Day 112: 1 Chronicles 4, 5 and 6

His mother had named him Jabez, saying, “I gave birth to him in pain.” (1 Chronicles 4:9)

Not everyone gets to be born with a silver spoon in his mouth. The mere mention of your name may not cause doors of opportunity to swing wide in welcome. And if town leaders offer you the key to the city just because of where you came from… you can stop reading right now.

Jabez didn’t live that kind of life. There was nothing special about Jabez’s family. Koz, his father (verse 8 lists Koz as the father of Hazzobebah, which is probably a variant of the name Jabez), had an A-list half-brother named Tekoa. Besides that Koz was the youngest of four brothers, not counting his other half-brothers. When it came time to split up the inheritance, there may not have been much left for Koz.

And Jabez wasn’t even Koz’s firstborn son. There was Anub, who would get a double share of the estate (what estate there was) as his birthright.

And if that wasn’t enough, the day of his birth was a bad day for Jabez’s mother. To commemorate a difficult birth she named him Pain.

But Jabez had one thing going for him. He knew where to turn for help. “O God, bless me.” . . . And God granted his request (4:10).

You may have lots of strikes against you. Does any of that really matter when you have a God who’s for you?