Those are the best honors that come from God: the award of grace with the acknowledgment of service. His devotion was the key to his promotion. The honor he enjoyed would not have been worth having if it had not been vigorously contested and equitably won. As for this Jabez, whose aim was so well pointed, his fame so far sounded, his name so lastingly embalmed-he was a man of prayer. More honorable than his brethren was the child whom his mother bore with sorrow. The ship is often long coming home because detained on the road by excess of cargo expect her freight to be the better when she reaches the port. You may expect a blessing in serving God if you are enabled to persevere under many discouragements. While our grief called the offspring of desire “Benoni” (the son of my sorrow), our faith has been afterwards able to give it a name of delight, “Benjamin” (the son of my right hand) (Genesis 35:18). Yet those projects that have cost us more than ordinary sorrow, have often turned out to be the most honorable of our undertakings. Difficulties and disappointments have wrung our soul with anguish.

Many of our works for Christ have cost us tears. To a great extent we find that we must sow in tears before we can reap in joy. Leads to the place where sorrow is unknown.” “The path of sorrow, and that path alone, Sorrow the harbinger gladness the prince it ushers in. As the furious storm gives place to the clear sunshine, so the night of weeping precedes the morning of joy (Psalms 30:5).

It will sometimes happen that where there is the most sorrow in the antecedents, there will be the most pleasure in the sequel. We know very little about Jabez, except that he was more honorable than his brethren, and that he was called Jabez because his mother bare him with sorrow.

–1 Chronicles 4:10 Sowing in Tears, Reaping in Joy At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

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