December 27, 2005 (first published May 18, 2005) (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -

Bruce Wilkinson, author of the misguided book The Prayer of Jabez, has abandoned his grandiose Dream for Africa program. According to a front page Wall Street Journal report, Wilkinson quit the project this October, only two years after launching it (“Unanswered Prayers,” Wall Street Journal, Dec. 19).

After selling some millions of copies of The Prayer of Jabez (22 million to date), Wilkinson said he was called of God to move to Africa. On a trip there in 2002 he told Christianity Today, “God ripped open our chest, took out our heart, dug a hole in Africa, put it in, covered it with soil and said, ‘Now, follow your heart and move down to Africa.’”

After moving to southern Africa, Wilkinson announced plans for his Dream for Africa in Swaziland, which would feature such things as Western tourists planting door-sized vegetable plots for Swazis (they don’t even have to dig and prepare the soil but merely insert the seedlings!), sexual abstinence programs, and a massive $190 million African Dream Village, an orphanage that would double as a tourist attraction. It was to provide a home for 10,000 of Swaziland’s AIDS orphans and was to include a luxury hotel and an 18-hole golf course and much more.

Wilkinson teaches in The Prayer of Jabez: Breaking Through to the Blessed Life (which is based on the prayer found in 1 Chron. 14:10) that people should pray the prayer of Jabez word-for-word, every day for four weeks, expecting special blessing from God. In the Preface, Wilkinson says: “I want to teach you how to pray a daring prayer that God always answers. It is brief--only one sentence with four parts--and tucked away in the Bible, but I believe it contains they key to a life of extraordinary favor with God. This petition has radically changed what I expect from God and what I experience every day by His power. In fact, thousands of believers who are applying its truths are seeing miracles happen on a regular basis.”

After moving to Swaziland with his wife and youngest daughter, Wilkinson was praying his Jabez prayer and pursuing his African dream. The Swazi king, who has 14 wives (promiscuity is the major cause behind Swaziland’s terrible AIDS statistics) and high government officials were apparently not tuned into Jabez, because they refused to sign on to Wilkinson’s dream village, at least not in the time schedule that Wilkinson laid out for them.

By July of this year, Wilkinson was complaining in an e-mail to the Wall Street Journal that “Swaziland takes a massive amount of effort to do the simplest things.” Welcome to the Third World, Mr. Wilkinson!

In October he announced in a press release that “our work in Africa is complete.” The Africans, though, have a different perspective. Gcina Mdluli, a volunteer in Wilkinson’s anti-AIDS program, said, “How can he leave everything in the middle of the road?” Pastor Zakes Nxumalo said, “I don’t know how to handle this. People won’t understand.”

Wilkinson said he “is trying to come to grips with a miracle that didn’t materialize despite his unceasing recitation of the Jabez prayer” (Wall Street Journal). Pathetically, he said, “I asked hard enough.”

What are some of the lessons from this sad story?

The first lesson is that Wilkinson’s Prayer of Jabez philosophy is wrong and he has demonstrated that beyond question in his own life. God is never obligated to answer my prayer, regardless of how right it might seem in my own eyes or how carefully it is worded or how sincerely it is asked or how many times it is repeated or how earnestly it is voiced. Prayer is a priceless privilege and responsibility, and I believe in asking God for great things and expecting great things. We have been doing this for 32 years and have had the joy of witnessing some mighty answers, but prayer does not make God my servant; prayer is never demanding but is always asking and is always willing to accept the answer of “No.” Bible believing prayer is not a magic mantra. Even Paul the apostle prayed, “Making request, if by any means now at length I might have a prosperous journey by the will of God to come unto you” (Rom. 1:10).

The second lesson is that the Great Commission is not grandiose social work projects. Christ’s Great Commission, which is repeated five times in the New Testament by way of emphasis, is to preach the Gospel to every soul in every nation, baptize those who believe, and disciple them in the context of Bible-believing assemblies. That is what we see commanded in Matthew 28:18-20; Mark 16:15; Luke 24:44-48; John 20:21; Acts 1:8 and that is what we see practiced in the book of Acts. The apostles and early churches, who were the firsthand recipients of their Master’s Commission, never involved themselves in grandiose socio-political schemes.

This, by the way, is a simple Bible lesson that Rick Warren also needs to learn. In late 2003 Wilkinson preached a message about “God’s Dream” to Warren’s Saddleback Church (after having preached the same message in Self-Esteem Guru Robert Schuller’s church at week earlier). This message led to the formation of Wilkinson’s Dream for Africa scheme. Soon thereafter Warren announced his own grandiose P.E.A.C.E. social work program for Africa and beyond.

A third lesson is that Americans do not understand Third World countries and cultures and a tourist visit or even a couple of years in country does not change that. I have lived in one of the darkest parts of South Asia for 14 years, and I am only beginning to understand how the people think and how their culture works.

A fourth lesson is that all missionary work must be indigenous. The goal is to establish something that the national people can do on their own and that they will carry on with their own resources. Not only did Wilkinson not have the right plan, he envisioned far too much foreign participation in the plan.

A final lesson is that the fulfillment of “dreams” requires great patience and persistence. Wilkinson announced that he was going to help one million orphans and literally change the society of at least part of Africa, and then quit after just two years. That is ridiculous. Even if his dream were scriptural and even if he had God’s blessing on it, two years is nothing.