Revive Our Hearts

These messages are such a blessing and inspiration to me that I felt led to share them here on SI. I'm preaching to myself here too!:-)

Listen to it on audio [url=http://www.reviveourhearts.com/radio/roh/today.php]HERE.[/url]

What Do Men Need?

Series: For Women Only: An Interview with Shaunti Feldhahn and Barbara Rainey

Thursday, April 10 2008

Leslie Basham: When husbands and wives don’t connect, who’s to blame? Here’s Shaunti Feldhahn.

Shaunti Feldhahn: For some reason, we’ve developed this inner, subtle feeling that we women are really the ones who are good at relationships, and we women are really the ones who have the interpersonal skills. So if there’s a problem, it’s probably his fault, and he’s just got to learn to relate better. And when we unpack that, what that’s actually saying is he’s got to learn to relate the same way we do.

Leslie: This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss, for Thursday, April 10. Here’s Nancy.

Nancy: Do you ever find yourself wondering what in the world makes my husband tick? In fact, what makes men in general tick?

Our guest today has written a book called For Women Only: What You Need to Know about the Inner Lives of Men. Shaunti Feldhahn, welcome to Revive Our Hearts.

Shaunti: It’s great to be with you.

Nancy: Shaunti’s a best-selling author. She’s a newspaper columnist, a public-policy analyst, and most important, for this series, she’s the wife of her husband, Jeff Feldhahn, and a mother of two precious little children. I’m excited today to talk with you about this book.

Also joining us today is my long-time friend Barbara Rainey. Barbara, thank you for joining us at a last-minute notice. I asked you yesterday if would you be willing to come and join this conversation. Thanks for doing that.

Barbara Rainey: Yes, well, it was last-minute, but I’m honored to be here.

Nancy: Barbara and I have known each other for a number of years. Barbara is the wife of Dennis Rainey. Together they started FamilyLife Ministries. In fact, FamilyLife’s the ministry that partnered with us in starting Revive Our Hearts, so we owe a lot to that ministry. They still produce Revive Our Hearts today, and we’re so grateful for that team here in Little Rock.

Barbara, in your roles not only in FamilyLife Ministries, but as the wife of Dennis Rainey, the mother of your six children, and the grandmother of six—you don’t look old enough for that to be true—God’s given you a lot of wisdom. I’m thankful to be able to talk with two wives today about men.

Now, let me just say to Shaunti, when your book first came out and one of my staff picked it up, she showed me the book like this: “Shaunti Feldhahn, it says at the top, For Women Only, What You Need to Know about the Inner Lives of Men.” One of my staff women laughed, and she said, “Why in the world is a woman writing a book about the inner lives of men?” And one might ask that question.

We’re not claiming by any means, as a trio of women, to be experts on men. But you did some fascinating research that gave you some insights that I think are going to be very helpful to women about how men think. How did you stumble onto this project?

Shaunti: “Stumbling” is probably the right word, Nancy, in all honesty. I actually realized how little I understood about how men really think and feel when I had to write my last novel. I had to create a male character as one of my main characters. I suddenly was trying to write this guy’s thoughts and realizing that I have no idea what a guy would be thinking in this situation.

So I’d sit down and talk to my husband Jeff about it, and anytime we’d go out to dinner with another couple, I’d go to the guy and say, “Can I interview you?” And, “Here’s my scene. What would you be thinking in this situation?”

As the man would explain what he would be thinking, my mouth started dropping open, and his wife’s mouth would be dropping open. And we’d be saying, “That’s what you’re thinking?” It was this enormous surprise.

I started doing more and more and more of these discussions, and pretty soon I was going up to the guys behind the counter at Starbucks, going, “What would you be thinking in this situation?” I realized that there was so much that I didn’t realize about what’s going on in the minds and hearts of our men.

I ended up hiring a professional survey company to do a national survey of men, just to see if everything I was finding was borne out, and it was. And that’s why we created this book.

Nancy: So you ended up conducting spoken or written interviews with over a thousand men, some of them believers, some of them not believers.

Shaunti: Yes. All over the map.

Nancy: And you discovered that there were some things that they had in common—some of their feelings, fears, ways of thinking, concerns—and you summarized them into seven of what you call revelations about how men think. It sounds like it was kind of a light bulb going off in your head.

