IS THAT ALL?

Kirsten Beachy

Jabez was honored more than his brothers; and his mother named him Jabez, saying, "Because I bore him in pain." Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, "Oh that you would bless me and enlarge my border, and that your hand might be with me, and that you would keep me from hurt and harm." And God granted what he asked.
—I Chronicles 4:9-10, RSV

Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone? Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!
—Matthew 7:9-11, RSV

Last year, I went job-hunting. We had a new house—and a mortgage to match. I had taken time off to finish my MFA thesis and house hunt, but now it was time to unleash my earning potential—that’s how I thought of it. That’s when I discovered that (1) a graduate degree doesn’t mean that you’ll get called for interviews doing work downtown; indeed, it might send your resume to the trash; and (2) adjunct teaching might build resumes, but it won’t pay mortgages.

After searching for a couple months, I grew nervous. I returned to my alma mater and applied for a 40-hour/week secretarial job. They knew me, and they took me.

I spent a lot of time at the copy machine feeling sorry for myself, duplicating assignments to be used in the sorts of courses that I had once taught myself, back in my days as a graduate instructor. In turns, I thought of Cinderella and the martyrs.

It was silly to feel so low: I made good money, more than many people ever make, I commuted with my husband, and I worked for funny, interesting, sympathetic people. There is no shame in necessary work. My father swept chimneys, and we were proud of him. I didn’t want to be ungrateful for the good job. But at the same time, I felt shattered, the pieces of myself lying strewn around the base of the copy machine.

I told myself that this was the simple result of growing up with inflated ideas about who I would be and what I could do. It took me half the year to confess that I was unhappy, to let one little whiny prayer of complaint slip past the censors: "Is this all?"

How many Mennonites of my generation find it hard to pray for ourselves? I don’t like to do it. I resist it fiercely, and I suspect that others, with similar backgrounds, do too. That’s counter-cultural in a country where the book The Prayer of Jabez: Breaking Through to the Blessed Life tops the New York Times bestseller list and sells nine million copies. Bruce Wilkinson’s book encourages believers to pray the prayer daily for thirty days, with results guaranteed: Oh that you would bless me and enlarge my border, and that your hand might be with me, and that you would keep me from hurt and harm.

While the book promises spiritual prosperity along with material benefits, it’s hard to get past the mountains of Prayer of Jabez kitsch—mousepads, backpacks, key chains, embroidery patterns—and the mountains of money they have made for Wilkinson and his publishing house. The idea repels me: If you pray the right prayer, God will have to bless you? It’s too Harry Potter: Just wave your wand, say accio blessings, and watch them fly in the window.

Jesus says, "Ask and it shall be given unto you," but reality proves we can’t take the statement at face value. Both theologians and popular inspirationalists are kept busy trying to explain why, when you ask and don’t get, you’re really receiving. The truth of "ask and it shall be given" depends on the definition of "it."

This is the first of three reasons that I resist praying for myself. "The blessings will come down as the prayers go up," is too deterministic. It makes God seem like a vending machine: insert prayer, wait for blessing to drop into the tray. When I rant about "vending machine God," one of my friends points out that there’s nothing wrong with vending machines per se: If you’re thirsty and have fifty cents, you can get satisfaction. But there are problems with that picture, even when you aren’t using vending machines in a metaphor. What if the soda you expected doesn’t emerge after all? What will you do?

The U. S. Consumer Product Safety Commission reports that, since 1978, 37 people have been killed and 113 injured by wrestling with unresponsive vending machines. Jacob, who wrestled the angel of the Lord, got off easy with a lamed hip—not bad, compared to the intracerebral bleeding, punctured bladders, or fractured pelvises that folks get fighting the silent machines. Jacob fought for his blessing. He did not insert 50 cents or thirty days of canned prayer to gain his blessing.

A second reason I resist praying for myself: I’m a Mennonite. Our virtue is living more with less. We are aware of needs around the world, of our own comparative abundance. We have too much stuff, too many privileges already—far more than we deserve. We should be praying for mercy, not more. We’re Americans, a nation of chubby, vending-machine fattened children. We need to stop getting, start giving. And on the way to the stake, we should be singing songs of gratitude.

