 

• Bless me. How often do we actually ASK God for His blessing?He's itching to provide for you - He tells us this throughout the Scriptures! Ask and ye shall receive! If you're asking in His grace, He says point blank that He will be faithful!
• Enlarge my border. Increase the scope of my influence! Help me glorify Your Name to more and more people every day! That's how this blog got started - that's how the Facebook site started - that's how the connection to the Australian media started. Through this prayer.
• Let Your Hand be upon me. When we're young, we hold our parents' hands all the time. Imagine your first time riding a bicycle - wasn't your dad's hand on you the whole time? That's what our Father In Heaven wants to do for us - hold us in His Hand and guide us as we go through our day.
• Keep me from harm. Keep evil away from me, but more than that, keep my own ineptitude from harming me! If You are guiding me, and keeping me out of harm's way, there is nothing I cannot do!

And that's about all there is to it. "Lord, bless me and my children today, and enlarge my influence so I may glorify Your Name; I pray that Your Hand be upon each of us, and that You would keep us from harm as we go through our day." Simple. And God the Father is faithful to us; "God grants what we ask". 

Notice there's nothing there that smacks of "prosperity gospel", the great American sin, the concept that God is a genie in a bottle who shows up to grant your fondest wish and disappears back into his bottle when you don't need him so you don't have to think about his commands the rest of the time. A greater heresy I cannot conceive of.

No, this is asking God the same thing that we ask in what we foolishly call the "Lord's Prayer" - Give us our daily bread, keep us from trespassing and deliver us from evil. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. What are we saying here? Isn't it the same thing? Give us our daily bread - our blessing - keep us from trespassing - guide us with your Hand - and deliver us from evil - keep me from harm - thy kingdom come, thy will be done - enlarge my border so your kingdom can be glorified!

Put the Prayer of Jabez in your morning routine, and see how it helps your day-to-day life!