Shaunti: It really was. I tell people all the time that this book is really only about things we women just don’t get about men and things that, most of the time, our husbands really desperately wish we knew.

Nancy: And wish they could explain to us.

Shaunti: Yes, and wish they could explain.

Nancy: And it’s so true that, from the beginning, God created men and women very different—needing each other, interdependent on each other, but very different. And sometimes we gripe about how different men are from women, but would we really want them to be just like us?

Shaunti: I don’t think so.

Barbara: I don’t think so either! No.

Nancy: No, probably not. One of the things that encourages me about this book is that you challenge women to cherish the differences rather than resenting the differences.

Shaunti: Well, one thing I say right up front, and I tell people this when I give talks, is to recognize that there are an awful lot of resources out there for marriage—something that FamilyLife has been doing for years so wonderfully—and so many things that talk about the back-and-forth and the give-and-take that we really all need in marriage.

And yet, after I learned what I learned about men, I feel like there’s an awful lot that we women need to grow up about. We need to be willing to step out into maturity a little bit and recognize that there are these things that—well, you know what, let’s just be one-sided for a little bit. Let’s set aside our rights, our needs, and just be willing to recognize and have our eyes opened to the unique things that our husbands need.

Barbara: I couldn’t agree more. I think in our culture, we’ve had such a focus on women—from the last generation actually, because of the women’s lib movement and all of the focus on women’s rights—and I think it has done a disservice to marriages. The focus on women has caused us to be selfish, to be self-focused, to think about what we need, and to not think about what our husbands need.

Shaunti: For some reason we’ve developed this inner, subtle feeling that we women are really the ones who are good at relationships, and we women are really the ones who have the interpersonal skills. So if there’s a problem, it’s probably his fault, and he’s just got to learn to relate better. And when we unpack that, what that’s actually saying is he’s got to learn to relate the same way we do.

Instead, what I found is this is just the way these men are built. They have very unique needs, and just as we want them to love and support us the way we need, why on earth should we not learn to love and support them the way they need? It’s really a wonderful opportunity for us.

Barbara: It really is, and it leads to an arrogance that we are prey to. We’ve been taught that the way we relate is right and that men don’t know how to relate; therefore, I think we subtly begin to think that they’re wrong.

Nancy: And that they are the ones who need to change.

Barbara: Yes, and that there’s a problem with them, that they need to fix it, and that we don’t have any responsibility.

Nancy: We’re not saying that men don’t have problems, or that men don’t need to change.

Barbara: That’s right.

Nancy: But God didn’t call us to change the men.

Barbara: And to make them like us.

Nancy: Right—or to make them like us. And what I love, Shaunti, about this book, and about these revelations about men, is that they call us as women to be willing to make some adjustments.

Shaunti: Yes. I often talk to people who make the classic assumption that many of us have: “Well, if I can just get hold of these revelations and understand him better, I can change him.” And at the very beginning of the book, I say these are intended to change us. Period.

One of the wonderful things about that, as I have found in my own marriage, is that once we start realizing that we can reach out to our husbands and love them the way that they need, it builds them up to be the men that God created them to be. And suddenly they start becoming the men that God created them to be, which includes being a wonderful husband, even if they already were. They want to then love us more sacrificially. It’s a win-win for all concerned.

Nancy: I hope our listeners will stay tuned through this whole series. I think it’s going to bring a lot of hope to women.

We get a lot of desperate emails from women who are in desperate marriages. Learning some of the insights that you show in this book—and, Barbara, that you have learned through a lot of years of marriage—this brings hope.

This says that a wife can have an influence on her husband if she will become the godly woman God wants her to be. The impact on her husband will be significant—and not just on her husband, but on men in general.

So let’s jump in to the first of those revelations that I think is so foundational and is one of the key biblical teachings to women about relating to men. It starts with this revelation which we think we know, but we really don’t fully understand, and that is that men need respect.

Shaunti: Yes. I started actually learning this a little bit when I was right out of college. I was a brand-new believer, and I was on a retreat with a bunch of singles. The theme of the retreat was “Relationships,” which, as you can imagine, was of great interest to a bunch of singles.

