I Chronicles 4:9 And Jabez was more honourable than his brethren: and his mother called his name Jabez, saying, Because I bare him with sorrow.
The Name You Give Yourself
I don’t think I’m the only one, but I am fascinated by names. I am fascinated by what they mean and how they sound. I love naming things and naming people. I love giving nicknames. Each of my children has the name on their birth certificate and then the name I use in daily life. I have a dog that I named even before I owned her. Names are fascinating because they say so much about us or about the people who named us. The truth is that you have two names; you have the one that your parents gave you and you have the one you have given yourself. The most important name you have is the one you give yourself by your actions every day.
In I Chronicles 4:9, the Bible talks about a man who had a very bad name. It says, “And Jabez was more honourable than his brethren: and his mother called his name Jabez, saying, Because I bare him with sorrow.” Jabez was a man whose name basically meant “sorrowful.” His mom gave him this name because when he was born sorrow came. I don’t know what the circumstance was. What I do know is that he was saddled with this lousy moniker of “sorry.” Well, what did he do about it?
Verse 10 says, “And Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, Oh that thou wouldest bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that thine hand might be with me, and that thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me!” And here is the amazing thing. “And God granted him that which he requested.”
Now we are not going to dwell on what he asked for and what God gave; suffice it to say that Jabez asked and God answered. Jabez’s mom gave him a poor name at birth, but he gave himself a noble name by the way he lived. He wasn’t satisfied to accept the status quo of what he had been given. Though he was named Jabez because he caused sorrow at birth, what we think of when we think of Jabez is because of the way he lived. He recognized God’s place, God’s power, and depended on Him to change what needed to be changed.
I don’t know what your name means, either by family tree or your past actions. What I do know is that today is a new day. You can either accept the reputation, the name, the connotation of your life as it is now, or you can make it mean what it ought to mean by living as you should. A wise person will take note, decide what their name should mean, and ask God to help their life be one that that is worth naming.
Today, set out to make your name a noble name by honoring God with your life and depending on Him.