We will have several more genealogy lists before we get back to stories, though there are a couple little stories in today’s lists in 1 Chronicles 4.

Early in the new millennium, The Prayer of Jabez was trendy. A book came out about this prayer and then all sorts of other things. We had it in a board book!

Jabez prays, calling out to God, asking that God would bless him, enlarge his territory (influence), and have His hand on him to keep him from harm/evil so that he wouldn’t have pain. It says God answered his prayer. It also says that he was more honorable than his brothers. That probably had something to do with God answering his prayers.

We learn in this list that Simeon’s tribe didn’t multiply like Judah’s had. Just one man on the list had a multitude of sons. It’s hard not to think that like Jabez, he was more honorable than his brothers. I think this last story in the chapter is about these sons and their families.

They seek pasture for their flocks and find rich, good land, broad, quiet, and peaceful.

To take the land they destroy who and what was there, marking them for destruction and defeating the remnant of the Amalekites, carrying out God’s orders.

Can you relate that to the church? Have you sought out for your family the good land, the broad, quiet, peaceful place where there is rich pasture?

David talks about God bringing him out into a broad place. It’s a place of freedom, where you can run free and not worry about falling. What would that look like?

Pasture land is where the flock would be fed. Have you led your family to good teaching that brings freedom and peace, where they aren’t trying to earn their salvation, but are learning to rest in their salvation and live out what Jesus bought for them.

That includes driving out the inhabitants of the land, the things that the Lord marked for destruction. Your fields need to not be filled with landmines. Have you cleared your home of pits and muck, so that your children can run free in the good land the Lord provided?