t’s not often that a slim hardcover book on a religious theme hits the top of the best-seller list. But that is what happened to Bruce H. Wilkinson’s The Prayer of Jabez. Released last November by Multnomah Pub-lishers, the $10 volume has already sold more than 4 million copies and has moved to number one on Amazon.com.

Jabez’s prayer, recorded in 1 Chronicles 4:9, 10, would seem unlikely material for a best-seller:  “Jabez was more honorable than his brothers. His mother had named him Jabez, saying, ‘I gave birth to him in pain.’ 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” (NIV).

We know nothing about Jabez apart from this brief account. “Jabez” sounds like the Hebrew word for “pain,” and apparently he was so named by his mother after a difficult birth. Think of what it would be like to be saddled with such a moniker. Sometimes hurtful, sometimes positive, names can become self-fulfilling prophecies.

Brother Pain could hardly avoid thinking about the name he bore. Perhaps he became preoccupied with the dark side of existence, anxious lest his sorrowful beginning become the hallmark of his life. Out of struggle and heart searching Jabez implored the Lord that instead of pain he would receive a blessing, that his life would expand rather than contract.

And the Lord answered Jabez’s prayer.

That fact seems to have impressed many who buy Wilkinson’s book. An article in the Washington Post, “Unbelievable Success of ‘Prayer of Jabez’” (May 17, 2001), mentions a series of people who are supposed to have been helped by praying this prayer, from a woman who suffers from bronchitis to a man who falls 300 feet off a Colorado mountaintop. And Wilkinson writes in the book’s introduction: “I want to teach you how to pray a prayer that God always answers.”

But the Lord doesn’t require set words or formulas before He deigns to answer us. Jesus, the Lord of prayer, discouraged mere repetition of words (see Matthew 6:7), and gave us the only model prayer. 

To suggest that the particular prayer offered up by Jabez somehow has power in itself turns prayer into superstition. God hears the cry of our hearts, hears even when we can’t put our feelings into words. The Holy Spirit, Paul tells us, takes our deepest longings and intercedes for us before the divine throne (Rom. 8:27). No, when the Scripture tells us that God granted Jabez’s request, it is simply giving us a factual record, not setting out a surefire formula.

Frankly, for most of my life I did not think highly of Jabez’s petition. I read these words scores of times, and Jabez always struck me as a curious character, and his prayer as one wholly centered in self.

A two-part series on the prayer of Jabez by Peter Bath, senior pastor of Sligo church in Takoma Park, Maryland, opened my eyes. Three points in particular seemed to reach out and grab me, and have enriched my life ever since.

Related Links Jabez: A Book Review Jabez: The Website Author Profile

“Enlarge my territory”: I find in these words a challenge to dream and to do new things for God. As Ellen White has told us, “There is no limit to the usefulness of one who, by putting self aside, makes room for the working of the Holy Spirit upon his heart, and lives a life wholly consecrated to God” (The Desire of Ages, pp. 250, 251). God, I believe, wants to use us for His glory in ways we scarcely imagine, but routine, habit, fear, and laziness prevent His working.

“Bless me”: We want cash; the Lord wants to give us the kingdom. I tend to focus on my comfort and well-being; the Lord wants to bring me through experiences that will increase His family and prepare me to live with Him forever.

“Save me from pain”: Here lay the deepest insight Peter Bath brought me. Since “Jabez” is like the word for pain, Jabez could be understood to have prayed: Save me from Jabez! And I need to pray: Save me from Bill Johnsson!

How often self gets in the way of God’s plan. Just as soon as God begins to do something wonderful for us, pride rises up. Self inhibits, runs ahead, messes up everything. Only God can save us from ourselves.

But He will, if we ask Him. As for Jabez of old, God will grant our request.

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William G. Johnsson is the editor of the Adventist Review.