Widening Circles

Saturday morning I had a breakfast meeting.  My friend Sarah had invited me to be part of an organizational group to bring Reliant K to Marshalltown to raise money for Compassion International.  Now, I know nothing about organizing a concert, but I am in support of bringing Christian entertainment to Marshalltown, as well as supporting Compassion International.  So, I told her I'd be a "lackey." At this meeting, I met 5 new people.  I came home with excitement about what God will do.

Sunday, I took my daughter to open house at preschool.  ("Preschool!" I had a homeschool mom exclaim this weekend."Why do you do that?"  "Because it's fun!" was my response.  All of my kids have had such great experiences at this preschool.)

Tomorrow, my oldest son will start public high school.  He has been practicing in marching band for a couple of weeks, now.

All this to say, I'm excited about all the new people I may be meeting.  I am very hopeful, and ask the Lord to bless the widening of my social circles.

That got me thinking about the prayer of Jabez in I Chronicles 4: 9-10.  It's been a long time since I've read the book about this prayer.  But reading this in the Bible is such a wonder.  It's stuck between lineage lists of the clans of Judah.  And there are these two verses about this man and his life.  If you look at these verses in different translations, there is a perplexing diversity in wording.  But the things that stick out to me are that God says he was more honorable than his brothers.  (There's that word honor again...That needs more looking into.)  And there is a theme (could you call it) of pain--how he was named and part of his request to God.  And then there is his prayer to God, and yet the most powerful last sentence--And God granted his request.

This just stirs in me again my desire to be a pray-er.  Jesus was a pray-er.  If you really pay attention to the gospel accounts you see him time and time again going off to pray.  And this makes me trust that every day, even while he is preparing the place for us, he prays for us every day.

And even more excitingly, it makes me trust that God is an answer-er!  He hears and he answers. 

And I pray for God's blessing on me and that I can be a blessing to others.  I have so many rough edges and a sinful heart to battle.  But, God keeps working on me.  I'm really looking forward to a great year.