The retreat speaker looked at this group of 70 people, and he divided us in half. He put the men on one side and the women on the other side of the room. Then he said, “I’m going to ask you a question, and I’m going to ask you to choose between these two bad feelings. If you had to choose, would you rather feel alone and unloved in the world, or would you rather feel inadequate and disrespected?”

Nancy: I really don’t want either!

Shaunti: No, I don’t want either, but if you had to choose, which would you rather? And he turned to the men, and he said, “Okay, men, who here would rather feel alone and unloved?” And every man raised his hand, and you heard a giant gasp from the women’s side of the room.

Nancy: They would rather feel alone and unloved than . . .?

Shaunti: . . . than to feel inadequate and disrespected.

Nancy: Wow.

Shaunti: As woman, we most want to feel loved and cherished, so this was like foreign land to us. We had no idea how they could choose this. He turned to the women’s side of the room, and he said, “Okay, women, who here would rather feel alone and unloved?” I think only three or four women raised their hands, and you heard the giant gasp from the men’s side of the room. And he said, “Women, who here would rather feel inadequate and disrespected?” Almost every woman raised her hand.

This retreat speaker said the same thing that I said in the book and asked the men on the survey—which is to recognize that, for women, the highest need in general is to feel loved and cherished. But the highest need for a man is to feel his wife’s respect and trust and admiration and honor.

So as women we can go overboard trying to show how much we love them, but if we don’t also show that we respect them—and maybe criticize them in public or question their decisions all the time—they’re going to feel disrespected, and then they won’t feel loved.

Nancy: And that’s a little different way of thinking in a culture that is so love-dominated.

Shaunti: Absolutely. It’s interesting. I was speaking with a gentleman who has a ministry called Love and Respect, a marriage ministry that deals with exactly this. He pointed out that we have come to believe in our culture that love is to be unconditional, but respect must be earned.

In fact, when you look at the Scripture, that’s actually a completely unbiblical idea in marriage. But I think, for many of us, that’s really the assumption we’ve made: that respect needs to be earned, and we’ll respect our husbands when they deserve it. Really, what God is saying is that that would be the same thing as your husband saying, “Well, I’ll love you when you’re loveable.” It’s absolutely imperative that we learn what the Scripture says about that.

Nancy: I think a lot of times women do respect the men in their lives—they feel that respect, and sometimes may not realize how their words or their actions can convey the opposite.

Barbara: Yes, I really agree, Nancy. I think, as a culture of women, we’ve become critical. I think our culture has invited that critical spirit in us by telling us we need to think about our own needs and our own wants.

So, without even maybe realizing it, we’ve become critical of our husbands and the men in our lives that we work with, or that we’re around on a regular basis. And we may not even say anything, but we may just have a critical attitude toward them and sort of a condescending spirit. That’s not healthy in relationships. It’s not biblical. It’s not what God called us to do.

Shaunti: The other thing that I discovered—and again, this was a revelation for me, too; I want to make sure I state that right up front—is that I’d been making this mistake far too many times with my husband Jeff. It’s not even just that we are critical to them, it’s that we are critical to them when what they most need is for us to be uncritical.

It would be the same thing as if our husbands spent their day never talking to us, or never showing any signs at all of love—and, in fact, showing us things that we felt were constantly unloving. That’s the way they often feel as they go through their day, because, again, their highest need is to feel that we respect and trust them.

And frankly, one of the things that I hear all the time from women is, “Well, what do you do? How do you show respect?” Or “Why should I show respect, or why should I respect him, if he’s really not respectable?” I say, it’s that paradox. It’s that same way that, when we weren’t worthy of it, Christ came and died for us, and that makes us want to be worthy of it. It makes us want to live a godly life.

When our husbands show us love, even if we haven’t been particularly loveable that day, it makes us want to be worthy of that. It’s the same thing with our men. If we will show them and choose—it’s a choice, really—to demonstrate that respect and to demonstrate that trust, even if we felt he hasn’t really earned it, he will want to be worthy of that.

Nancy: And that takes faith that God really will come through. You have to launch out into the deep and say, “Lord, I’m going to obey You and Your Word, regardless of how I feel, regardless of how my husband may have wounded my spirit. I’m going to trust You enough to obey You and let You deal with my husband.”

