Pray First | Week 3 | Daniel Goulding | Echoes Church

The big idea

Prayer, not coping mechanisms, is how we respond to pain — and Jabez's four-part prayer shows us how to pray in a way God grants.

Pain is part of every life, but it doesn't have to define us — it can point us to prayer instead. Jabez, whose very name meant sorrowful and born in pain, prayed for blessing, increase, God's presence, and protection, and God granted his request, showing that how we pray shapes whether God can move.

Point 1 of 7

Jabez's mother named him 'sorrowful, born in pain' because of a traumatic birth, but Jabez refused to let that trauma become his primary identity. Pastor Daniel warns that the enemy tries to attach our struggles, trauma, and temptations to our identity, but in Christ we are a new creation, sons and daughters of the Most High, and must live up to that rather than live down to what happened to us.

Point 2 of 7

Pastor Daniel says pain will either distort you or refine you depending on what you run to. Jabez cried out to the God of Israel with passion, and the point of prayer isn't the words we say but the person we're connected to — the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, not a vague spiritual energy.

Point 3 of 7

Jabez prays 'oh that you would bless me,' and Pastor Daniel pushes back on both the prosperity gospel and what he calls a 'poverty gospel' that treats misery as holiness. He uses the illustration of praying for a six-pack while eating fast food to show that God often blesses by first showing us what's out of alignment, citing David's connection between righteousness and blessing.

Point 4 of 7

Jabez asks God to enlarge his territory, and Pastor Daniel frames this as praying for more influence, business, family, or reach so as to take back ground from darkness rather than to boast. He shares the example of a church member running for the Senate and Paul's reminder that increase is given so we can always be generous.

Point 5 of 7

Pastor Daniel explains that in Hebrew culture, the hand of God was synonymous with His presence, and Jabez's prayer was really a plea that God's presence would stay with him. He warns through the story of Samson that we can keep doing 'the churchy things' long after God's presence has quietly left, and points to Zerubbabel being told the temple would be rebuilt 'not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit.'

Point 6 of 7

Jabez's final request, 'keep me from harm,' Pastor Daniel says is partly about spiritual opposition and partly about discernment to remove yourself from temptation rather than keep battling it. He tells of counseling men struggling with pornography to get rid of smartphones, insisting wisdom avoids battles it doesn't need to fight and Scripture calls us to flee sexual immorality rather than resist it in place.

Point 7 of 7

Pastor Daniel closes by noting God granted Jabez's request only after he prayed it — God doesn't answer prayers that go unprayed. He points to Jesus asking blind Bartimaeus, 'What do you want me to do for you?' even though the need was obvious, showing that God waits for us to voice our need before He moves.

Take it into your week

Pastor Daniel's charge is to actually pray the four parts of Jabez's prayer — bless me, enlarge my territory, let Your hand be with me, keep me from harm — rather than default to coping mechanisms or silence.