The Prayer of Jabez… “Keep me from pain”. Jabez means “born with pain”. His own mother named him Jabez because of the pains she endured in labor! When Jabez prayed, he spoke against the testimony of his name and let go of the pains that had covered him in. Jabez reached out to God not only with a loving and trusting knowledge of God, but also with his bold requests.
Perhaps, we don’t carry the name “pain” like Jabez, but we all have physical and emotional pains. Life is not easy. There are hard times and pains. Based on Jabez’ experience, we ought to come to God (because God wants to us to become ONE with Him) and talk to God boldly, requesting God to replace pains with blessings. God fully understand us and want to give us good things.
When we pray, God will receive us in our true self, humble, vulnerable and ready for Him to take our pains away and to turn our weakness into His glory. Paul wrote about his weakness – a thorn in his flesh – in 2 Cor 12:8-9 – “Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness””.
Life is full of pains, physical, mental and emotional. Pains have a way to clip the wings of a bird and cause it to forget that it was created to fly. God meant for our spirits to fly like eagles (Isaiah 40:31). But, we can’t trust God if we don’t believe that He is good and is all-knowing. We can’t believe God’s plan is good for us and we don’t believe that He is in control of all things because bad things happen.
The best thing we could do with pains is let them go. Let God take them one by one away from our life. Let God wipe your tears. The longer we hold on to our pains, the heavier they feel.
In a few weeks, we will be looking into the One-ness (or Unity) with God. Please prayerfully ask the Holy Spirit to reveal this wonderful truth and mystery to us.
“Dear God, I am really excited and looking forward to going deep in the One-ness with you, the Trinity of God. The Holy Spirit, I am longing for your teaching and “your power dwelling in the earthen vessles” to carry out Your will with you. In Jesus’ name. Amen.”