DazeBlog

Please bow your heads.

Oh, that You would bless me indeed,

and enlarge my territory,

that Your hand would be with me,

and that You would keep me from evil,

that I may not cause pain.

That short, easy-to-memorize prayer is the centerpiece of a hot-selling book, "The Prayer of Jabez" by Bruce H. Wilkinson, that has ascended to the top of many national bestseller lists and has sold more than 4.4 million copies since it was published in November.

Yesterday it was No. 1 at Amazon.com, an astounding feat for an overtly preachy book. Gus Theoharis, owner of the brand-new Agape Christian Book Store on 15th Street NW, says he has sold 30 or 40 copies since opening on May 2.

To hear folks tell it, the slender volume changes lives. A slew of testimonials can be found at the Web site, www.prayerofjabez.com.

A woman named Joanna, for instance, writes that she suffers from bronchitis. Her sister, who owns a Christian bookstore, gave her the book. One night when Joanna was overcome with coughing and wheezing and couldn't sleep, she writes, "I started rubbing my hand up and down my chest in the area of the strong wheezing and said this prayer along with a request to God asking him to remove this wheezing." Lo and behold, the coughing and wheezing stopped and Joanna fell asleep.

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True story, says Joanna's sister Christina Esters, 47, an owner of No Other Name Book Store in downtown Perth Amboy, N.J. Esters says she has moved 185 copies of the $10 hardcover, most of them in the past three months. "More people are coming into the bookstore, coming for prayer and words of encouragement," she says.

There are other, more amazing endorsements, from: a guy who fell 300 feet off a Colorado mountaintop; a man whose car was carjacked and whose kids were kidnapped on his way home from Washington; and another whose laptop would not, for some miraculous reason, connect to a pornographic Web site when he was filled with lust.

The popular petition springs from the Old Testament book of First Chronicles. Jabez lived in southern Israel. He was a member of the tribe of Judah and rose to a leadership role in his clan. His mother says she called him Jabez (pronounced by Silva and others as JAY-bezz) because "I bore him in pain." Jabez is the Hebrew word for pain, Wilkinson writes. After Jabez prays to the God of Israel, the Bible says, "God granted him what he requested."

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A New Jersey native, Wilkinson was in his senior year of seminary in Dallas, wondering where God would lead him, when he first read the prayer. Today he is an evangelist with Walk Thru the Bible Ministries. He has written at least eight inspirational books and edited several more. He has been a speaker at Promise Keepers gatherings and Campus Crusade for Christ. He lives in Atlanta with his wife, Darlene, and their three children.

"I want to teach you how to pray a prayer that God always answers," he writes in the book's introduction.

God has answered the prayers of Ken Silva, pastor of the 800-member River Oak Grace Community Church in Oakdale, Calif. The church's motto is "Reaching the World from Little Old Oakdale."

Silva, who preached about the Prayer of Jabez last Sunday, takes a slightly more philosophical approach to the prayer than some. He says he's been uttering variations for 20 years or so, but it's only in the past few weeks that the book has helped him focus.

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The sticking point for many people, Silva says, is the part about enlarging territory. The prayer is interpreted by some to be selfish and reminiscent of the "prosperity gospel" that swept across the nation several years ago and attempted to validate the rich.

"It comes right down to the motive," Silva explains. "If we say, 'God bless me so that I can give blessing, expand my territory to spread your kingdom,' then that's all right."

Silva adds, "I don't want success; I want significance."

He says, "This is not a superstitious-type thing."

Not everyone shows reverence toward Wilkinson's work. On Amazon.com, one reader points out the various English translations of the prayer. "If the Bible translation is so inconsistent," the reader writes, "why trust a book based on its sloppy work?"

Wilkinson, who uses the New King James Version of the Bible, deals with the various translations in his book. The book, which is like a stemwinder sermon, also includes contemporary and Bible-based anecdotes, other Scripture references and occasional exhortations.

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For Don Jacobson, the Prayer of Jabez has worked like a charm. Jacobson, 44, is the book's publisher. "It's been a blessing," says Jacobson, who is trying to figure out what to do about the explosive growth of his company, Multnomah Publishers. "What does life after 'Jabez' look like?"

He says Wilkinson's next book, "Secrets of the Vine," has been out less than two months and has already sold more than a million copies. "Jabez" and "Secrets" are both in the company's "Breakthrough Series."

Jacobson, who has been publishing books since 1987, says he hopes to use the money to enlarge his territory and spread the gospel near and far. Wilkinson, for instance, is in Indonesia now, setting up Bible study programs.

"It's a tricky balance," Jacobson admits. "Have we benefited personally? Yes. Have I taken a raise? No."

"The temptation," says Jacobson, after reciting the prayer by heart over the phone, "is to take credit." But he says he is undeserving. He predicted the company would sell only 30,000 copies.

Bruce Wilkinson's "Prayer" has sold more than 4 million copies.

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