Let's not run away from the pain

The name 'Jabes' was a negative prophecy that released a spiritual energy that in a sense condemned Jabes to a life of pain, because that was what he meant: jabes, pain, and that's how his mother conceived it.

In 1 Chronicles 4:10 he tells us that Jabez invoked the God of Israel saying: "Oh if you would give me a blessing and expand my territory, and if your hand were with me, and you would deliver me from evil so that it would not harm me" he says God what he asked.

It's interesting here, even: let me go a little bit, because this is very key. In verse 9 it says that "Jabesh was more illustrious than his brothers." This is what distinguishes Jabes.

That illustrious word saying that Jabes was more illustrious than the brothers is what makes the Scripture point to him as something different, because if you look, the figure of Jabes breaks into the Scriptures in a list of names that there is no description. about them, it is an endless list of names that we have in the Old Testament, but for the moment like that the writer, inspired by the Holy Spirit, stops on Jabes and focuses on him, and takes him out in a sense of anonymity. Jabes is not just another name but for the moment it is a three-dimensional figure that deserves a closer mention.

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

Perhaps Jabes was a lonely child, and perhaps in that loneliness and that silence of feeling apart, of feeling rejected by other children, of living a somewhat gloomy and sad life apart from others, that was creating in him a substance of character , perhaps an attitude towards meditation.

Perhaps it led him to think about spiritual things, because many times what happens is that when one has a lonely life, instead of playing with the boys over there and doing superficial things as is typical of children, involved in games physical and the interests of the children, Jabes perhaps spent alone in a corner perhaps meditating or walking in the field, or thinking about God and perhaps God had mercy on him, and then Jabes created within himself a more substantial personality, more Heavy in the sense that he was a man of substance, he was not wasting his time on the superficial things of youth and children.

And perhaps that was what created in him the character and the willingness to undertake great and exceptional things. Pain can be an ally, it can be one of God's great fertilizers.

Perhaps Jabes for his own pain and his painful childhood as a consequence of his name, paradoxically that was perhaps what prepared him to be able to visualize something different in his life, to be able to pray to the Lord with power and authority, to make that prayer so powerful that captivated the heart of God and motivated 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 the test can be the best ally. Many times some of the pains that God has allowed in our life, especially in childhood and youth, those pains in the formative time of our life, those pains can be a physical limitation, or they can still be the same poverty in which we grew up with, if we see them in light of God's good purpose for our lives we can use these things as allies to believe God for great things in the future.

Let's not run from pain. Pain is one of the wonderful ways that God uses many times to do the things that God wants to do in our life to prepare us for the great things that God wants to do in our life.

I believe that the pain in Jabes' childhood that paradoxically came as a consequence of the sad name that his mother gave him was the fertilizer that God used to prepare Jabes for a specific moment in his life when Jabes triggers this powerful prayer that changes. his destiny and that makes him a prosperous man and a man greatly blessed by God.

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