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                    ||                       How beautiful on the mountains
                    ||                       are the feet of those ... who
                    ||                       proclaim salvation, who say to
                                             Zion, "Your God reigns!"
          Pastor RALPH & GENE ANN WOOD                  --Isaiah 52:7 (NIV)
           E-mail:  randg.wood@encode.com
          FRESH MANNA, 15/09/1995, 25/04/1998 ........... 1 SAMUEL 25:32-33
          {32} And David said to Abigail, "Blessed [be] the LORD God of
          Israel, which sent thee this day to meet me:  {33} And blessed
          [be] thy advice, and blessed [be] thou, which hast kept me this
          day from coming [to shed] blood, and from avenging myself with
          mine own hand. ..."    --1 SAMUEL 25:32-33 (KJV)
             The name, "Abigail", means "father of joy"; and Abigail was
          just that, to David, on this occasion [see 1 SAMUEL 25:1-44].
          By her wisdom, quick thinking, decisive action and diplomacy, she
          kept David from taking wholesale revenge for a personal insult.
             Saul, king of Israel, had become insanely jealous of David,
          the most, maybe too-successful commander in all of Saul's army.
          David had gone into hiding in wild desert regions.  And Saul kept
          coming after him, hunting him down.  So David had reason to want
          to take revenge against Saul.  Yet just recently, when he'd had a
          perfect chance to kill Saul unawares, David had withheld his hand,
          out of respect for Saul's office as God's anointed king.
             During the same period, David had also done good to Nabal, a
          very wealthy landowner, who had shepherds tending livestock in
          the same area David was hiding in.  David had six hundred men to
          feed every day.  And, right there, all Nabal's sheep and goats!
          But, instead of stealing sheep, David actually defended Nabal's
          property, and his shepherds, from rustlers and other enemies!
          It seemed logical, then, for David to send a delegation to Nabal,
          to ask him for supplies to help sustain the very men who'd stood
          guard for him this way.  But Nabal treated his modest request for
          supplies, with contempt.  And David, though he had just forgiven
          Saul far worse offenses, took four hundred armed men and set out
          to massacre every male in all Nabal's household by morning!
             Sometimes we are like David.  The pressures of our situations
          build up, and get to us.  Then, the next person who offends us
          gets the full force of our fury.  We need someone to renew the
          grace of God in our lives.  And, when someone does, to respond.
          But sometimes, we are like Abigail.  Even though under pressure
          ourselves, by the grace of God we are able to bring peace into
          warlike circumstances, humility to furious spirits, forgiveness
          to vengeful hearts.  When -we- are offended, may God send Abigail
          into our lives!  When others are offended, may God grant us to be
          like Abigail to them in their situations!  Praise God.   --RLW
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