Let Us Not Run from Pain

The name “Jabez” constituted a negative prophecy that cast a spiritual energy which, in a sense, condemned Jabez to a life of pain, because that was what it meant: Jabez, pain, and that is how his mother understood it.

In 1 Chronicles 4:10 it tells us that Jabez called upon the God of Israel, saying, “Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory, and that your hand would be with me, and that you would keep me from evil so that it would not harm me.” It says that God granted him what he asked.

This is interesting, too—let me go back a little, because this is key. Verse 9 says that “Jabez was more distinguished than his brothers.” This is what sets Jabez apart.

That word “distinguished,” in saying that Jabez was more distinguished than his brothers, is what makes Scripture point him out as different. Because if you look, Jabez appears in Scripture amid a list of names about which there is no description, one of those endless lists of names we have in the Old Testament. But suddenly it is as though the writer, inspired by the Holy Spirit, pauses over Jabez, focuses on him, and, in a sense, draws him out of anonymity. Jabez is not just another name; suddenly he becomes a three-dimensional figure who merits a closer mention.

The idea that Jabez was more distinguished than his brothers is revealing, because “distinguished” in Hebrew is the word “cabad,” which means “heavy.” The word cabad refers to something that has weight. So what it means is that Jabez, as a person, had weight, had substance; there was something that set Jabez apart. And that quality in his personality was what motivated him to pray, as verse 10 says. It was something exceptional, an energy, a quality of his person that led him to express the prayer he expressed and probably led him to become a man of renown. That is why the writer points him out: this man had attained a level of development in his life as a result of the pain he experienced.

Perhaps Jabez was a lonely child, and perhaps in that loneliness and silence—in feeling set apart, feeling rejected by the other children, living a somewhat somber and sad life apart from the others—that experience was forming substance of character in him, perhaps an inclination toward meditation.

Perhaps it led him to think about spiritual things. Because often what happens when one leads a lonely life is that, instead of playing over there with the other kids and doing superficial things, as children typically do, caught up in physical games and children’s interests, Jabez perhaps spent his time alone in a corner, perhaps meditating or walking through the fields or thinking about God. And perhaps God had mercy on him, and so Jabez developed within himself a more substantial, weightier personality, in the sense that he was a man of substance. He was not wasting his time on the superficial things of youth and childhood.

And perhaps that was what formed in him the character and the disposition to undertake great and exceptional things. Pain can be an ally; it can be one of God’s great fertilizers.

Perhaps Jabez’s very pain and painful childhood as a result of his name were, paradoxically, what prepared him to envision something different for his life, to pray to the Lord with power and authority, to offer that powerful prayer that captivated God’s heart and moved God to grant him everything he asked for.

Those times of trial and suffering in our lives can be times of formation; they can be the crucible that increases our faith and polishes our character.

We know that trials can be our best ally. Often, some of the pains God has allowed in our lives, especially in childhood and youth—those pains during the formative years of our lives—may be a physical limitation, or even the poverty in which we grew up. If we see them in the light of God’s good purpose for our lives, we can use these things as allies in believing God for great things in the future.

Let us not run from pain. Pain is one of the wonderful ways God often uses to do the things he wants to do in our lives, to prepare us for the great things he wants to do in our lives.

I believe that the pain in Jabez’s childhood, which paradoxically came as a result of the sad name his mother gave him, was the fertilizer God used to prepare Jabez for a specific moment in his life, when Jabez launches this powerful prayer that changes his destiny and makes him a prosperous man, a man greatly blessed by God.

I believe the summary of my meditation at this moment is this: do not run from pain; do not curse pain when it comes into your life. Use it as an ally, as a springboard toward greatness, because pain, as the great writer Ceis Louis said, is God’s microphone, which prepares us for great things God wants to do in our lives. God bless you, and we will continue with this fascinating character in our next message.