Shaunti: Right. The neat thing about that, though, is that—because this is the way that God created men and women—when we actually step out in faith and do that, sometimes the results are immediate. I mean, it’s wonderful.

It’s wonderful the way that God designed us to have these little encouragements along the way, even just, for example, stopping ourselves from teasing them in public, or talking bad about them behind their backs. You know what that does? It affirms deep in our hearts that they are disrespectable. When we talk about them behind their backs, we may think we’re not affecting them at all, but we are, because we’re creating that sensation within ourselves.

Barbara: Well, it’s a matter of focus, too, and if we’re focusing on what we don’t like, what we think is not worthy of respect, then that’s what consumes us.

One of the interesting things that I learned early in our marriage—I think it was within the first year of our marriage. I remember thinking the spiritual thing to do as a new wife was to pray about the things I saw in my husband’s life that I felt needed to be fixed or changed, or where he needed to grow up.

Nancy: You mean there were some things that you thought needed to be changed in Dennis Rainey?

Barbara: And they surprised me, because when I married him, we had a pretty short courtship and engagement. So I did discover some things in that first year that surprised me. I thought, “He’s not as mature as I thought he was.” So I began to think, “Well, now, how do I do this? How do I handle this as a Christian wife?” And I thought, “Well, the Christian thing to do would be to pray about these things.” So I began to make a list in my prayer notebook of things that I felt like God needed to work on in his life.

The thing that was so interesting about that is that after a few weeks I realized that, by praying on those things every day, I was focusing on them every day. I had that list memorized, and at the end of only three weeks, or maybe a month, I realized I was consumed with everything that I thought needed to be changed in his life.

I went to the Lord, and I said, “Lord, this isn’t working. I don’t like how I feel about him by focusing on what’s wrong—or what I think is wrong.” God may not even think it’s wrong, but I had come to the conclusion that it was wrong. And I said, “God, I’m going to give him to You. I’m going to tear this list up, and I’m not ever going to pray about things that need to be changed in his life again. If You want to change his life, it’s Your business, not mine. I’m going to instead focus on the things that are good.”

It’s a really practical way that we as wives can show respect to our husbands—by focusing on the things that are good, the things that he does do right. Thank him for those, praise him for those, encourage him for those things. And as Shaunti just said, watch him light up when we do give him respect for what is good and what is honorable and what is respectable in his life.

Nancy: I think it’s time for us to reissue a challenge that we have given several times before on Revive Our Hearts, and it’s always been received so positively. We’ve received so many emails telling how this was life-changing. So if you haven’t heard this before—or even if you have, but you’ve never done it; or maybe you’ve done it and you need to do it again—here’s the 30-day challenge: For 30 days, you can’t say anything negative about your husband—to him, or to anyone else about him.

Barbara: That’s an excellent challenge.

Nancy: Now, when I’ve given that challenge at conferences, I watch some people look like they’re going to fall off their chairs and say, “I don’t think I can do that.” Listen, if that’s a problem for you, then you’ve probably developed some bad habits, and you’re seeing your husband through negative eyes.

That’s the one side of the challenge. You can’t say anything negative about him for 30 days.

Here’s the positive side: Every day, for the next 30 days, find something that you appreciate or admire about your husband. Say it to him, and say it to someone else about him. And I’ve said to women, “If you can’t think of 30 things that you appreciate about your husband, then think of one thing and say it every day for the next 30 days.” And then I want you to write us and tell us, as many women have in the past, what happened in your marriage.

I’ve told women, I can’t guarantee that this will change your husband, though he may wake up one morning wondering if he’s married to a different woman, but I can tell you that it will change you. It will change your perspective, and you will begin to see your husband through new eyes.

So write and tell us about it, as one woman did. She said, “It’s only day one, and I can’t believe how my husband has already responded to me today in a situation, a relationship, that was strained and I thought was hopeless. He’s already warmed up and is communicating back as I’m showing respect to him, just after day one.”

Shaunti: It’s because our husbands are so starved for this. They’re like dry sponges, and it will just soak into their spirits, because, again, this is the most important thing to them. He needs the sense of, “I am appreciated.”

