And God Granted His Request

And God Granted His Request

1 Chronicles 4:10 - "…And God granted him that which he requested."

After everything Jabez prayed, Scripture closes his story with one quiet sentence: "And God granted him that which he requested."

There is no long explanation of how it happened. We are not told how much larger his territory became or how long he waited for the answer. There is no description of the day he realised things had changed. The writer simply tells us that Jabez prayed and God answered him.

The restraint is beautiful because it leaves our attention where it belongs. We can become so fascinated with the territory that we overlook the God who gave it.

At the same time, we should be careful not to turn these two verses into a formula. The Bible does not teach that repeating Jabez's words guarantees that God will give us everything we request. Prayer is not an incantation, and God is not controlled by a particular arrangement of words.

The wider testimony of Scripture gives us a richer picture. Paul asked repeatedly for his thorn to be removed, and God's answer was that His grace was sufficient. Jesus prayed in Gethsemane with complete honesty about the cup before Him and complete surrender to the Father's will. There are times when God's answer is yes, times when His answer differs from what we expected and seasons when we must wait far longer than we imagined.

The remarkable thing about Jabez is not that he discovered a sentence capable of forcing God's hand. It is that he knew where to take his desire.

He called upon the God of Israel.

Perhaps you are currently living in the space between those two statements: Jabez prayed, and God granted his request. You have prayed, but you have not yet reached the sentence that tells you how the matter ends. You have asked and circumstances appear unchanged. You have knocked and the door still seems closed.

The two verses do not tell us how long Jabez waited, so we should not invent a timetable. What they do give us is a picture of a man who refused to let the pain associated with his beginning prevent him from asking God for a different future.

Look at the journey again. He was associated with pain, yet became honourable. He asked God for blessing, enlargement, His hand and His protection. None of those requests stood alone. The prayer held together character, increase, dependence and preservation.

That may be the greatest lesson to carry away from these seven days. There is nothing wrong with asking God for more, but the mature prayer is bigger than "give me more." We want to become people who can carry His blessing well. We want enlargement without losing His presence. We want opportunity without losing character. We want a future that is not governed by yesterday's pain.

And when God answers, we want to remember Him after the answer just as deeply as we sought Him before it.

Perhaps one day you will look back and realise that God did more than enlarge the territory around you. Somewhere in the process, He enlarged you. Your faith grew. Your wisdom grew. Your capacity grew. Your understanding of Him became deeper. The person who entered the season of prayer was not quite the same person who emerged from it.

Then the testimony will be greater than, "God gave me what I wanted."

It will be, "I called upon God, and in answering me, He also changed me."

Prayer

Father, thank You because You hear me. I bring before You every prayer I have carried through these seven days and every request that existed long before I began this devotional. Bless me according to Your wisdom. Enlarge the territory You have appointed for me and increase my capacity to steward it. Let Your hand remain upon my life. Guide me, correct me, strengthen me and keep me close to You. Protect me from evil and heal every place where pain has attempted to determine my future. Where I am still waiting, give me patience without despair and faith without presumption. Where Your answer is different from what I expected, give me grace to trust Your wisdom. Where You say yes, give me humility to remember where the answer came from. When I look back over my life, may I see more than enlarged territory. May I see a person who became more faithful, more honourable, more generous, wiser and more dependent upon You. May my greatest testimony never simply be that I received what I requested. May it be that through everything You gave, withheld, changed and taught me, I came to know You more. In Jesus' name, Amen.