During the past five years, I’ve been putting the mantra to a very specific test with astounding results. I hum the mantra, asking God for more real ministry, then following the nudge of the Holy Spirit, I ask a complete stranger, “How can I help you?” Many of them correct my grammar, but others just say, “Beat it creepo.” But once at the Atlanta airport, in transit between real holy ministry events, I walked up to a stunning divorcee business woman, wearing all sorts of expensive Italian accessories. I blurted out, “What can I do for you?”
“Beat it creepo,” she said.
“No, really, what can I do for you?” I said.
“I’m going to call security if you don’t leave me alone,” she said sideways.
“No, really, what can I do for you?” I said again.
“Oh, you must be one of those guys with the Jabez mantra,” she said. “Six others beat you already.” She paused. “Here’s what you can do then,” she said. My eyes lit up-it was one of those Christian sentence moments, I could tell.

She looked directly at me and said, “Be human! You’re too ethereal and ghostly. Your fingers aren’t even touching your briefcase, for Pete’s sake,” she said. “Grow up. Doesn’t the Incarnation mean anything? Life is more than passing out Christian sentences. Pure religion is to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction. Show me how to see the glory of God in the ordinary things of life; show me how to be faithful and find meaning in the quotidian; show me how to ‘eat my bread with joy and drink my wine with a merry heart’ like Solomon says. Show me how to raise children so that, from them, generations will rise up and count me blessed. Show me how to live life artfully. Show me….”

She kept shouting after me as I wandered off.

Douglas Jones, The Mantra of Jabez