Nancy: We’re going to pick up again on this theme of respect tomorrow because I think it’s so important. We’re going to talk more about what communicates respect to men, and also what communicates disrespect, but let me just read from Ephesians chapter 5—a verse that most of us are familiar with, but I’m going to read it in the Amplified version, which says it in such a powerful way.

Ephesians chapter 5, verse 33, the second part of that verse: “Let the wife see that she respects and reverences her husband”—and then it expands on those terms, and here’s what it says: “that she notices him, regards him, honors him, prefers him, venerates, and esteems him; and that she defers to him, praises him, and loves and admires him exceedingly.”

Leslie: Nancy Leigh DeMoss has been offering her 30-day challenge to not say anything negative about your husband for 30 days, and to say at least one positive thing every day.

This challenge has transformed marriages. We know because so many women have taken the challenge and written to us about it—like a listener who wrote last time we offered this challenge. She said, “A friend of mine forwarded me the 30-day challenge. I’m very thankful to her for this. My husband, who was already wonderful to me, has just blossomed into an amazing creature. I think this has strengthened our communication toward one another.”

Like this listener, would you take the 30-day challenge? Refrain from saying anything negative about your husband, and choose to say one thing positive about him every day. We want to help you, and if you sign up at ReviveOurHearts.com, we’ll email you an encouraging reminder every day for 30 days.

Let me just mention that sometimes women ask why we don’t offer a similar challenge to men. Now, we definitely encourage men to obey God’s call to love their wives the way Christ loved the church, but our mission is to speak to wives. As Nancy often says, “God didn’t call me to speak to men; He called me to speak to women.” And I hope our guest, Shaunti Feldhahn, has helped you understand how meaningful it will be for your husband to receive your encouragement.

To learn more from her on how men think, you can visit our website, ReviveOurHearts.com. There you can order a copy of her book, For Women Only, along with a CD of the conversation between her, Nancy, and Barbara Rainey. It’s yours when you make a donation to the ministry of Revive Our Hearts. Or ask for the book, For Women Only, and the CD series when you donate by phone, 1-800-569-5959.

Does your husband show you enough love? If not, you may need to show him more respect. Find out why when Shaunti, Barbara, and Nancy return tomorrow. Now they’re back to wrap up our time today.

Nancy: So let me ask you women: If we were to ask your husband, would he say that you are his number-one cheerleader? Would he say that you’re in his corner with him, that you’re his number-one encourager? Or have you developed this ministry of deflation?

Let me just say, that’s not a ministry; that’s not an encouragement. You need to be a blessing and an encouragement, the one who lifts up your husband’s hands.

Listen, he’s living in a war zone out there, and there are plenty of people and plenty in our culture that will tear him down, that will make him feel emasculated, that will make him weary in the battle. He needs to be able to come into his home and find a woman who will strengthen him with her words, with her love, with her spirit, with her acceptance.

If you’ll let God make you into that kind of an encourager, you will find that God will do the job. God will do the work of turning that man’s heart. You’ll find that he’ll blossom under the encouragement—just as you would, but it’s even more important to him.

And so, Father, thank You for these principles from Your Word. Thank You that You have given husbands a wife to love them, to encourage them, to affirm them, to respect them. Thank You for that very special role that only a wife can have in a husband’s life.

And, Lord, I want to pray for each of our married listeners, the women who are listening who are married, and ask that You do a work of grace in their hearts. Plant in them the seed of a desire to be that cheerleader, to be that encourager for their husband.

Lord, we do pray for these men, that they might flourish and grow and be strengthened and nourished by the love and support and respect of their wives.

I pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Revive Our Heartswith Nancy Leigh DeMoss is an outreach of Life Action Ministries.

All Scripture is taken from the Amplified Bible.

MSeaman wrote:
I bought this book when it came out. It helped me to understand my husband's needs better. I recommend it for women who are married or getting married. There is now a companion book called "For Men Only" about a woman's needs. I believe it was written by Shaunti's husband, but can't remember for sure. Thanks for sharing this!

I bought the book too. I've read it and reread it. I wanted to mention too that I posted the link to the audio of this in my first post.

MSeaman wrote:
Nancy Leigh Demoss always has something good to say. Have you heard her messages on Modesty and Biblical Womanhood?

