![[Devotional] IN HIS PRESENCE: Take hold of the plumbline immediately](https://thenewsguru.ng/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screenshot_20211202-092925.png)
By Oke Chinye
Read: 1 Samuel 25:1-44
Meditation verse:
“Then David said to Abigail: “Blessed is the Lord God of Israel, who sent you this day to meet me!” (1 Samuel 25:32).
In the next few days, we will be highlighting lessons we can learn from some women in the bible. Their lives will teach us powerful lessons as we identify with their trails, battles, mistakes, and triumphs. There’s something for the older woman, the bitter, the broken hearted, the desperate and the lost. We will gain insights, strength, encouragement, and motivation to forge ahead on our own paths.
We begin with Abigail, whom the bible describes as intelligent and beautiful in appearance. She was also a very humble woman. Her husband Nabal was wealthy, but he was harsh, insensitive, and unwise. When king David sent his men to Nabal to give them some of his supply, Nabal treated the men with disdain, saying “who is David, and who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants nowadays who break away each one from his master. Shall I then take my bread and my water and my meat that I have killed for my shearers, and give it to men when I do not know where they are from?” David was infuriated when the matter was reported to him, and he determined to kill every male connected to Nabal. His men had provided security for Nabal’s shearers and sheep in Carmel, and he had expected Nabal to be more gracious.
When the matter was reported to Abigail, Nabal’s wife, she made haste and took two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five sheep already dressed, five seahs of roasted grain, one hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs, and loaded them on donkeys and set off to meet David. “She fell at his feet and said: “On me, my lord, on me let this iniquity be! And please let your maidservant speak in your ears and hear the words of your maidservant. Please, let not my lord regard this scoundrel Nabal. For as his name is, so is he: Nabal is his name, and folly is with him! But I, your maidservant, did not see the young men of my lord whom you sent. Now therefore, my lord, as the Lord lives and as your soul lives, since the Lord has held you back from coming to bloodshed
and from avenging yourself with your own hand, now then, let your enemies and those who seek harm for my lord be as Nabal. And now this present which your maidservant has brought to my lord, let it be given to the young men who follow my lord. Please forgive the trespass of your maidservant…”
Through her wisdom, discernment, and ability to act quickly, Abigail prevented the wiping out of every male linked to her husband. She could have said “that’s his business”, when the matter was reported to her, but she knew her husband’s weakness and how to make up for it. She was also not willing to let his shortcomings undermine her entire household. She also knew her own strength and how to deploy them to her advantage. Through her persuasive words, she won King David over. Sadly, her wisdom did not rub off on her husband.
At the end of the day, we are all responsible for our own actions; and life does not always spare us the consequences of our acts of indiscretion. Whilst Abigail was making up for her husband’s errors, he was busy making merry and getting drunk, oblivious of what was going on. In the morning, when the wine had gone from him, she told him all that happened. His heart died within him, and he became like a stone; and died after about ten days.
IN HIS PRESENCE is written by Pst (Mrs) Oke Chinye, Founder of The Rock Teaching Ministry (TRTM).
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