The Special Blessings Prayer Read online

  The SPECIAL BLESSINGS PRAYER

  DONNA PARTOW

  Copyright © 2015Donna Partow

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 1514158825

  ISBN-13: 978-1514158821

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including informational storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the copyright holder, except for brief quotations in a review.

  Cover photo by Suzanne Temming

  All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version NIV.

  Scripture quotations labeled KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible.

  DEDICATION

  This book is dedicated with love to my “family” at Koro Sun Resort on the beautiful island of Vanua Levu, Fiji. Thanks for the smiles, the laughter and love. Most of all, for giving me both the place and the space to write the words on these pages. I will never be the same..

  CONTENTS

  A Gift For You

  The Story of David, Nabal and Abigail

  1. Introduction

  2. Begin With Your Special Blessings List

  3. Determine What You Are Owed

  4. Change One Variable, Change the Entire Equation

  5. Rewrite the Story

  6. Would You Accept It from His Hands?

  7. Place The Blame In the Right Place

  8. Look Past Your Pain

  9. What If That Person Really IS a Villain?

  10. Find Out What God Says about That Person

  11. Whether or Not

  12. Could There Be a Way Forward?

  13. How Favor is Unleashed

  14. How To Get the Most Out of the Prayer

  15. This Prayer Won’t Do You Any Good

  Thank You!

  About The Author

  A Gift For You

  You are about to read a book about unleashing Special Blessings! What better way to get started than with a special blessing? So I’d like to give you a gift. It’s a powerful video presentation on “The 3 Tests You Must Pass to Step into Your Destiny.” You’ll also receive a workbook for taking notes and an ebook edition of the teaching.

  I know it will be a blessing to you. Just visit: www.specialblessingsprayer.com/gift to claim your gift.

  If I can pray for you, stop by my Facebook Page to share your request.

  Love & Prayers,

  ~ Donna

  The Story of David, Nabal and Abigail

  Now Samuel died, and all Israel assembled and mourned for him; and they buried him at his home in Ramah.

  Then David moved down into the Desert of Maon. A certain man in Maon, who had property there at Carmel, was very wealthy. He had a thousand goats and three thousand sheep, which he was shearing in Carmel. His name was Nabal and his wife’s name was Abigail. She was an intelligent and beautiful woman, but her husband, a Calebite, was surly and mean in his dealings.

  While David was in the desert, he heard that Nabal was shearing sheep. So he sent ten young men and said to them, “Go up to Nabal at Carmel and greet him in my name. Say to him: ‘Long life to you! Good health to you and your household! And good health to all that is yours!

  “‘Now I hear that it is sheep-shearing time. When your shepherds were with us, we did not mistreat them, and the whole time they were at Carmel nothing of theirs was missing. Ask your own servants and they will tell you. Therefore be favorable toward my young men, since we come at a festive time. Please give your servants and your son David whatever you can find for them.’”

  When David’s men arrived, they gave Nabal this message in David’s name. Then they waited.

  Nabal answered David’s servants, “Who is this David? Who is this son of Jesse? Many servants are breaking away from their masters these days. Why should I take my bread and water, and the meat I have slaughtered for my shearers, and give it to men coming from who knows where?”

  David’s men turned around and went back. When they arrived, they reported every word. David said to his men, “Put on your swords!” So they put on their swords, and David put on his. About four hundred men went up with David, while two hundred stayed with the supplies.

  One of the servants told Nabal’s wife Abigail: “David sent messengers from the desert to give our master his greetings, but he hurled insults at them. Yet these men were very good to us. They did not mistreat us, and the whole time we were out in the fields near them nothing was missing. Night and day they were a wall around us all the time we were herding our sheep near them. Now think it over and see what you can do, because disaster is hanging over our master and his whole household. He is such a wicked man that no one can talk to him.”

  Abigail lost no time. She took two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five dressed sheep, five seahs of roasted grain, a hundred cakes of raisins and two hundred cakes of pressed figs, and loaded them on donkeys. Then she told her servants, “Go on ahead; I’ll follow you.” But she did not tell her husband Nabal.

  As she came riding her donkey into a mountain ravine, there were David and his men descending toward her, and she met them. David had just said, “It’s been useless—all my watching over this fellow’s property in the desert so that nothing of his was missing. He has paid me back evil for good. May God deal with David, be it ever so severely, if by morning I leave alive one male of all who belong to him!”

  When Abigail saw David, she quickly got off her donkey and bowed down before David with her face to the ground. She fell at his feet and said: “My lord, let the blame be on me alone. Please let your servant speak to you; hear what your servant has to say. May my lord pay no attention to that wicked man Nabal. He is just like his name—his name is Fool, and folly goes with him. But as for me, your servant, I did not see the men my master sent.

