A few years ago there was a lot of talk about the ‘Prayer of Jabez’. This prayer is a little verse in the middle of a chapter of genealogy. This is how it reads from the Amplified version of I Chronicles 4:10: "Jabez cried to the God of Israel, saying, Oh, that You would bless me and enlarge my border, and that Your hand might be with me, and You would keep me from evil so it might not hurt me! And God granted his request.
Wow! What a strange little verse, but a simple one and it says ‘God granted his request.’ As I was reading Psalm 119, I thought it interesting that one could take this little verse from I Chronicles and compare it to many verses in Psalm 119.
His first request: ‘Oh that You would bless me’. Psalm 119:17 asks God to ‘deal bountifully with Your servant.’
His second request: ‘enlarge my borders’. ( Now this could mean he wanted more wisdom and understanding) Psalm 119:33 asks the Lord to ‘teach me thy way’, and in verse 34 it says ‘Give me understanding.’
His third request is that ‘Your hand might be with me’.
In Psalm 119:35 the Psalmist asks that the Lord ‘make me go in the path of Your commandments’, asking for God’s guidance.
And the last request is that ‘You would keep me from evil so it might not hurt me.’
In Psalm 119:37 the Psalmist asks the Lord to turn away his eyes from beholding that which is not good and turn away reproach. And in verse 101 it states ‘I have restrained my feet from every evil way.
So here I am going to take the liberty of rewriting my own verse and calling it "The Prayer of Carol", using the thoughts from Psalm 119:
"
O Lord, deal bountifully with Your Servant, helping me to increase my wisdom and understanding, guiding me in the way I should go, following Your commandments. Keep my eyes from looking on evil or that which is not good, and keep me from evil ways. And I thank you for hearing my Prayer.
Amen"
