Delete

In July I received one of those “Forward this to x number of friends and good things will come to you” emails.  I hate them and usually simply push “Delete”.  Because this one came from a friend whose situation is so unique that I wanted to do something for her, I read the darn thing.  What was I thinking???

I found this particular “Forward for good things to happen” email particularly disturbing.  I can only assume that others found it acceptable because it has to do with God and praying.  And, after all, it originated with a woman who is, what I guess I would call “prominent”, at church.  (Although I do not know her, most people seem to and I know she is extremely active.)  So it is in a totally different category than all those other “good fortune” emails, right?  Not so much, from my perspective.  But see what you think.   

Hi!

Hope all is well. When you have a moment to yourself, read this, it was difficult for me to decide who I thought would DO this because many people claim to pray, but not everyone does. I hope I chose the right twelve. Please send this back to me. May everyone who receives this message be blessed.

There are 12 months / 12 disciples / 12 tribes of Israel / Jesus' birth celebrated in the 12th month. There is nothing attached. Just send this to twelve others. Prayer is one of the best free gifts we receive. There is no cost, just a lot of reward. Make sure you pray, and pray believing God will answer.

May today be all you need it to be. May the peace of God and the freshness of the Holy Spirit rest in your thoughts, rule in your dreams tonight, and conquer all your fears. May God manifest himself today in ways you have never experienced before. May your joys be fulfilled, your dreams be closer, and your prayers be answered. I pray that faith enters a new height for you; I pray that your territory is enlarged. I pray for peace, healing, health, happiness, prosperity, joy, true and undying love for God.

Now, will you send this to 12 people right now, not "I'll do it later".

You will have 12 people praying for you. Remember to send it back to me...... I count as 2, you'll see why.

 

So, now, having perused the email let me share with any reader why I find it offensive.  No where do I see the email’s initiator encourage the addressees to pray for good things for others outside the groups of twelve who might potentially receive the mailing.   Rather, the prayer focuses on the recipients and all that would make their lives so wonderful.  It seems to me that is made abundantly clear when the prayer requests that our territory be enlarged.  I fully realize that “territory be enlarged” is used symbolically and does not just refer to property.  No matter; the prayer is still asking for more; be it more influence, more authority, more control.   Where we are, our position in life, is not enough.  Furthermore, praying for prosperity says what we already have is not enough.  In fact, the very meaning of prosperity goes beyond any improvement in circumstances and/or standing.  It denotes success AND affluence. 

Remember when our children were very small?  They would get one gift, one treat, whatever, and then immediately ask for something more.  I think most parents worked at curbing that “I want more” attitude.  Not only that, but we taught them to say “Thank you”.  We did that so early the little ones couldn’t even pronounce the “th” sound.  Nor could they enunciate the word “you”.  It came out “Tank ooh”.  They learned to express appreciation, without any clue of what exactly that meant.  I can’t help but wonder if God wouldn’t like to see a little gratitude in this prayer along with that request for prosperity. 

Making prosperity a prayer request seems strange to me to begin with, but when it is not sought for others that we do not know, I just don’t understand it.  At the same time we were trying to get our little ones to be polite and express gratitude, we took pains to socialize them so they would learn not be selfish. The result?  As adults, even we “Christian” adults, those of us who espouse the belief that we should love others as well as we love ourselves, all too often live self-absorbed lives.  I offer this emailed prayer as proof. 

How did we get here?  I think there are a number of possible explanations.  Let me just mention one for now, however, the prayer of Jabez.  This Old Testament Biblical character very briefly shows up in the book of I Chronicles.  He asks God to bless him, to give him large tracts of land.  He requests that God personally protect him.  As if that were not enough, he asks to be free of any trouble and pain.  Wow!  Very unfortunately, at the conclusion of his prayer we are told that God gave Jabez what he wanted. 

You know someone got a book out of that, right?  In the preface of The Prayer of Jabez: Breaking Through to the Blessed Life, the author asks “Do you want to be extravagantly blessed by God?...To ask God for the abundant blessings He longs to give you?...” (Emphasis entirely mine).  Millions of copies sold within a relatively very short period of time, of course.   Trying to be fair, all of us would prefer a life without trouble or pain.  Nonetheless, how we Christians claim, on the one hand, that the Old Testament sets the stage for the important part of the story, the New Testament and God’s Son, yet on the other hand, want all we can get, beyond what we need, in direct contradiction to the teachings of Jesus is a position that cannot be defended.  Unlike the prayer Jabez uttered, Jesus’ prayers were selfless.  

And the interesting thing is that Jesus left no doubt, no uncertainty about how to pray.  He told us!  He gave us the format.  We call it the Lord’s Prayer.  Given how we refer to the two prayers, Jabez’ versus the Lord’s Prayer seems to provide a big flashing arrow pointing to which choice to make as our prayer “blueprint”.  At least to me that appears true.  And speaking for myself, I do not understand how “I pray for...prosperity...” is modeled after “Give us this day our daily bread”.  

Let me set aside the fact that I am comparing two prayers for a moment.  I’ll imagine that I am comparing two life viewpoints.  Still I would prefer the philosophy that is “us”, “our” and “daily”.  It appeals to me first of all because it is inclusive.  But it goes so much further.  It indicates complete equality. In asking for our daily bread, it requests the exact opposite of this emailed prayer found in my inbox that July day.  It focuses only on a most basic human, life-sustaining need; nothing more and nothing special for some of us. 

Need I say that I did not respond to the email?  I did what I should have done from the beginning.  For any non-Christians who find this email/prayer disgusting, don’t fret.  I pushed “Delete” for all of you as well as myself.  Okay, so maybe I enthusiastically punched that “Delete” button.  Would you believe I am still waiting to feel bad about that?