Spend time in prayer and silence with God asking him to meet you and speak to you.
Bible Reading
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.”
– 1 Samuel 25:1b-31
Devotion
Some days it seems that you just can’t do anything right. At times, areas where you had been previously winning the battle becomes an area of failure. As with all of us, David was a man who struggled to wait on God’s timing and sometimes took matters into his own hands. In the passage we just read, David fell into the trap of acting on his own instead of trusting God.
Ultimately, when we step in to defend our own honor, or to carry out vengeance against someone else we are falling to at least two sins of the heart: (1) a lack of trust in God to be just, and (2) pride. In this story, David strayed from his previous desire to wait on God to work for him, and instead began to scheme about how to work for himself. Abigail recognized the struggle and said to David, “Now since the Lord has kept you, my master, from bloodshed and from avenging yourself with your own hands. . .” She recognizes and subtly draws attention to the internal battle that David had been struggling with ever since he encountered Saul in the cave. It’s no wonder why David commends her and why the Bible calls her an intelligent woman.
Both the perspectives of David and Abigail are important to consider in this story. Throughout life, we are all bound to run across people who treat us as poorly as Nabal treated David. We will certainly be tempted to return the favor by responding in anger. We must resist that temptation! We need to remember to check our pride and renew our trust in God to care for our needs and to correct injustice.
In addition, we may find ourselves in the seat of Abigail where we need to use wisdom and tact to help steer a righteous person toward a godly response. By acting wisely, she saved her household from ruin and saved David from the guilt of committing murder.
The Big Question
Where are you struggling to trust in God enough to step aside and wait for Him to act even when you know that you could fall back on the idea that “might makes right”?
Conclude in prayer and silence reflecting on what you’ve learned.