His mom didn’t exactly celebrate his birth! She named him pain, or Jabez in Hebrew, a moniker he carried with him the rest of his life. As an adult, and apparently as he was about to enter an important mission, Jabez cries out to God asking for three things which the text (I Chron. 4: 9,10) tells us God granted. These requests were (1) that God would bless him by enlarging his territory (pasture), and (2) that God’s hand would be with him, another way of wanting to experience God’s power and protection, and (3) that he would be free from pain (also, grief or sorrow.) In other words, he may have been asking to escape this negative reputation which he had from birth!

"Surely, among the billions of stellar systems in the billions of galaxies that fill our universe, Earth's ability to support intelligent life isn't unique. The universe is too vast, and we're not that special-- something else is probably out there. It's just a matter of our finding it, or its finding us." Discover, May, 1993.

Many Christians are enamored by the possibility that with the aid of computers additional revelation about future events can be found in the Bible. This review shows why this is a dangerous practice.