Mark 1:35-39

Several years ago my wife and I had the privilege of renting a little house in the middle part of France around Tours. We arrived on a Friday, and after we unpacked and became familiar with the house, we realized we needed to get a traveler's check cashed because no one there accepted American dollars. But we couldn't find a place in this small village where we could get cash. Finally, the proprietor at an inn suggested we go to the next village where an ATM was located on the village square.

I'm from a different generation. We are accustomed to cashing checks, not punching buttons on an ATM machine. But it was either that or starve to death. We drove to the village and found the ATM machine in an unlighted area on the village square. So here are two Americans, jet lagged, never having used an ATM machine in their lives, bent over this machine trying to get money in French. Of course the machine has a language selection button, and I pushed the English button, but what came through was Frenglish — not good English and probably bad French.

Advertisement

Carolyn and I both tried to punch the right buttons, and we finally received our money. We were elated! We had learned to program the money machine! The next morning we went to the grocery store and stocked up on groceries. Occasionally, I suggested we go play with the money machine again. I had decided it was fun getting money out of the metal box on the square. We had learned to program the money machine.

We are living in a culture that talks a lot about prayer these days. I have bought several books on prayer and realized that prayer has become a cottage industry in the religious life of America. There are more books, spiritual aids, and quick-and-easy devotionals about prayer on the Internet than you can imagine. One book which hit the market and was on the New York Times bestseller list is The Prayer of Jabez. At the time I bought mine, Eight million copies of this 100-page book had been sold. It's okay, but it is to eating as McDonald's is to gourmet dining. It's food that you can start on, but you couldn't live on it all the time. I have bought other books, and I found out that the prayer market industry is like programming God. I felt they were teaching me how to program the God machine — punch this, punch that; pray this way, not that way. I've never seen a father who sits back and says, "No, you didn't bring the question right. Come in and say the words this way."

Our church has had a seminar on Jabez. Some of you may have a copy of the book. If it has been some help to you, that's fine. You are not going to lose your soul from reading it but your soul won't grow much if that's the only thing you ever read. It's rent-a-God, or rent-a-church, because it sounds as if you read the words a certain way, God will do what you have asked. Lest we misunderstand each other, I realize I may be dealing out of a great deal of jealousy. That book has sold millions of copies, and my last book sold eight hundred. I am cursed with a good theological education, and what I want us to go beyond that. It's like trying to write a dissertation after having studied in the Reader's Digest. You can't do it all at that level. In fact, if the Jabez book is right, there is an issue my wife and I have been praying about ardently, fervently for thirty-five years, and it still hasn't changed. Somewhere The Prayer of Jabez did not address the hard issues of life.