wfn.org | Commentary: A tale of two prayers

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June 25, 2001  News media contact: Tim Tanton·(615)742-5470·Nashville, Tenn.
10-71BP{290}

NOTE: A head-and-shoulders photograph of the Rev. Ken Carter is available.

A UMNS Commentary
By the Rev. Ken Carter*

I first heard about the prayer while visiting family in another state. I had
stopped in to see a friend from college who now operates a Christian
bookstore. 

"You have to read this book! We can't keep it in the store!" he told me
enthusiastically. 

The title was The Prayer of Jabez, written by Bruce Wilkinson and taken from
a little known passage in 1 Chronicles 4:10. The prayer is simple: "Oh, that
you would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, and that your hand
would be with me, that you would keep me from evil, and that I might not
cause pain" (NKJV).

I returned home, not having read the book (my friend had sold out of them),
only to encounter three folks that very week who mentioned the book. I went
out and bought a copy. It is a small book, 92 pages, and I read it over
lunch. It was at times inspiring, and at other times convicting. When I am
reading books on the spiritual life, I try not to be too analytical or
critical. I have learned that those tendencies can be a way of avoiding
something God might be saying to me. And yet, in reading The Prayer of
Jabez, and in saying the words prayerfully, I had the sense that something
essential was missing. 

A few weeks later, I was able to begin making sense out of my emerging
response to this book. By now it had sold 4 million copies. I thought about
the good fortune of my college friend, selling all of those thin volumes for
$8 to $10 each. I also imagined folks being genuinely helped by the
commentary on the prayer. Still, there had to be more. Something was
missing.

What was missing became apparent to me as I concluded a year of helping
teach Disciple Bible Study. At the course's end there is a focus on
relationship with God. This relationship is established through a covenant
and remembered in Holy Communion. Within the closing service are the
following words: "I give myself completely to you, God. Assign me to my
place in your creation. Let me suffer for you. Give me the work you would
have me do. Give me many tasks, or have me step aside while you call others.
Put me forward or humble me. Give me riches or let me live in poverty. I
freely give all that I am and all that I have to you..."

These words are taken from the Covenant Renewal Service in the Wesleyan
tradition. They were published in 1753 by John Wesley, and can be traced to
a Puritan text written almost one hundred years earlier. The first covenant
service in the Methodist movement was probably celebrated in 1755, according
to The United Methodist Book of Worship. The service has been a popular one
on New Year's Eve, New Year's Day and on the first Sunday of a new year.

These words of the covenant prayer have been part of our devotional life for
almost 250 years. With the advent of Disciple, they have been introduced to
more than 1 million Methodists meeting in small groups. In saying the words
at the conclusion of Disciple, I realized that our spiritual birthright, as
people called Methodist, was not in the prayer of Jabez. Our spiritual
heritage is captured in the words of the covenant prayer. They are
profoundly biblical and express a radical dependence on God and submission
to God's will. They are almost a commentary on a briefer prayer of our Lord:
"not what I want, but what you want" (Matthew 26: 39). 

Reading the words of the prayer of Jabez (and Wilkinson's commentary on it)
alongside the covenant prayer presents starkly contrasting visions of the
Christian life: one is about self-fulfillment, the other self-denial; one is
about changing God's mind, the other about submitting to God's purpose; one
is personal, the other is corporate; one is in harmony with a culture of
acquisition and consumption, the other is in conflict with expanding markets
and egos.

By grace, God welcomes all of our prayers.  "We do not know how to pray as
we ought," the apostle Paul wrote in Romans 8:26. God takes the inadequacy
of all of our prayers, hears our true intentions and responds.
Paradoxically, God did expand the territory of a group of disciples who were
shaped by a prayer that asked for nothing other than to be of service to
God's will and purpose. My appeal to United Methodists is to recover another
prayer that has been practiced for 250 years, a prayer that has been
transformative to millions of believers across the generations, many of whom
know the fulfillment of the covenant prayer's concluding petition: "May this
covenant made on earth continue for all eternity."

# # #

*Carter is senior pastor of Mount Tabor United Methodist Church in
Winston-Salem, N.C., and author of The Gifted Pastor: Finding and Using Your
Spiritual Gifts, published by Abingdon.

Commentaries provided by United Methodist News Service do not necessarily
represent the opinions or policies of UMNS or the United Methodist Church.

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