And the final reason? Obstinacy. Conventional wisdom holds that God always answers our prayers: "Sometimes yes, sometimes no, sometimes later." Well, I don’t like to be told "no." I don’t want to admit the possibility of "no." If someone works for me, they’d better say "yes" when I ask them to do something.

Fair enough: That’s how I responded as a secretary. I’ve never been good at delegating responsibility, and if God is going to be unreliable in taking care of the tasks I send God’s way, I’d better keep them in my own inbox.

I wasn’t born critiquing simplistic theology, cringing at abundance, and keeping control. One of my earliest memories is of asking for more.

It’s the Fourth of July. I’m somewhere between ages three and seven, and we’re at my grandmother’s house for celebration and sparklers. Anticipation runs high. Grandma has told me and my sister that she has a special surprise for us. I don’t remember whether she told us on the phone, in the car, or after we arrived, but every fiber of my being is focused on the surprise, some wonderful present, like a stuffed animal or a My Little Pony.

She takes us into the kitchen. "Close your eyes." She places something in my hand.

I open my eyes. It’s a candy bar. Not the big kind. Just a little half-size Three Musketeers. "Is that all?" I ask, cut to the heart. I burst into tears.

My parents, who raised me right, will give me a lecture in the car on the way home about greed and gratitude. I will remember my social solecism forever, the shame of it not wearing off for at least twenty years, when the rest of the story becomes more important than my little gaffe.

The rest of the story is that Grandma came through on the surprise. She called us back into the kitchen a few minutes later. Hidden beneath brown paper lunch sacks were two dolls from her precious doll collection. I took my china doll home, wrapped it in tissue, and hid it in a cardboard box where it stayed until this summer. My sister’s doll, untainted by greediness, stood out on her dresser.

It’s only recently that I have realized the important part of this story is not childish greed. It’s the way Grandma saw my deep disappointment and answered my tragic "Is that all?" with a firm and convincing, "No. It doesn’t have to be all. It is not all."

Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone? Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

If a grandmother, special but, after all, a mere mortal, knows how to be so gracious, how much more gracious can God be to God’s little ones?

Within a week or two of my little prayer by the copy machine ("Is this all?"), the college invited me teach for a year. They even entrusted me with some classes I’ve never touched before. My schedule for next year is one I might have envisioned working my way into somewhere, if I was lucky, over five or ten years. I walked past the copy machine one day in February and literally felt all those little pieces of myself rising up from the floor and coalescing into something new.

Did the tiny prayer get me the job? I’m not qualified to answer that question. Was the job an answer to prayer? Absolutely. I am beginning to believe that in choosing to admit our disappointments and our wishes, we gain. The act of confiding becomes confidence, is confidence, a little thread of faith that it is worth telling God what we want. We often hear that strength comes from prayer, that prayer brings us the resources we need to take those last steps beyond the end of our ropes. We don’t often hear that it takes strength to pray.

That strength is even more necessary because of the unanswered prayers. For all the success of his prayer, Jabez was born in sorrow: His mother named him Jabez, saying, "Because I bore him in pain." My friend Dennis told us about asking his father for some new clothes when his hand-me-downs and ragged shoes were ridiculed at public school. His father’s answer? Not even an acknowledgement. "Go hoe the corn."

He asked for clothes; his father gave him a hoe. Don’t we pray for peace together every Sunday at church? What about hunger? What about malaria? What about our own secret unresolved sorrows?

Jesus made wine out of water, snap! But peace out of war? It takes a certain kind of audacity to pray for something so large, and to keep on praying, to wrestle like Jacob, to keep coming back to the gates each day, like the woman in Jesus’ parable about the unjust judge.

I’m nowhere near this; I’ve barely started to ask. I still need my arm twisted to admit I want something. I’m no expert, and I won’t give out any thirty-day guarantees. Can I say that, if you keep asking, God will give you what you want? No. No indeed.

But keep asking.

I’m learning to believe that, somehow, God will say, "That’s not all."

—Kirsten Beachy lives, writes, and dabbles in theology in Briery Branch, Virginia. She earned an MFA in creative writing from West Virginia University. She attends Shalom Mennonite in Harrisonburg, Virginia, where her article was first shared as a "short summer sermon."