Mental Health for Christians: Praying the Prayer of Jabez

If you are like me, you are constantly in prayer for God's help in your mental-emotional struggle, "grace to help in time of need" as it says in Hebrews 4, verse 16. I often pray the Prayer of Jabez in 1 Chronicles 4, verse 10 in the NKJV:

"Oh, that you would bless me indeed,

and enlarge my territory,

that Your hand would be with me,

and that You would keep from evil,

that I may not cause pain!"

It's okay to ask, even plead for God to bless us. And we know that He wants to bless His people. Psalm 144, verse 15 (ESV) reads, "Blessed are the people to whom such blessings fall! Blessed are the people whose God is the Lord!" Many of us sing the doxology each Sunday: "Praise God from whom all blessings flow!" So pray for Him to bless you, even in and because of your internal struggle. He will bless. This I have experienced firsthand!

I also pray for Him to "enlarge my territory." I see this as reclaiming the mental health "territory" I had prior to my bipolar diagnosis. I feel like I am slowly reclaiming lost ground. As you well know, this process takes time. We need to "do the work," use the skills we have learned, maintain our daily regimens, be compliant with our meds, stay current with our physicians and counselors, etc. But we have something that non-Christians don't--we can pray to the God who answers prayer. Jesus told us, "Ask...seek...knock." (Matthew 7, verse 7) Lord, increase my territory!

Next in the Prayer of Jabez is the hand of God. We know His hand is powerful. Here Jabez prays for that powerful hand to be "with" him. I love Isaiah 41 verse 10, which tells us to "fear not." Why? God says:

I am your God

I will strengthen you

I will help you

I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

But at the very beginning He says, "I am with you." "I AM WITH YOU."

Do you trust God's "with-ness?" One of the most astonishing things about being a Christian is what Jesus promised to the one who keeps His word, that they (the Father and the Son through the Holy Spirit) will come to him and make (their) home with him." (John 14, verse 23) God can't be more "with us" than that. How I relish it!

I have just had quite a tumble, mentally-emotionally. I won't go into details. If you struggle with downturns, you know what I am talking about--dark places, places we try to avoid. But here Jabez is honest and transparent, "Keep me from evil." We are not told what evil Jabez was looking to avoid. But for me, the evil I try to avoid is the pothole of depression/anxiety. So I pray quite often, "Lord, keep me from evil!"

The final line in Jabez's prayer is why he prays for deliverance from evil, "that I may not cause pain." Some translations have this as, "that I will not experience pain." (e.g., CSB) But I think "that I may not cause pain" better captures his desire not to cause others pain, as he did his mother in childbirth. (See the verse prior to the prayer. That's how Jabez got his name. His mother named him "because I bore him in pain.") So when I pray the Prayer of Jabez, I'm praying to prevent the collateral damage when I have a tumble, namely causing pain to those around me. "Lord, keep me from evil that I may not cause pain to those who care for me."

So there you have it. I pray this prayer every day. I ask for God to bless (He does!) and I encourage you to do the same?

Blessings,

The Christian Bipole