Prayer

Jabez cried out to the God if Israel, "Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain." ~I Chronicles 4:10

When the whole "Prayer of Jabez" thing was going on a few years ago, I joined the side of the cynics and the conservative Christians who scoffed it, thinking that it's nothing more than a "fad" and that true Christians wouldn't pray such a prayer. I said that there is no "secret password" to God, no magical key that unlocks His power. And so I refused to read the book or even pray that prayer, saying that as a genuine Christian I was supposed to keep to some more dignified style of prayer, and not give way to the latest style.

I've always had a hard time with prayer; I don't understand why it's necessary since God knows everything, and I've never really known if it was all that effective. I mean, I feel like God's going to do pretty much what He wants to, and so how can my prayer effect that?

Recently God has been teaching me about prayer. And perhaps the most astonishing that I've learned is that God chooses to work through prayer. It sounds simple, but it's something that I've missed for my entire life of being a Christian.

God can choose to work however He wants. After all, He's God. And, for whatever reason, He has decided that the way He works here on earth is through our prayers. He responds to prayer and He moves through prayer. In Numbers 14, we read where God had planned to smite the Israelites for their behavior. But Moses prayed, and God spared them "as you asked" (Numbers 14:20). God chooses to work through prayer. It might not make sense. But it's the way it is. So you can either fight it, and refuse to pray and ask God for things, or you can accept it, and begin a disciplined life of prayer.

Which leads me to the prayer of Jabez. I still don't think it's the lucky quarter that always pays out when put into a slot machine. But that doesn't mean I think it's pointless. There was a lot of anecdotal evidence out there that people who started praying it started to have amazing things happen. Wilkinson sights several of his own personal examples in his life in the book where praying the prayer helped otherwise impossible situations. Many other people have similar accounts.

And you know what? That makes sense. Because the "Prayer of Jabez" did two good things for people. One, it got people on their knees, before God, in prayer. And that is a wonderful position to be. It allowed people to connect with God, and it opened up a line of communication with God perhaps some people had never had before. And because God chooses to work through prayer, God chose to respond to some people's prayer. And in doing so, He answered what is truly an amazing prayer.

And that is the second good thing the "Prayer of Jabez" did for people: it allowed them to pray in a way they never had before--it allowed a limitless God to begin to do limitless things. So often when we pray, we give God specifics, and we restrict what He is able to do. We pray so hard that He will grant us this job, or that girlfriend. And the whole time God is up there saying, "But you don't understand...that job is so much better. This girlfriend will develop into so much more of a meaningful relationship." But we keep on praying for specifics, that I think that sometimes God finally gives us over to our prayer and says, "OK...if that's what you want, well then here you go."

Or, even worse, sometimes we want something and fail to even ask for it at all.

Chuck Swindoll is convinced that there will be a room in Heaven that will be full of all of the things that we never asked for here on earth. I'd like to agree. I think we'll get to Heaven, and Jesus will open a door to a huge room that is filled to the brim of things--both tangible and intangible. When we look in there, we will see all of the desires of our heart. We'll see some of the secret burning desires that we were too embarassed to ask for. Or we'll see things that we never even thought of asking for, but instantaneously we'll see how we could have used them in our life--"that would have made this difficult experience so much easier." After seeing all of these things, confused, we'll ask Jesus, "what is this room?" He will respond, "these are all of the things that I wanted to give you in life." "Well, why didn't you?" we'll ask. His answer will shock our inner being, "Because...you never asked for them."

What is so amazing about the prayer of Jabez--or any prayer of that nature--is that it doesn't restrain God. It asks God to enlarge our territory--but doesn't tell Him how. It asks God to bless us--but leaves it to Him to determine in what way. It asks God to protect us--and leaves the details to Him. So often we choke God with our prayers. This prayer simply says, "God--show Your favor upon me. How You do it is up to You." When we let God decide how, and get away from our small thinking, I think we'll be blown away by how He chooses to work in our lives.

I like the story of the man who asks the Pastor if it's OK to pray that he wins lottery. The Pastor responds, "Sure it is...if you want to limit God to just the lottery."

Now I'm not preaching the prosperity Gospel here, and I don't think that God's blessings will necessarily come by way of greater financial means. But I am saying that I think we are held back from His blessings by our own lack of faith in trusting Him to do "immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine" (Ephesians 3:20).

And so I, for one, am going to begin practicing some big prayer. I'm going to spend more time asking God for big stuff, not limiting Him to my measly perspective. I'm going to ask Him to bless me and my family in ways I can't even imagine right now. And I might use the Prayer of Jabez every once in a while to help model the type of prayer that I pray. I don't know what will come of it. But I do know I have absolutely nothing to lose by it. God chooses to work through prayer, and it's time I resist that and start meeting Him there.

Now enough writing--it's time for me to start praying!