Enlarge My Territory!

Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain. And God granted his request.

1 Chronicles 4:10

As we read his prayer, it seems rather selfish at first; it's all centered on him. Oh that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain. There's a great deal of me in there. But if we look closer at this, especially in light of his painful background, I think we can see that this is not a self-centered prayer; it's an agonizing plea for help because of the deep consciousness of his own inadequacy. I need help, he's saying. He's saying, Oh God, amid all this sorry tale of shame and sin and Godlessness that is my background, Lord, do something for me. Take me out of this, remove me from this situation, help me in it, deliver me.

It's obvious that as Jabez prays, there's an awareness of his need for provision. Here is a young man who has grasped the fact that prosperity comes only from God; that things in themselves are of no value unless God gives them to us; that if we attempt to get them apart from Him, they become a curse to us. And he prays, Lord, in everything in my life, enter into it and bless it, and make it not a curse but a blessing to me, and enlarge me and be with me, for thou are the key to life.

There's also an awareness of his need for protection. He says, Keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain. He is referring back to that blight on the family character, some hereditary weakness perhaps, that plagued him and threatened him as it threatens his brothers. He says, Lord, I recognize my fear in the face of this thing. How can I escape this debilitating power in my life that threatens to degenerate and disintegrate my personality as it did in my father and in my brothers?

He's praying for protection against this thing, and I don't think there could be a greater lesson learned than the fact that the world in which we live is so silken in its subtlety, that we all are exposed in the weakness of our heredity to these disintegrating forces which will certainly seize upon us, unless we rest in the protecting grace of God. Here is a young man who discovered that.

God heard Jabez and answered his prayer. Here is a lad who began on the wrong side of the tracks, but he found his answer in God. Life is utterly meaningless if we do not discover that God is the secret to its meaningfulness; that your life may be suddenly altered in its course, its direction suddenly changed. You are now committed to following God wherever He leads. That is the secret to the fulfillment and the enrichment of life, and that is the lesson that Jabez has here for us.

Lord, I pray that I would depend on you for provision and protection, and trust you to open the doors and lead the way to a life of fulfillment.