I am going to be out of town the rest of the week because my mom is having surgery. I am takig this opportunity to take my computer to Geek Rescue to fix what I have done to my machine. I will be back Monday. I would appreciate your prayers for my mom. Thank you and may God send you great blessings.
Read 1 Chron. 4
Still in the begets... did you catch vs. 9 & 10? It's the famous prayer of Jabez. I wonder if he knew that in the 20th century a man would write a whole book about him and it would become a best seller. These 2 verses look like someone just stuck them in the middle of the geneologies to spice them up. Jabez is not recorded in the geneology so there is no reason for him to be mentioned except "he was an honorable man...more honorable than his brethren." Apparently there was nothing noteworthy about the rest of these people but there was something so outstanding about Jabez that he got his name and an excert of his life in the listing.
The name Jabez means "to grieve; sorrowful" because his mother was grieved when she had him. Why was she grieving and sorrowful? Had her husband just died or left her? It doesn't tell us but Jabez does pray that he would not be grieved with sin. So, I'm thinking that his mother must have lived through some really evil thing that caused her to grieve and that Jabez didn't want to have that happen to him. Let's look at the beginning of his prayer:
"'Oh that thou wouldest bless me indeed" means "to kneel and bless God as an act of adoration". He is really blessing God and worshipping God. It is a very humble request.
"and enlarge my coast" means "to increase in abundance my boundary." That is something I pray for the Body of Christ - that me would stretch beyond our comfort zone and dare to go places we would never go in the natural and in the spirit. I also pray that God would put abundance of money, talent, gifts into people's hands to be used for the Kingdom of God here on earth.
He then asks God to keep him from bad, evil, adversity, affliction, calamity, etc. Not a bad prayer. I pray that for all of us.
1 comment:
When the book came out a few years back, I was intrigued with the concept of asking for blessing. Really struggling with if it was appropriate or not. However, I continue to ask for blessings; maybe I need to change how I ask. Thanks for this today; it was truly needed. I have been seeking God's provision and blessings in some major things lately; I will persevere.
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