the migrant wife

In almost every Bible study I’ve been to, I have come away thinking, I really should pray more, pray better. That is a good thing. But how do I know if I’m doing it right? Sometimes, I really wish there was a golden standard against which I can measure my prayers. 7/10? Good enough, could do better. 3/10? Sloppy work, again tomorrow. 

Many people have tried to derive this golden standard. One of these attempts is based on a minor character, Jabez, from the Old Testament, and his answered prayer. If, like me, you weren’t familiar with the Bruce Wilkinson name-it-and-claim-it prayers that were built upon two obscure verses in 1 Chronicles, then I will quote it here for your benefit: 

9 Jabez was more honorable than his brothers. His mother had named him Jabez, saying, “I gave birth to him in pain.” 10 Jabez cried out to the God of 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.” And God granted his request. (1 Chronicles 4:9-10)

If you’re familiar with the dangers of the prosperity gospel or its adjacents, you will read this and immediately think, hang on, am I reading this right? Is this a proof text for the God of the prosperity gospel? Or do you think: okay, finally a formula for successful prayer – no wonder God wasn’t answering any of mine recently! I suggest we approach this by dissecting what this passage doesn’t say, and then what it does, and finally put it in its place in the broader narrative of God’s revealed Word. 

What it doesn’t say 

The story of Jabez doesn’t mean that if you pray in the right way, following the formula of Jabez’s prayer, you will surely receive God’s blessing. This was one of the problems in Bruce Wilkinson’s prayer-as-formula interpretation of Jabez. As Grace to You puts it, it “paints an inconsistent picture of the Christian life. Wilkinson asserts that praying Jabez’s prayer leads to a life of incredible blessing and ever-increasing ministry opportunities—a life that sounds almost like a fairy-tale. However, little reference is ever made to the reality of genuine difficulties in life, and the necessity of sincere prayer to face those difficulties in a God-honoring way.” 

What if you prayed a genuine Jabez prayer, but you still don’t see an answer in the affirmative? If what Wilkinson said was true, it means two things: either (1) you didn’t do the Jabez prayer correctly, or (2) God is not faithful to answer your prayer (that he clearly meant to be 100% effective all the time). But if we are careful, we will arrive at a third, more likely, conclusion, that Jabez was never held up by the Chronicler to be a definitive model of effective prayer. 

It is also odd to formulate an entire prayer system based on an obscure prayer in a narrative that is, in the words of a mentor, descriptive not prescriptive. When I browse through my mind’s archives of answered prayers in the Bible, I think of the prayers of Abraham (Genesis 18:16-33), of Hannah (1 Samuel 2), of David (Psalm 51, 1 Chronicles 29, among others) , of Solomon (1 Kings 3:1-15), of Daniel (Daniel 9:1-19), of his three friends (Daniel 3), of Elijah (1 Kings 18:36-40), of Elisha (2 Kings 6), of Hezekiah (2 Kings 19:14-19, Isaiah 38), not to mention prayers of the people in the New Testament. Perhaps it is easier to choose an obscure two-verse example that few know well, so that one can metaphorise and imagerise all one wants, to bend it to one’s whims, than it is to pray and trust with Shadrach, Mesach and Abednego, to plead with God to deliver, and to cling on “even if he does not”.

More subtly, evangelicals seem to measure one’s spiritual health against a tally of “answered requests”. The last sentence in our text, “God granted his request”, seemed to be a stamp of approval for Jabez’s faithfulness. The modern Christian, while on one hand shuns the prosperity gospel, with the other he embraces a legalistic half-truth that the only proof of one’s faithfulness, is answered prayer. Half true, because God does give generously in response to faithful prayer, and we must not grow so cynical that we despise God’s gracious work. But only half true, because what about Job pleading with God? What about Paul’s begging to have the thorn removed from his side? What about Jesus asking for the cup to be taken away? 

I hear the protest that this belief doesn’t really matter – if you’ve got the gospel right, a little error in the doctrine of prayer isn’t that big a deal. But error in doctrine always has an impact on Christian living. From this we see the symptoms of hypocritical Christian living: insensitivity to the suffering of others, being hyper-judgmental of others’ sins, operating on legalism instead of grace, only to name a few. It seems like belief in falsehood is more dangerous than it sounds. Therefore it is paramount that we understand what the Bible says about prayer – but first let us explore what the Bible says with regard to Jabez’s prayer.

What it does say 

The first and most straightforward implication of Jabez’s answered prayer is this: God is a generous God. He delights to hear His children’s prayers and delights to grant them their desires. We can imagine Jabez as he realises that the covenant God of his people had answered him! No other joy can be felt, and perhaps with Hagar he had exclaimed, “God has seen me”. 

