The Special Blessings Prayer by Donna Partow

Author:Donna Partow [Partow, Donna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781514158821
Publisher: Donna Partow
Published: 2015-05-30T04:00:00+00:00

9. What If That Person Really IS a Villain?

The likelihood that God sees anyone on your list as nothing more than a one-dimensional villain is fairly remote. But then again, it’s not impossible. The Bible tells us God hated Esau. That he is angry with the wicked every day. Hey, this is a tough one: that he literally fashioned Pharaoh as an object of his wrath.

In this story, God clearly agreed with the general consensus that Nabal was a villain and punished him accordingly:

When Abigail went to Nabal, he was in the house holding a banquet like that of a king. He was in high spirits and very drunk. So she told him nothing at all until daybreak. Then in the morning, when Nabal was sober, his wife told him all these things, and his heart failed him and he became like a stone. About ten days later, the Lord struck Nabal and he died. (vs. 36-38)

When I first read this story, I actually found it a bit shocking the way Abigail talked about her husband:

Please pay no attention, my lord, to that wicked man Nabal. He is just like his name—his name means Fool, and folly goes with him. (v. 25)

Isn’t this book about blessing people who’ve hurt us? Why doesn’t Abigail have to bless Nabal? To bless means to speak well and even to think well of another person. She’s certainly not speaking well or thinking well of her husband. If she’s such a great biblical example, why isn’t she praying The Special Blessings Prayer and walking through this whole process in relationship to her own husband?

I’ve been wrestling with that question for a few months and have come to the conclusion that circumstantial evidence supports the conclusion that she handled this relationship about as well as could be expected. More about that in a second. We know she said some pretty terrible things about him in the middle of a crisis. Whether it was her habit to talk about him like that, we simply do not know. I find that highly unlikely, based on everything else we observe about her character, but I can’t argue that case from the text. We know that within twenty-four hours of this blow-up, her husband was in a catatonic state. And ten days after that, he was dead. What she did, how she prayed, the words she spoke sitting at his bedside—we simply have no way of knowing. My strong conviction is that God gave her enough time to make peace with him, so she could move on with a clear conscience. But I don’t know that for a fact.

And speaking of what we don’t know. We have no idea what happened prior to 1 Samuel 25. We don’t know how horribly he treated her, although we do know he was mean and he may well have been an alcoholic. And few things on this earth are harder to endure than a mean drunk. I’d rather not say much more about how I know so much about that.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.