Do Not Let Pain Have the Last Word

Do Not Let Pain Have the Last Word

1 Chronicles 4:10 - "…and that thou wouldest keep me from evil…"

The closing part of Jabez's prayer takes us back towards the place where his story began. His name had been connected with pain, and now, as he prays about his future, he asks God to keep him from evil or harm. English translations handle the final wording somewhat differently because there is some difficulty in the Hebrew, but the themes of harm and pain clearly belong to this short account.

Jabez did not merely ask for a bigger life. He wanted a life kept by God.

That becomes even more significant when we remember that enlargement also brings exposure. The more territory we carry, the more necessary discernment becomes. Not every opportunity is good simply because it is an opportunity. Not every connection should be maintained simply because it appears useful. Not everything that increases us will ultimately improve us.

Jesus taught His disciples to pray, "Deliver us from evil." It is a prayer that acknowledges our limitations. There are dangers we recognise and dangers we do not. There are decisions whose consequences we cannot yet see. There are attractive opportunities that may contain things we are not equipped to discern without God's help.

There is another dimension of this prayer that is worth considering devotionally. We spend a great deal of time asking God to heal the pain other people have caused us, but maturity also requires us to ask whether our unhealed pain is beginning to affect other people.

A person who experienced rejection can become controlling because they are terrified of being abandoned again. Someone who grew up around anger may discover that anger has quietly become their own language. A person who knew poverty can become so consumed with securing a future that the people they love experience emotional absence in the present.

Pain does not have to reproduce itself, but wounds that are never examined can influence the way we live.

There comes a point when the prayer becomes, "Lord, let this stop with me."

Let the destructive communication stop here. Let the bitterness stop here. Let the fear stop here. Let the patterns everybody excuses because "this is how our family has always been" encounter somebody willing to take them seriously before God.

Healing is not only about feeling better. Sometimes healing is an act of stewardship because other people will live downstream from the choices we make today.

Jabez began life carrying a name associated with sorrow, but he did not pray as though sorrow had an unquestionable right to follow him forever. He brought his future before God.

We can do the same.

Prayer

Father, keep me from evil and preserve me from harm. Protect me from dangers I can recognise and those I cannot see. Give me discernment concerning decisions, relationships and opportunities, and do not allow ambition to make me careless. Heal the places in me where old wounds are still influencing present behaviour. I do not want to reproduce what hurt me. Where I learned unhealthy patterns, teach me a better way. Where bitterness remains, uproot it. Where fear controls my reactions, bring healing and truth. Let destructive patterns lose their authority in my life. May those who come after me inherit wisdom where I inherited confusion, peace where I knew conflict and healthy patterns where I had to learn them painfully. In Jesus' name, Amen.