Do You Pray for Extra Blessings?

by Lillian Humphries

Taken from the book: The Prayer of Jabez by Bruce Wilkinson 

http://amzn.to/1Geo8o3

1 Chronicles 4:9-10
9 And Jabez was more honourable than his brethren: and his mother called his name Jabez, saying, Because I bare him with sorrow. 10 And Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, Oh that thou wouldest bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that thine hand might be with me, and that thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me! And God granted him that which he requested.
Jabez was never found mentioned again in the Bible, but this small one verse prayer is so powerful. 


Oh that thou wouldest bless me indeed
For Jabez to add the word indeed to the end of his request for blessings in like putting five exclamation points at the end of a sentence, or writing it in capital letters and underlining it.

When we pray for blessings and ask for more we are crying out the wonderful unlimited goodness that only God can provide.

“Ask”, promised Jesus, “and it will be given to you”. (Matthew 7:7) “you do not have because you do not ask,” said James (James 4:2).

enlarge my coast or territory
It is not wrong to ask God for more as long as we are using it for His will.
For some of us our math equation would be similar to this

My abilities
+ experience
+ training
+ my personality and appearance
+ my past
+ the expectations of others
= my assigned territory (or my success)

Maybe it should be:

+My willingness and weakness
+ God’s will and power
= My assigned territory (or my success)

Remember – we will always feel fear and anticipation when we begin to take on new projects for God, but we will also have the thrill of God carrying us as we are doing it.

that thine hand might be with me
So now God has enlarged our territory or family audience, etc.
Now we go into panic mode.
Guess what – we are supposed to feel like that. If we don’t than we won’t be dependent on God. We might stop occasionally to say thanks and give Him praise, but we get away from the dependence on God that we need to make it through. 

and that thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me!
Those words “keep me from evil” does not say keep temptation from me because Jabez knew temptation would be there. The more we do God’s work the more Satan is coming after us.

God is our only answer.