A Prayer For God’s Will

I’ve entitled our message this morning “A Prayer for God’s Will.” When we think of God’s will we often have in mind how the Lord wants to use us for His glory; how God wants to include us in His plans and work through us to make an impact for the kingdom. But when it comes to praying for God’s will, we often find ourselves at a loss for words. Sometimes all we can muster up is, “God, please use me!” Some of us, in going a little deeper, might pray for the salvation of others, and ask God to lead us to someone with whom we can share our faith? But how many of us have considered that, perhaps, the way to make the greatest impact is to pray for ourselves; for the spiritual and material resources we need to enlarge the kingdom? Well, this is what we’re going to discover as we look at 1 Chronicles 4:9-10.

The Prayer of Jabez (vv. 9-10)

9 Now Jabez was more honorable than his brothers, and his mother called his name Jabez, saying, “Because I bore him in pain.” 10 And Jabez called on the God of Israel saying, “Oh, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that Your hand would be with me, and that You would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain!” So God granted him what he requested.

Here, we encounter what’s called “The Prayer of Jabez,” which was highlighted a few decades ago by an author named Bruce Wilkinson. This prayer is quite interesting, for it’s nestled in the middle of a very long genealogy. The first nine chapters of 1 Chronicles are taken up with the official family tree of the Hebrew tribes, beginning with Adam and proceeding through many hundreds of years. After forty-four names into the genealogy the short account of Jabez appears; and as soon as the two verses about Jabez are completed, the genealogy resumes in listing names. “Something about this man Jabez had caused the historian to pause . . . clear his throat and switch tactics. ‘Ah, wait a minute,’ he seems to interject. ‘You’ve just gotta know something about this man named Jabez’.”(1)

Apparently Jabez was important, but strangely he is not mentioned anywhere else in the Bible. “All we know is that things started badly for a person no one had ever heard of. He prayed an unusual, one-sentence prayer. And, things ended extraordinarily well. Clearly, the outcome can be traced to his prayer. Something about Jabez’s simple, direct request to God changed his life and left a permanent mark on the history books of Israel.”(2) This morning, we are going to learn about four things for which we should be praying – or four prayer keys – if we desire God’s will and want more of His power in our life.

Key # 1: Asking for a Blessing

The first key that we are going to look at in the Prayer of Jabez is “asking for a blessing.” In verse 10, we read, “Oh, that You would bless me indeed.” Is it selfish to ask for a blessing? Well, to answer this question, we need to understand the biblical meaning of the term “blessing.” “To bless in the biblical sense means to ask for, or to impart, supernatural favor. When we ask God for God’s blessings we’re not asking for more of what we could get for ourselves. We’re crying out for the wonderful, unlimited goodness that only God has the power to know about or give to us.”(3)

Something unusual we notice about Jabez’s request for a blessing is that he didn’t ask for anything specific or selfish. “He left it entirely up to God to decide what the blessing would be, and where, when, and how Jabez would receive it. This kind of radical trust in God’s good intentions toward us has nothing in common with the popular gospel that you should ask God for a Cadillac, a six-figure income, or some other material sign that you have found a way to cash in on your connection with Him. Instead, the Jabez blessing focuses . . . on our wanting for ourselves nothing more and nothing less than what God wants for us.”(4)

“When we seek God’s blessing . . . we are throwing ourselves entirely into the river of His will, and [His] power, and [His] purposes for us. All our other needs become secondary to what we really want – which is to become wholly immersed in what God is trying to do in us, through us, and around us for His glory.”(5)

Let me ask you, “Do you ever feel as though you are not worthy of the Lord’s blessings?” Maybe you’ve undergone some difficulties where life has dealt you a bad hand, so to speak. Perhaps, trials have led you to believe that God doesn’t work on an individual level to protect us, let alone care enough to bring good things, or “blessings,” to our life. Jabez certainly could have felt that he got the short end of the stick.