Liberals have attacked the use of “thoughts
and prayers” when some tragedy strikes. Sometimes there’s nothing that can be
done at the moment so people offer a statement of comfort in the only way they
can. This does not mean that nothing is to be done.
Thoughts,
prayers, and well-wishing are not complete until they are backed up with action
when there is some action that can be taken. The same is true of faith:
What use is it, my brethren, if
someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him? If a
brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you
says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,” and yet you do not give
them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? Even
so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself. But
someone may well say, “You have faith and I have works; show
me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.”You
believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder. But
are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is
useless? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac
his son on the altar? You see that faith was working with his works, and as a
result of the works, faith was perfected; and the Scripture was fulfilled which
says, “AND ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT
WAS RECKONED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS,” and he was called the friend
of God. You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone. In the
same way, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received
the messengers and sent them out by another way? For just as the body
without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is
dead. (James 2:14-26).
It would not have been enough for Rahab
only to pray. There was something she could do to save the life of the spies.
That’s what she’s praised for.
The
publishing phenomenon of 2000 was Bruce Wilkinson’s The Prayer of
Jabez: Breaking Through to the Blessed Life (Multnomah). The premise
of the book is based on 1 Chronicles 4:9–10:
Jabez was more honorable than
his brothers, and his mother named him Jabez saying, “Because I bore him with
pain.” Jabez means “pain” in Hebrew. Now Jabez called on the God of Israel,
saying, “Oh that You would bless me indeed and enlarge my border, and that Your
hand might be with me, and that You would keep me from harm that it may not
pain me!” And God granted him what he requested.
The Prayer of Jabez had
sold around ten million copies, not counting numerous spinoffs “including key
chains, mugs, backpacks, Christmas ornaments, scented candles, mouse pads, and
a framed artist’s conception of Jabez himself.” Nothing is said of Jabez either
before or after his prayer. Wilkinson makes the point that for the Holy
Spirit to single out an obscure figure with no special pedigree, God must have
meant for Jabez’s prayer to be prayed, meditated over, and acted on.
Any
time millions of people decide to read a book, you can be sure that its message
is touching a nerve. The same is true for Rick Warren’s The Purpose
Driven Life. It’s hard to criticize books that encourage Christians to pray
and to pray boldly and to seek divine purpose in their lives. But are these
books bold enough?
So why
am I bringing up a book written nearly 20 years ago that has been criticized
and praised by dozens of others?
First,
I was reminded of it when I saw an advertisement for the book The Promise of Jonadab written by E.
Ray and Gail Pinkney Moore. A promotional blurb on World Net Daily’s (now WND)
site wondered if it might be “The Next ‘Prayer of Jabez.’”
Second,
what good did praying the prayer of Jabez do for the millions of Christians who
bought it and determined to live by its precepts? Was praying all that was
required?
Third,
what effect has praying the prayer of Jabez had on the families of those who
read and prayed the prayer? Was praying all that was required?
Fourth,
what impact has it had on our nation? Was praying all that was required?
Fifth,
what did those who prayed the prayer of Jabez understand by Jabez’s request to
“enlarge my border”?
There
are many prayers recorded in the Bible. Dr. Herbert Lockyer, who wrote All
the Prayers of the Bible, counted 650 individual prayers (exclusive of the
Psalms since it’s a single prayer book) “of which no less than 450 have
recorded answers.” Why so much attention to the prayer of Jabez and not some of
the other 649 prayers? Again, I don’t want to be critical here, but I believe
the prayer of Jabez, as understood by those who were introduced to it by
Wilkinson’s book, saw it as primarily individualistic (what can God do for me?)
and somewhat incantational. A person could pray the prayer without ever
contemplating how God might be telling the petitioner to apply the concept of
enlarged borders to spheres of influence like education, politics, film, and
journalism, to name just four worldview areas.
You
see, it’s not enough to pray. If I call on God to prosper me financially and
yet do not hunt for a job and then work the job that I get, then I am not
really praying the prayer of Jabez (or any other prayer for God to prosper me).
How
many people expected God to do something because they prayed the prayer, and
when God did not respond in a way they expected Him to respond, they stopped
praying the prayer? Bruce Wilkinson acted on the prayer he prayed. With the
considerable profits he received from The Prayer of Jabez, he moved
to Africa and started an organization called Dream for Africa. I suspect that
he incorporated what he knew about God and the rest of the Bible by putting his
prayer of faith into action. Prayer alone is usually (mostly) not enough, as
his experience in Africa demonstrates. The prayer of Jabez was not an
incantation for success, a “name it and claim it” prosperity prayer.
