BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU PRAY FOR

Yesterday someone mentioned to me that little book that was out a few years ago entitled The Prayer of Jabez, and I was reminded of what happened to me after I had read that little gem of a book.

The title is taken from an obscure verse hidden in one of those lists of names of begats found throughout the Old Testament. If I remember correctly it referred to a man named Jabez, which in Hebrew means “pain”. His mother had named him that because of the pain she had suffered in labor. The writer points out that Jabez prayed for God to “increase his territory” and not be “pain” to anyone anymore. And the Lord answered his prayer.

The author expanded the ideas behind this one verse into a book in which he came up with the “prayer of Jabez” and related all kinds of interesting experiences about people who prayed this prayer. So I decided to try it. I dutifully typed up the prayer in large print and taped it to my bathroom mirror and prayed it everyday for a while.

Meanwhile, I had also decided that because most of my eighth grade students had no clue what the Bible was all about, I decided to spend a few minutes sharing some verses daily with them at the beginning of each of my classes; after all, I did teach literature and this was a book about which they seemed to know little. We gradually worked through the lives of some of the OT heroes; or another time we studied a theme, such as looking at the full armor of God piece by piece as mentioned in Ephesians. All four of my classes had a part in this and many times we had lively discussions concerning the reading for that day.

At this time, I was department head of English and literature for 5-8 grades and cheerleading sponsor, so I had my hands very full. A couple of weeks into the year we had some sort of a crisis in scheduling (I forget now what the problem was) but the administration called me in and asked me if I would be willing to add two more classes to my already very full day. Of course, they offered me more money. Immediately, I was reminded by that little voice inside me that the chance to “increase my territory” had arrived and I would be remiss to turn down this opportunity to have additional students listening to and discussing the Bible everyday. So I agreed.

Tomorrow I will continue this little tale.