  “Now since the Lord has kept you, my master, from bloodshed and from avenging yourself with your own hands, as surely as the Lord lives and as you live, may your enemies and all who intend to harm my master be like Nabal. And let this gift, which your servant has brought to my master, be given to the men who follow you.

  “Please forgive your servant’s offense, for the Lord will certainly make a lasting dynasty for my master, because he fights the Lord’s battles. Let no wrongdoing be found in you as long as you live. Even though someone is pursuing you to take your life, the life of my master will be bound securely in the bundle of the living by the Lord your God. But the lives of your enemies he will hurl away as from the pocket of a sling. When the Lord has done for my master every good thing he promised concerning him and has appointed him leader over Israel, my master will not have on his conscience the staggering burden of needless bloodshed or of having avenged himself. And when the Lord has brought my master success, remember your servant.”

  David said to Abigail, “Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, who has sent you today to meet me. May you be blessed for your good judgment and for keeping me from bloodshed this day and from avenging myself with my own hands. Otherwise, as surely as the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, who has kept me from harming you, if you had not come quickly to meet me, not one male belonging to Nabal would have been left alive by daybreak.”

  Then David accepted from her hand what she had brought him and said, “Go home in peace. I have heard your words and granted your request.”

  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 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 str
uck Nabal and he died.

  When David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, “Praise be to the Lord, who has upheld my cause against Nabal for treating me with contempt. He has kept his servant from doing wrong and has brought Nabal’s wrongdoing down on his own head.”

  Then David sent word to Abigail, asking her to become his wife. His servants went to Carmel and said to Abigail, “David has sent us to you to take you to become his wife.”

  She bowed down with her face to the ground and said, “Here is your maidservant, ready to serve you and wash the feet of my master’s servants.” Abigail quickly got on a donkey and, attended by her five maids, went with David’s messengers and became his wife.

  1 Samuel 25: 1-42

  1. Introduction

  What do you want?

  That’s a loaded question, right? But what do you really want? You want to love and be loved. You want relationships that are enjoyable, not filled with pain and confusion. You want your life to make sense and for circumstances to actually work in your favor, rather that feeling like the whole world is conspiring against you. And you want power to live what you believe and the ability to walk away from stupid habits and self-destructive behaviors. You wouldn’t mind praying…and actually getting answers!

  You want your life to work. You want to be, in a word, BLESSED.

  That’s a great word, by the way. It literally means not only happy but so happy everyone around you ought to be jealous of you. Seriously! When God says, “I’ll bless you and make you a blessing,” he’s saying that he wants to write a story in your life that’s so beautiful, so incredible, so unbelievable that everyone who hears about it should be envious! Imagine that.

  But how do we step into that level of blessing? That place in God that is so immeasurably above anything we could ever ask or imagine, that people living ordinary lives are tempted to jealousy—which, sad to say, they will be…but that’s a whole different book and not your problem. Love them and let them just deal with it!

  This book is about you having the blessings of God chasing you down the street and overtaking you. It’s about The Special Blessings Prayer—a prayer that will unleash God’s love, favor and power upon your life in such measure, you won’t be able to contain it all.

  Who am I to be writing this book? A better question would probably be: Where am I to be writing this book? Because I’m sitting at the Koro Sun Resort and Rainforest Spa on the spectacular island of Vanua Levu, Fiji, where I’ve been living for the past two months. Yes, I’m living at a four-star resort where they filmed an episode of The Bachelorette. This is, without dispute, one of the most beautiful places on the face of the earth. If you’re wondering exactly where it is, pick up a globe and look for “the middle of nowhere.” That’s pretty much where I am. (Hint: look around the South Pacific.)

  The staff all know me by name, treat me like a princess and serve me gourmet meals when they’re not busy scurrying up trees to pick me fresh coconuts. I bike along the ocean each morning, down the Hibiscus Highway (yes, it’s named after the wall-to-wall flowers growing on either side). I always pick one and stick it in my hair for good measure. Then I read a devotional on my Kindle in a hammock, maybe go kayaking to look at electric-blue starfish, swim a few laps in the infinity pool overlooking the pristine blue-green ocean or just wander around in awe at the majesty of God’s creation.

  Right now, I’m sitting in their seaside restaurant, which is only open for me at the moment—for my exclusive use as an office to write this book, which is why I came to Fiji in the first place. I’m overlooking the Koro Sea, where I and a collection of small tropical islands are waiting together to greet yet another breathtaking sunset.

  Go ahead. Take a moment to deal with that whole “to be envied” thing. I’ll wait a second. If it makes you feel better—and it may or may not—my journey to this place has been a daunting one, filled with devastation, loss and humiliations galore. And those are the three I’m willing to mention on the opening pages. Maybe I’ll get to the truly awful stuff later. I had to give up everything—especially my preposterous pride—and allow God to reduce me to absolutely nothing. I had to come to the infamous “end of myself” to discover the power of The Special Blessings Prayer.

