"Forgive my presumption! But God is at work in my master, developing a rule solid and dependable....When God completes all the goodness He has promised my master and sets you up as prince over Israel, my master will not have this dead weight in his heart, the guilt of an avenging murder. And when God has worked things for good for my master, remember me."
And David said, "Blessed be God, the God of Israel. He sent you to meet me! And blessed be your good sense! Bless you for keeping me from murder and taking charge of looking out for me! A close call! As God lives, the God of Israel who kept me from hurting you, if you had not come as quickly as you did, stopping me in my tracks, by morning there would have been nothing left of Nabal but dead meat." I Samuel 25:28-34
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I’m supposed to be working right now, but I find myself writing instead. I don’t really feel like I’ve ‘chosen’ writing this devotion over work…more like it chose me. After this morning’s devotional and the hurried pace of ‘grab your lunches,’ ‘tie your shoes,’ the bus is coming!’ litany my mind still keeps coming back to our devotional time at the table and I’m compelled to write this down for my boys.
You’d think my mind would have wondered off into the questions about circumcision that William was asking me on our walk to the bus. What took his mind there? I’ve long since given up trying to figure out the path these boys’ minds take to the 1001 questions they ask daily. So, since I can’t let our morning devotional go, seems that’s His urging, for whatever reason, to bump this one up in the queue over others who’ve been patiently waiting in the form of notes.
We are a few weeks behind in our children’s read thru the Bible in a year so we covered two this morning on the life of David. First story took place when David was hiding in a cave with his men because King Saul was hunting him down to kill him. The highlight of the story is that although David had the perfect opportunity to kill King Saul, while Saul was relieving himself in the cave, David refuses to do so. Instead he cuts the back of Saul’s robe as a demonstration of what he could have done and then shouts out to Saul to show him. 'Look Saul I could have killed you while you are on the war path for me, but I didn't,' is the point David's making when he draws attention to himself. Not many of us would point ourselves out to the man we've been hiding from who's trying to kill us!
Saul is humbled. He knows God has chosen David to be king and his days are numbered. There’s a small piece of Saul that thinks he can usurp God’s plan to replace him, but a much larger part that knows God’s plan for David to be king will prevail. He sees in David a responsiveness to God’s plans in God’s time, not his own. He’s heart is smitten by this acknowledgement while envious at the same time.
David refused to kill King Saul although he’d spent months on the run in hiding from the man who was searching out every avenue he could find to kill David. His rationale---God has chosen Saul to be king and he would not kill God’s king, even if it means he must die at the hands of Saul. Talk about a trusting self control!
Yet, our very next story highlights David and his crew still on the run from King Saul and needing food. He sends word to a rich man, Nabal, asking for food for his men in fair compensation for the protection he's granted for Nabal's herds of sheep. When Nabal insults David and his men David’s furious and ready to attack, kill and take what’s been refused.
David is stopped through the intervention of Abigail, Nabal’s wife. She brings the men food on the sly, knowing her bull headed husband would have never agreed. She knows it is the only hope to save their lives and she acts quickly.
She pleads with David along the lines of honor. She reminds him he will be king someday and it would be horrible to have this blood on his hands as king. She calls him to a higher standard than he was able to see in his heat of anger over Nabal’s insults.
David’s response? He thanks Abigail for sounding a warning bell in his life and causing him to put the brakes on a plan he surely would have regretted when his anger cooled. He promises not to attack. When Abigail later tells Nabal, after he’s sobered up, what she had done he flew into such a rage that he suffered a stroke and died 10 days later.
David hears of this and sends word to Abigail that he would like to make her his wife. He saw the value in this woman who helped him see through his anger and reign in plans that would have left him blood stained. He not only hears her warnings but his heart also responds with humility instead of more anger or retaliation. He realized this is the kind of woman he needs by his side.
This story is sticking with me because I think we all need an Abigial in our lives. I pray for an Abigail in my boys’ lives. I pray that their hearts would be cooled by the godly wisdom of a woman who is not caught in anger’s web. I pray when disaster is right around the corner they would respond with a soft heart to one speaking wisdom into their lives.
Wyatt commented about a little girl in his class who he doesn’t think is going to have a very good life when she grows up. I asked why. He said, ‘because she always makes grumpy faces at everyone and she even told me the other day, “I don’t like people looking at me.”
“Hum, well you never know what’s going on inside a person that makes them sad or angry, we should pray for her and her heart to be softened. Have you tried talking to her about why she gets angry?” I asked.
“When I do she just puts up her hand to stay ‘stop’ or she covers her ears with that grumpy face on. She’s not going to have a happy life,” Wyatt explained.
Again I was struck by the need we all have for an Abigail in our lives. One who can speak the truth and talk us away from plans that will lead to our ruin. It’s so darn easy to give into the anger and depression that sometimes leads to disastrous results for our lives. Sometimes that anger just puts up a wall that keeps everyone at an arms distance in our lives. Often that anger leaves us feeling very lonely.
We can have those Abigials but we must hear them and that comes from a heart that’s soft before God. A heart that’s bent towards His ways, His Words, His shaping hand instead of our own desires which often run counter to God’s. When our heart hardens words of wisdom will fall by the wayside and our lives start looking like the descriptions of fools in Proverbs.
Our talks at the table wondered to Nabal and how a person is killed by a stroke and what exactly a stroke is. A blood vessel to the brain either blocked or bursting causes a stroke. Some strokes are totally random, some of are caused by unhealthy patterns of anger. Nabal’s explosion of anger literally exploded a blood vessel in his brain killing him!
Discussion then went to my dad who died of a stroke 3 years ago at the age of 55. My boys are well aware that his life was lived in an almost constant state of eruptive anger.
We spoke of why David listened to Abigail and how important it is to have someone in your life who helps to save you from really bad decisions in the heat of anger. We spoke of how easy it is the heat of the moment to give in to actions that we regret later. We spoke of keeping a soft heart towards God and not turning a deaf ear to someone who God sends into our life to raise the warning flags.
As we walked to the bus talking about circumcisions, I inwardly prayed for Abigails for my boys’ lives. I am well acquainted with David’s life, the good, the bad and the ugly and know that his heart was not always soft to heed the Abigails in his life.
As mothers we have a pretty high calling to help disciple these children entrusted to us towards knowing God. Not just knowing about God, but knowing God. I often think of David’s mother, when I walk the grocery story lane of gossip mags. Imagine having raised a son who God called friend? Wow! Her People magazine cover would read: “Man given highest honor in the land”—surely this would have been the proudest day of her life when her son was called a man after God’s own heart by the Creator Himself! Yet, there’s another headline awaiting her years down the road: “Scandal! King charged with murder and adultery”---lowest moment in her life.
These conflicting events have always troubled me in David’s life. We want our heroes neat and tidy and living lives that we can always point to as models of how we should live. This why so many children’s Bibles only highlight David for his slaying of Goliath and his kingship minus all the misery some of his decisions generated.
I guess we have to get comfortable knowing our heroes are stained and their lives offer us lessons to be learned about the consequences when we heed the voice of God and when we reject it. Our rejection may not be in anger, perhaps it’s apathy, distraction, busyness…the list could go on and on. I pray for an Abigail for each one of us. An Abigail who will pull our hearts away from plans that would result in our misery and instead bring us to the plans that He would have for our lives.
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