While much more could be said about the role of availability in using our gifts and seeking relationships, it's the area of prayer where I find this phenomenon most interesting. We easily become discouraged about the potential of our own prayers. We tend to regard prayer much as we do the right to vote. While we consider it a great privilege, we doubt that our individual effort has much consequence. But while the voting analogy may accurately describe how we feel about prayer, it doesn't depict the actual potential of prayer well at all.
Scripture emphasizes that the effect of one person's prayer can be far-reaching.
I began my study of the book dutifully plodding through the seemingly endless genealogies which make up the first nine chapters, not expecting any deep inspiration or exceptional insights. I decided to read these chapters carefully, though. They are part of the history which the Holy Spirit has recorded, I reasoned, and I may miss some critical insight if I merely peruse them. This scrutiny paid off, for in chapter four I encountered a remarkable statement which I had never noticed before. The writer notes that a woman gave birth to a son and named him Jabez, which sounds like the Hebrew word for pain, because his birth had been painful to her.