I have read a few. If you or anyone else has any links or articles though you would like to share please post them here. I would like to read them if you do. It doesn't necessarily have to be from Nancy Leigh Demoss.

MSeaman wrote:
[url=http://www.proverbs31woman.com/]Proberbs 31 Woman[/url]

These ladies have some good tips and are very encouraging.

[url=http://titus2talk.blogspot.com/]Blog that offers a lot on Biblical Womanhood[/url]

Have you read His Needs, Her Needs? Also a good book.

I haven't read that one yet. I will have to check out those links too.

Here's another good site you might want to check out:

[url=http://www.ladiesagainstfeminism.com/]Ladies Against Feminism[/url]

Carolyn McCulley
http://solofemininity.blogs.com/

"For 30 days, you can’t say anything negative about your husband—to him, or to anyone else about him.

Barbara: That’s an excellent challenge.

Nancy: Now, when I’ve given that challenge at conferences, I watch some people look like they’re going to fall off their chairs and say, “I don’t think I can do that.”

[b]Listen, if that’s a problem for you, then you’ve probably developed some bad habits, and you’re seeing your husband through negative eyes."[/b]

"Ephesians chapter 5, verse 33, the second part of that verse: “Let the wife see that she respects and reverences her husband”—and then it expands on those terms, and here’s what it says:
[b]“that she notices him, regards him, honors him, prefers him, venerates, and esteems him; and that she defers to him, praises him, and loves and admires him exceedingly.” [/b]

I think this 30 challenge is a great idea. We can form bad habits and this produces good habits.

"Words He Can Hear":

[url=http://www.reviveourhearts.com/radio/roh/today.php]Listen to it on audio, top right of page or you can just read it here.[/url]

Series: For Women Only: An Interview with Shaunti Feldhahn and Barbara Rainey

Friday, April 11 2008

"Understanding His Needs"

Series: For Women Only: An Interview with Shaunti Feldhahn and Barbara Rainey

Monday, April 14 2008

[url=http://www.reviveourhearts.com/radio/roh/today.php]Listen to it on audio, top right of page or you can just read it here.Past programs on the left.[/url]

"Ephesians chapter 5, verse 33, the second part of that verse: “Let the wife see that she respects and reverences her husband”—and then it expands on those terms, and here’s what it says:

“that she notices him, regards him, honors him, prefers him, venerates, and esteems him; and that she defers to him, praises him, and loves and admires him exceedingly.”

Series: Abigail: How to Live with the Fools in Your Life

Wednesday, April 16 2008

Leslie Basham: Here’s Nancy Leigh DeMoss.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: You don’t have to let a harsh, badly-behaved man turn you into a harsh, badly-behaved woman.

Leslie: This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss for Wednesday, April 16.

[url=http://www.reviveourhearts.com/radio/roh/today.php]Listen to it on audio, top right of page or you can just read it here. Past programs on the left.[/url]

Caught in the Middle
Series: Abigail: How to Live with the Fools in Your Life

Wednesday, April 16 2008

Leslie Basham: Here’s Nancy Leigh DeMoss.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: You don’t have to let a harsh, badly-behaved man turn you into a harsh, badly-behaved woman.

Leslie: This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss for Wednesday, April 16.

Yesterday we wrapped up a series on how wives can understand their husbands better, meet a husband’s needs, and serve him. Whenever we air a series like that, we hear from listeners who are in bleak situations.

Nancy provides biblical counsel for women who have husbands who seem impossible to love, and she gives advice to anybody who has to deal with a difficult person. Here she is in a series called How to Live with the Fools in Your Life.

Nancy: If you’ve been listening to Revive Our Hearts for any length of time, you may remember a year or so ago when we did a lengthy series on the Proverbs 31 woman. We called it The Counter-cultural Woman.

When you think about Proverbs 31 and that virtuous woman, it’s easy, perhaps, for some women to think, “That’s easy for that woman to be virtuous. Look at the guy she’s married to. I mean, he loves her. He’s an honorable man. He’s a virtuous man. Anybody could be a great woman if she was married to a man like that.”

I think of some of our listeners who call us, send letters, or emails. I’m so thankful for those letters and emails. I read as many of them as possible. So many of those women pour out their hearts about some difficult or impossible situation that they feel trapped in.