Before
long, Wilkinson walked away from the project for a number of reasons. You can
read about it here and here. Loren Davis’
article “The Race for Africa” is
very good.
Consider
one of Joshua’s prayers. Israel won its first encounter with Jericho without a
casualty. Why should the battle with Ai be any different? The spies thought Ai
was weak enough that only “two or three thousand men need go up” (Josh. 7:3). Thirty-six Israelites were killed,
and the rest were pursued and assaulted by the men of Ai with the result that
“the hearts of the people melted and became like water” (v. 5; cf. Josh. 2:9, 11; 5:1). This would have been a perfect time for
the prayer of Jabez—a literal fulfillment to “enlarge my border.”
“Then
Joshua tore his clothes and fell on the earth on his face before the ark of the
LORD until evening, both he and the elders of Israel” (Josh. 7:7).
In a
word, they prayed … hard. What did God tell Joshua to do? “So the LORD said to
Joshua, ‘Rise up! Why is it that you have fallen on your face? Israel has
sinned, and they have also transgressed My covenant which I commanded them’”
(7:11). In effect, God told Joshua for the moment to stop praying and to act on
the evil that brought them the defeat! Praying was not enough even though it
was the first step. To change Africa, as Wilkinson learned the hard way, would
require changing everything.
Like
the prayer of Jabez, there is an “expand my border” petition in the “Lord’s
Prayer”: “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10). When we pray this part of the
longer petition, do we sit back and wait for God’s kingdom to come or do we
engage the precepts of the kingdom under the direction of God’s Word and His
assurance that it will happen?
Some
might object that we can’t make the kingdom of God come. So when we pray to God
for our daily bread (6:11), do we wait for it to fall from heaven like manna
fell each day in the wilderness for 40 years (Ex. 16:23–26; Num. 11:7–9)? As soon as Israel entered the
Promised Land, they had to work for their bread (Josh. 5:10–12). In the New Testament we are
told that if we don’t work, we don’t eat (1 Thess. 4:11; 2 Thess. 3:10). How can this be if praying for
our daily bread is guaranteed by the recitation of the prayer? The same is true
about God’s kingdom coming. We are to pray and work for its manifestation.
One way
to avoid the kingdom implications of the prayer that Jesus tells us to pray is
to claim that presently it’s a spiritual kingdom that will only have
substantive, this-world manifestation sometime in the future, either in an
earthly millennium or the inauguration of the New Heavens and the New Earth.
This way, it’s safe to pray the prayer Jesus wants us to pray since there’s
nothing anyone has to do about the kingdom since it is solely the work of God.
We can only pray that it comes, that God’s will be done on
earth as it is in heaven. Try that with the bread portion and see how long you
last.
The
same chapter where the prayer of Jabez is found we are introduced to the sons
of Simeon. While Jabez prays for his border to be enlarged,
the sons of Simeon work to enlarge their borders:
They went to the entrance of
Gedor, even to the east side of the valley, to seek pasture for their flocks.
They found rich and good pasture, and the land was broad and quiet and
peaceful; for those who lived there formerly were Hamites. These, recorded by
name, came in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah, and attacked their tents and
the Meunites who were found there, and destroyed them utterly to this day, and
lived in their place, because there was pasture there for their flocks. From
them, from the sons of Simeon, five hundred men went to Mount Seir, with Pelatiah,
Neariah, Rephaiah and Uzziel, the sons of Ishi, as their leaders. They
destroyed the remnant of the Amalekites who escaped and have lived there to
this day.
These were men of action. They took
risks for God’s kingdom. Simeon was a small tribe, but it did great things
despite its size. Even though the tribe of Simeon did not begin well (Gen. 49:1, 5–7), it ended well: “[King Asa] gathered all
Judah and Benjamin and those from Ephraim, Manasseh and Simeon who resided with
them, for many defected to him from Israel when they saw that the Lord his God
was with him” (2 Chron. 15:9).
There are lessons for us. Pray and
work. Prayer is not a substitute for work, and work is not a substitute for
prayer. If we are going to see our nation turned around, we can’t be limited by
Jabez’s prayer to avoid the pain.
