Lord, Teach Us To Pray
The Prayer of Jabez booklet came out in the year 2000, promising a 30-day plan to develop the habit of praying boldly. It’s source material is an obscure verse interrupting a lengthy passage of genealogy from the Old Testament. Jabez appears from nowhere and disappears after this reference and yet his brief mention spawned a best-selling book and a movement in the evangelical world! Yet the book was not without controversy. Was it wrong to ask God for blessing? To nearly demand it of him? What does the passage from I Chronicles 4:10 demonstrate about prayer?
Jabez asked God for four things and did so in a manner that was bold and expectant. The prayer is not flowery and it certainly does not follow the ACTS formula of “Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication”! We don’t know anything about the regular prayer habits of Jabez, or his “success rate”, but we do know this one worked. The Bible says “God did what Jabez asked”.
Is this a formula to be repeated with the same expectation for success or is this like many passages from scripture… a general principle rather than a promise; a recording of what can happen but not an illustration what always happens. There are many things in scripture that are “descriptive” rather than “prescriptive”. The book of Proverbs is full of such examples.
About 10 years ago when my husband was early in his diagnosis for a terminal disease, a group of people offered to come to our home to pray for him. I didn’t know the man well who organized the effort and didn’t know some of his companions at all. Their prayers intrigued me. They were bold and commanding and laid hold of what they believed was a promise of healing for JD. They were absolutely certain that God would deliver. The prayers I prayed and heard prayed around me, were often couched with what I suddenly saw as “escape clauses”, in case God didn’t perform as outlined. The phrase “if it’s not your will then…” often brought up the rear of my prayers for healing.
A year of intense prayer, Bible study, and consultation followed that centered on “name and claim” theology. If there was a way to pray more effectively and thereby ensure my husband’s healing, I needed to know. What I realized during that time of seeking the Lord, was that bold, expectant prayers are good! They are examples of ardent faith and wouldn’t be included in our Bible so positively if there were not lessons to be learned from them. Elijah calling fire from heaven to defeat the prophets of Ba’al has to be one of the best illustrations.
But there are also examples of those who prayed for things that did not come to pass. Paul prayed for healing that did not come. And though not explicitly recorded, can’t we imagine that Joseph prayed to be freed from the well, Daniel prayed to be freed from captivity, and each of the early martyrs prayed to be spared a painful death? Even Jesus prayed that the “cup” would pass from Him during the final hours of His life.
So how then shall we pray? The disciples asked the same question of Jesus and the result is our Lord’s Prayer. He has told us exactly how to pray… with humility, reverence, and gratitude; with confession, forgiveness, and supplication; and ultimately with the understanding that it is His will that must prevail. When our bold prayers align with His perfect will, fire falls from heaven.
Jabez prayed a bold prayer that was in perfect agreement with God’s plans for His life. Sometimes however, our prayers, despite their righteousness or good intent, simply do not align. The healing doesn’t come, the marriage isn’t restored, the big “break” never arrives. But if we pray as Jesus instructed, we understand that we are asking for His will and not our own. In some metaphorical way, growth from the unanswered prayer does bless us and does enlarge our territory, for God works in mysterious ways.
~ Melissa Gibbs has been a member of LIFE Fellowship for over 10 years, is the mother to four boys and widow of the late JD Gibbs. She also is a founding board member of Ambassador Christian School.