God specialises in deliverance. Jabez’s name pointed to the pain that he brought those around him (primarily his mother, as she bore him physically). His life, if it were to be determined by his name, would be marked with pain – pain for others, pain for himself. He carried with himself the constant reminder that he was a thorn, an offence. But God, in His delightfully poetic way, turned Jabez’s life around. He granted him what he asked for: enlarged territory, blessing from God, freedom from pain! His name Jabez wasn’t a source of pain anymore. Rather, it was a living testimony to the restorative work of God in his life. What his mother named him as a condemnation, God turned into a blessing and a testimony. 

In view of this generous, delivering God, it is difficult to shoehorn into this passage (a) a vending-machine god who bends to our every whim if we asked with the right incantations or (b) stingy Scrooge-like God, an antithesis to joy, whose blessings one must treat with suspicion or scrutiny. I’m not sure exactly how Jabez viewed his God. Perhaps with the other clans of Judah, and the rest of Israel, he sees God as the Covenant Yahweh. He certainly demonstrates his faith in Him with his prayer.

These two verses get lost in the huge swathe of families in the section of 1 Chronicles. I wonder, did he doubt if God would listen to his prayer? I’m just Jabez from Judah. Daring to pray, Jabez exercised his faith in the God of Israel. And that was faith put in the right place! Why did Jabez’s prayer get answered? Not because of what he said. Not because of what his mother named him, or which clan or tribe he came from. It was answered because of who he put his faith in – the faithful and unchanging God.  

Putting it back in the Book  

Well are there any prescriptive passages on prayer in the Bible? Are we only to infer what good, God-honouring, faithful prayers are to look like? Of course there are model prayers. The most famous one is the Lord’s prayer. 

“This, then, is how you should pray: “ ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, [10]  your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. ’ (Matthew 6:9-13)

Scrolls upon scrolls have been written on the subject of the Lord’s prayer, and I don’t think I have anything meaningful to add to that in a short space. However notice that the prayer isn’t a laundry-list of please’s, but rather an acknowledgement of the One with whom we are praying to, our Father. The relation is the basis for much of our living, and being, and praying. If I wrote a piece on prayer (and a refutation of pseudo-prosperity gospel prayer formulae) and neglected to mention the childlike faith in the Father, then I have seriously failed. 

Furthermore, the Father’s posture towards our prayers is one of eagerness. In the tale of the persistent widow, Jesus says “[a]nd will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off?” (Luke 18:7) God will keep his promise. It might not be now. But, “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9) In prayer, perhaps we shouldn’t strive to find what ‘success’ looks like, but rather align our hearts to our Father’s desires – what a joy it is to partner with our Creator God, who delights in bringing everyone to come to repentance and right living with Him. 

Having said that, there are certain obvious blockers to a faithful prayer life which sometimes is revealed in fruitlessness. Hear what James says: “You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” (James 4:2-3) James bids us to examine our hearts in our asking. God looks at the hearts – our motives, despite all our efforts to dress up and cover over, is clear as day to the Lord who discerns our hearts. 

Although this section is by no means an exhaustive treatise on what the Bible tells us about prayer, I suppose there is enough to see that the picture of prayer in the Bible is a far cry from Wilkinson’s formula for prayer. 

Prayer: In-Tension 

I don’t pretend to be an example or expert in prayer. I only want to be a diligent student of Scripture, and what I found is this: intentional prayer has been prescribed and modelled by the godly throughout Scripture. But to be a good pray-er, we must hold two truths in tension: the Jabez-like spiritual high of answered prayer, the belief in a generous, all-knowing, mighty God who gives all things for our enjoyment (1 Timothy 6:17); and the Job-like spiritual valley of our earthly disappointments, crying out with the psalmist (Psalm 88). Perhaps with the latter we learn that a helpful posture is to ‘put my hand over my mouth’ (Job 40:4), and say with Job, who am I to answer God and question His ways? 

Maybe in this life we will see the answers to our prayers and questions. But maybe in His wisdom and knowledge He chooses not to reveal these to us, and we feel that God has forsaken us. Either way it is good for us to look upon the crucified Lord Jesus who for our sakes was forsaken by the Father, in an ultimate sense. But the same Lord Jesus, for our sakes, was raised from death to life, and seated at the right hand of the throne of God, that He might return to reign in power. In him this tension is understood. We need not wonder how this tension will be resolved (though it is easier said than done), because it is guaranteed that we will find our quenching and satisfaction under the reign of Christ. 

We can’t tie this up in a nice little packet with a bow on top. Prayer isn’t intended to be fit in neat little boxes in our organised perfect little lives. We should see any attempt to claim that with suspicion. But prayer with intentionality and faith, with all its murky in-between “limbo” of unanswered prayer and child-like trust, is treasured by God. It might be so that we will be blessed in the messy middle.