The Prayer of Jabez – A Prayer of Blessing, Opportunity, Strength, & Protection

A few months ago, I read The Prayer of Jabez by Bruce Wilkinson. It’s a short, easy read (quite unlike the title of this post), and I definitely recommend it! I’ve summarized the gist of it below, and then after that I’ll get into how it’s been impacting my life the last several months.

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Alright, here goes. In 1 Chronicles 4:9-10, a lengthy genealogy is suddenly interrupted by a two-verse narrative:

Now Jabez was more honorable than his brothers, and his mother called his name Jabez, saying, ‘Because I bore him in pain.’ 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!’ And God granted him what he requested.

In his book, Wilkinson walks readers through the four components of this prayer, outlining what made it so impactful. In addition to God granting Jabez what he requested, this short prayer was immortalized in Scripture, so clearly there’s something about it that holds value for our prayer lives today.

Oh, that You would bless me indeed…

At first glance, this may seem like a selfish prayer. In this moment, Jabez isn’t praying for those in need around him. He’s asking to be blessed himself.

But in actuality, this is a pretty selfless prayer.

How often do we find ourselves asking God for the things we want? We ask Him to help us get a good test score or land our dream job. We don’t know for sure if any of these things are actually part of His plan for us, yet we dare to ask for them anyway.

To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with bringing our specific concerns and desires to God. But there’s also nothing wrong with simply asking God to bless us, as Jabez did.

Instead of asking for what he wanted in that particular moment, Jabez just asked God to bless him as He saw fit. He surrendered his desires to God’s will for his life.

We know that God loves us and is concerned for our welfare; we also know that He knows what’s truly best for us. Thus, the safest prayer we can pray is that God would bless us according to His will and not our own often misguided desires.

This prayer models for us the attitude that we must have towards God. We must surrender our will to Him, asking Him to bless our lives according to His plans. He has so much good in store for us, and the last thing we want to do is miss out on His will simply because we were too afraid to ask!

…and enlarge my territory…

Next, Jabez asks God to enlarge his territory. In other words, to increase his areas of opportunity, his mobility, his influence. Once he’s been blessed by God, he needs to make the most of those blessings. So, he asks God to give him the ability to do so by enlarging his territory.

Honestly, this is kind of a scary prayer. If we ask God to widen our reach and sphere of influence for Him, we have to be ready for Him to answer us! God’s not going to turn us down if our hearts are willing to serve Him. And this feels intimidating – who am I to do great things for God? Yet the third piece of this prayer reminds us exactly why and how we can.

…that Your hand would be with me…

All throughout the Bible, God enlarged the territories of those who served Him. Often the underdogs, they accomplished impossible tasks at His command. Because these were victories they could never have achieved on their own, they had to rely on God to do it, which means that He alone received the glory. All that was required of them was a willingness to obey.  

And this should be our prayer as well – that we would never act in our own strength, but that God would move through us in everything we do.

...and that You would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain!

Finally, Jabez prays that God would protect him from evil, sin, and pain. After being blessed and given opportunities to serve God, and after asking God to equip the work he does, he needs protection from anything that might disrupt God’s will for his life

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A few weeks ago, I was discussing this passage with my coworkers. As I was walking through the components of the prayer, I realized that I could recognize each element of it at work in the last several months of my life.

When I first started praying this prayer, my focus was mainly on Jabez’s first request, that You would bless me indeed, and on what that could look like in my life. I wrote before that I felt like I was in a season of preparation. In that season I was blessed so well, as God taught me more about who He is and what He wants for me.

And I knew that if God was preparing me for something, it followed that He would then supply the opportunities to move forward in my faith. So, I started praying that God would provide for and equip me in whatever He had planned for me.

And I now feel that I’ve begun to enter this new part of life. In many ways God has enlarged my territory, and I’m excited to see how He moves in this next season. But, as I’ve written before, it’s so easy for me to try to work in my own strength and to place a huge amount of pressure on myself to make things happen.

So this is where I have to rely on the third piece of Jabez’ prayer, that Your hand would be with me. I have to consistently humble myself and remember who it is that supplies my work.

Which brings me to the final portion of the prayer, that You would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain. Another translation reads that You would keep me from harm, that it may not pain me. Either way, this is a prayer of protection and security.

Honestly, I’ve never really felt like I’d experienced any kind of spiritual attack, until pretty recently. Right in the middle of my excitement at the future and my enthusiasm for what God has in store, I was hit with anxiety, doubts about making the right choices, and a crippling sense of shame. And none of this made sense – there was no real trigger for these feelings, but they were suddenly there, draining me of my joy.

After wrestling with this for a bit, I started to wonder about the source of my doubts.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the exact moment things become so promising is the exact moment that Satan wants to attack us and hold us back from God’s plans. If he can’t keep us from Jesus’ work of salvation in our lives, then his next best tactic is to keep us from living in the freedom and joy that this salvation brings.

And that’s exactly where I found myself – stripped of my security in Christ and back in a state of fear and shame.

I think Jabez knew about this when he prayed – he knew that if he was going to ask God for blessings, opportunities, and strength, that he would soon face attacks from those who oppose God’s plans. And that’s why he asked for protection.

Once I came to that realization, the truth became so much clearer. This sense of anxiety and discouragement was not from God, but was an obstacle designed to keep me from seeing what was from God. Instead of resting in God’s love for me and willingness to equip me, I was only seeing my own unworthiness and inadequacy. I’d fallen into the enemy’s trap.

Ephesians 6:12 tells us that “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but…against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places” and that in response we need to “take up the full armor of God, so that [we] will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm”.

So, that’s what I’m going to do – I’m going to hand my struggles and doubts to the Lord, who is my strength and my protection. And by His power, I’m going to stand firm.

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I’m looking forward to this next stage in my life. And the reason I can look forward to it is because I can look backward and see that God’s hand has been with me all this time.

He’s been guiding me even when I don’t know what next step to take. He’s had patience with me when I’ve turned from Him. And He’s made His presence known to me in my hardest moments. So, I am assured that He will be with me in the future.

When Jabez prayed his prayer in sincerity to God, God granted him what he requested. And this knowledge leads me to confidently pray,

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!

Related Scripture

1 Chronicles 4:9-10 (NKJV)

“Now Jabez was more honorable than his brothers, and his mother called his name Jabez, saying, ‘Because I bore him in pain.’ 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!’ And God granted him what he requested.”

Ephesians 6:12-13 (NASB)

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.”