What does “Expand my coasts” mean, and can it be something we already have? In the Bible’s Old Testament, 1 Chronicles 4:10, there is a short prayer by Jabez:
“Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, “Oh, that you would bless me and expand my coasts (enlarge my territory)! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain.” And God granted his request.”

As I looked at this prayer, I wondered what “expand my coasts” meant. I immediately thought “Yeah, I want to expand my coasts! I want more waterfront!” But then I thought about what happened yesterday, when I felt like I should go down and look at what waterfront I do have (on my property along the banks of the #WestChickamaugaCreek in Northwest Georgia.)

As I was wandering along my “coast”, I pondered where I might put a pawpaw sapling that will increase the pollination of the existing pawpaw trees that I have there. And as I walked down to the waterfront property that we now call the beach, I found a place where I could put this pawpaw sapling. As I turned around I noticed, for the first time, a five-foot-tall pawpaw sapling that I had never seen before. And then, I as I looked a little bit farther into the woods, for the first time I noticed a 30-foot-tall pawpaw tree that I had never seen before, a tree that had been covered by Chinese privet and vines and other invasive species.

As I was thinking about that experience tonight, as I read and pondered the Prayer of Jabez, I thought maybe when we ask the Lord to enlarge our coasts, He’s not always going to give us more of anything. Often, He’ll simply going to allow us to discover what we already have.

That “expand my coast” doesn’t happen unless we work and we start looking and we start trying to see what we already have.