  It wasn’t the way I thought it would be. And perhaps I’ve taken a more arduous path than necessary. I do have a track record of doing things the hard way, that’s for sure. I strongly suspect you may have moments, as you read the coming pages, when you question the wisdom of this prayer and the process behind it. But I can promise you:

  IT WORKS

  The Special Blessings Prayer is not on trial. You’re not my guinea pig. The process you are about to undertake will absolutely, positively change your life—if you fully participate. I know that because I’ve prayed it with hundreds of people with phenomenal results.

  Are you ready to begin? It starts with a list.

  2. Begin With Your Special Blessings List

  Before you can pray The Special Blessings Prayer, you’re going to need a list. And I bet I can guess what you’re thinking! You’re thinking this is going to be a list of all the things you want and the stuff you need God to give you or do for you. Or maybe you suspect I’m going to suggest making a list of the people you love or people in need, just to remind God to do something nice for those folks too. Typically, in church circles, that’s called a prayer list.

  Hey, how about a gratitude list? Those are great. Maybe start by counting all the blessings God has already showered on you, count those blessings, name them one by one and then God will pour out even more blessings on your already-grateful heart.

  But no. That’s not the kind of list you’re going to need. My journey began with a list. And yours must begin there too.

  Actually, my list began with a phone call so let’s back up and I’ll tell you about that. I was crying on the phone, again, with a pastor’s wife I routinely turned to for prayer and counsel when ministry hurt. You don’t need to reread the sentence, you didn’t miss something—that’s what I wrote: ministry hurt. In fact, after decades in ministry, I felt so beat up I began noticing little things like women’s ministry director and weapons of mass destruction both have the initials WMD. And I had begun routinely referring to the process of working with church staff as “entering the belly of the beast.”

  Seriously. It was that bad.

  I was telling my friend, the pastor’s wife, that I’d been working hard to forgive all the people I felt had done me wrong—and I was actually sorta proud of how magnanimous I was being, given that none of them deserved or had even asked for my forgiveness. She interrupted my self-congratulations to inform me that forgiveness wasn’t good enough. I had to do more than forgive; I had to proactively bless those who had hurt me.

  Bless them? Bless them? I was proud of the fact that I hadn’t gone all Jersey Girl on them and unleashed the full fury of what I really thought about how they’d treated me! And here she was implying that biting my tongue wasn’t an epic feat of inner strength! Bless them? Well. That was just weird. Weird and dumb. Why on earth would I want God to bless them? I wanted God to bless me so all those people would see for themselves that God was on my side and they had gotten it all wrong. I wanted God to bless me and vindicate me and show them a thing or two about who God’s favorite child was.

  Then I made a fateful decision that might just change your life.

  I decided to ask God what he thought of my friend’s ludicrous suggestion. It turns out, he agreed with her. I don’t remember everything he said, but for me it was one of those burning-bush/voice-from-heaven moments. After I hung up the phone, I walked into my prayer room, sat in my rocking chair and bowed my head. With tears streaming down my face, I asked him, “Why on earth should I ask you to bless people that I want you to punish? It’s not what I want at all! I want you to make them pay for what they’ve done to me! I want them to realize how unfair they’ve been.”

  And the God of the universe reached down into that l
ittle prayer room, in the midst of my anguish, and began to lift the fog of confusion and pain left behind from years of trying to “figure everything out.” I’ll tell you much more about my encounter with God later in the book, but for now, the only words I’m ready to share with you are these:

  whether or not

  Right now, those words don’t mean a thing to you and you probably think it’s odd that I gave them so much white space in this book. But trust me—when the power of those words finally dawn on you, as they dawned on me that fateful day in my rocking chair, you might want to find a white wall in your house and just paint those words on it so you never forget them.

  Back to that whole list thing.

  I took out a notebook and made a list of everyone who had hurt me and who I was still holding a grudge against. For most normal people, that should be two different lists, the second one being much shorter than the first. But for me, they were one and the same. I nursed a grudge against every person who had ever hurt me. And some of the offenses were so slight as to be utterly absurd. In fact when I finally got honest, most of the hurts were more accurately described as slights.

  These were people whose names literally couldn’t be mentioned in my presence without me going apoplectic. Even if I didn’t say anything, I seethed with rage or at least with resentment. The mere thought of someone on this list was enough for me to launch into one of my silent sermons in which I lectured them in great detail about everything they had done wrong. These mental gymnastics would often go on for hours. Not only that, I would literally plan where I would and wouldn’t go based on an assessment of who might show up that I didn’t want to deal with. (You remember that part about me being in ministry, right?)

  God help my poor children. It’s a wonder they’re not both atheists. Or ex-churchgoers. (I owe that miracle to The Special Blessings Prayer, but more on that later.)