Prison and Jabez

                                

                Again I find that so much happens in a week, or in this case two, that I can never remember it all. As I am sure that, though you are reading this blog because you enjoy it and want to know what is going on in my life; you also equally want to get something accomplished today and do not want to spend countless hours reading. So I will not even try to say everything that has happened but here come the highlights.

                On Tuesday I went to prison. I will admit that it was not an experience that I had been looking forward to.  On Tuesday morning when my group was given the subject which we were to preach about, mistrust, I found myself quite happy to take the back seat and settle in for a day of observation as I don’t speak Lugandan.   However God had other plans.  Either that or my lack of patience got the better of me. Whichever way you want to look at it. Growing up I have always been taught that when you are given a task you “giver all” and get it done to the best of your abilities whether you like the task or not. I am learning that this is not the case with all people. Needless to say when no one in my group would volunteer for any of the jobs, speaking or leading worship time,  I may have lost my patience a little bit. I did not get angry or throw a fit but I did let it be known that we only had half an hour left to plan and we needed to get this done! Long story short I ended up being delegated to preach. Again this did not make me overly happy as I don’t like speaking in front of people and I was even less thrilled about having to speak through a translator, even if it was my friend. Add that all to the fact that I had less than half an hour to prepare and I was in instant panic. In went the head phones and out came the paper.

  I would love to be able to say that I got there and it was an amazing experience with some incredible supernatural God moment where I lead numerous people to Christ but that would be a lie. I ended up going to the women’s side of the prison with three others and after speaking for about ten minutes (half of the time allotted to me) I was done. Debbie stepped in added to what I said and then we had an extended prayer time. That was probably the best part, I don’t know what was said for the most part, or what it was that touched  the women but I noticed that as they prayed many were crying. One woman caught my eye and I very much wanted to sit on the ground with her and pray, but for reasons that make no sense to me now I did not.  I did prayed while everyone else did and I wanted to reach out and touch these women in some amazing “missionary” way but in the end all I did was share a smile with the one and then leave.

                 This week I am learning a lot about, well a lot of things. One thing is about opportunities. We are always presented with opportunities and we always have a choice if we are going to act on them or not.  Sometimes not taking them has a large impact but more often than not it is simply that we have missed the chance for something great. Our lives will not be horrible because of it, but we will have missed some of the blessing that God would have loved to pour out. I think this may have been the case at the prison. I had an opportunity to share Gods love and didn’t,  I missed out, and perhaps so did this woman though I cannot speak for anyone but myself.  God has been teaching me since then not to think about how it will look or what others will say, take the opportunities he presents me with!!

  On Friday a friend loaned me a book on the prayer of Jabez. I was pretty excited to read it as I have often heard about Jabez but I have never studied it or thought much about how it pertains to me. When I got home that night I sat down and started it, by then end of the evening that little book was finished. I was so challenged by it and I learned so much! At the beginning of the book I was taking notes but by then end I realized that I could not write everything that I was learning and being challenged by on my little pad of paper, so I just kept reading.

                                                 And Jabez called on the God of Israel saying, “ Oh that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that you would be with me, and that you would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain! So God granted him what he requested.

                                                                                                                                1 Chronicles 4:10 NJKV

                Did you know that the word “indeed” in Hebrew is the equivalent of putting five exclamation points at the end of a sentence, and to ask for blessing is to ask for supernatural favour?  Jabez was not asking for just a little bit here, he was asking God to give it all to him. He did not just want a little piece of the cake he wanted the whole stinking thing.  I mean wow!!! This guy had nerve, right?  The author of the book, Bruce Wilkinson, put it this way,

                                “ Is it possible that God wants us to come to him with the same happy ( ok slightly crazy) confidence [ like that of a child on his birthday] and ask Him to give you the very best he has for you?”

                That kinda blows me away! I mean think about it, God wants to bless us. This is the God of the universe, the one who made the stars in the sky. He spoke “let there be light” and bam! There is the sun shining in all its brilliance. HE WANTS TO BLESS US!!!  We can go to him and pester him like a little kid on his birthday who just wants to rip into all those brightly wrapped packages and ask for his blessing! If that is not enough take a look at this other quote,

                                “ A blessing from God is something you feel… he might give you “stuff” but he is ALWAYS reaching for your heart… God always blesses for a purpose.”

                I have nothing else that I can say after that. Just let that truth sink in for a minute. Let it simmer in your heart until you believe it. There was a lot of other things I thought I wanted to say but as I sit here and listen to the thunder and rain outside of my door I find that I cannot say anything else right now. I am once again so amazed by God. So, cheers for now, may God bless everyone reading this as much as he is blessing me. Maybe later in the week I will write about more that I am learning from this little book but for now I trust that something that I have said will reach through the screen and touch one of you.