For some, it’s their marriage. They’re married to a man who just is impossible to love, humanly speaking. He may just be mean. Or maybe it’s a situation at work—a boss who’s impossible, somebody they can’t please.

It may be a situation in their church—someone they can’t get along with, someone who is cantankerous. I’m sure there’s nobody cantankerous in your church. But in some churches, there are some cantankerous people.

Maybe you have one of those impossible people in your life—maybe in the four walls of your own home, in your workplace, in your church, in your neighborhood, wherever. How do you live with those kinds of people? How do you respond as a virtuous woman when you’re living with someone who is an ungodly, foolish person?

Well, there’s an amazing story in the Old Testament, 1 Samuel chapter 25. I want to ask you to turn in your Bibles to 1 Samuel 25. We’re going to be introduced to a woman in the Old Testament. She’s not as well-known as some of the other women that we’ve studied in Revive Our Hearts, not as well-known as Mary of Nazareth or Deborah or Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist.

But Abigail has become one of my favorite Old Testament characters. She is an extraordinary woman. There’s a lot we can learn from her life, not only from her life but also from the two men who are the other main characters in this story.

At any given time in your life, you may relate to any one of these three characters. So we’re not just going to study Abigail. We want to look at the two men who were involved in her life. As we do this character study, we want to see what God has to teach us for our lives.

Let’s start with verse one, which is the setting for this story. In verse one of chapter 25 we read, “Now Samuel died. And all Israel assembled and mourned for him, and they buried him in his house at Ramah.”

You remember that Samuel was a man of God. He was a prophet. He lived a long, long time. He was the last of the judges. He was the one who anointed Saul to be the first king of Israel. He’s also the one who anointed David to be Saul’s replacement.

When I think of Samuel dying, the picture that comes to my mind is a little bit like what happened when President Ronald Reagan died. Do you remember? He had been a great leader. He had led this nation. He was esteemed. He was respected. He’d lived a lot of years. He had led the nation well.

When President Reagan died, do you remember how the flags were flown at half mast and how thousands and thousands of people lined up, first in California and then in the streets of Washington D.C., to just stand and watch as the procession carrying his body drove through those streets. Remember how over a hundred thousand people stood in line there at the rotunda in Washington, some of them for up to three hours, just to file by and pay their last respects.

The nation mourned when President Reagan died. I mean, Republicans, Democrats, people who didn’t know what party they were. They had a lot of respect for this man. And they mourned when he died. They grieved.

I think that’s a little bit what it was like when Samuel died. There was this national sense of grieving, mourning. But of all the people who were grieving when this great man of God, Samuel, died, I think that David was probably the one who mourned this loss as much as anyone else in the whole land of Israel.

You remember that David had been anointed to be the next king of Israel. But King Saul was still on the throne. King Saul was an egomaniac. He was full of himself. He was insecure. And he was trying to kill David. He was jealous of David and knew that David was coming to the throne. There was this war going on between Saul and David.

Samuel the prophet had been a buffer between David and Saul. And now Samuel is gone. I can imagine David feeling abandoned, vulnerable, alone, maybe depressed, discouraged, maybe wondering, “Are God’s promises for my life really ever going to come true?”

In the midst of that lonely, vulnerable, scared time in David’s life, we come to the next phrase in verse one that says, “Then David rose and went down to the wilderness of Paran.”

David, in the context of 1 Samuel 25 here, has been fleeing for his life from this madman, King Saul. He’s a fugitive. In the previous chapter he had been in the wilderness of Engedi and had had an encounter with King Saul. Now Samuel dies, and David moves further south down to the wilderness of Paran to get further away from King Saul.

As he’s headed south toward the wilderness of Paran, this story takes place. In this place David encounters a couple, a husband and a wife, and a couple like many I have heard of and met today, where one of the mates is a godly person who loves and fears the Lord and the other mate is a totally ungodly, selfish, wicked person. It happens. And David met a couple just like that.

As we’ve said, there are three main characters in this story. When you study the Bible, as you do character studies, it helps to ask yourself, whether the characters are good or bad.

Is there an example here for me?
Is there an example to be followed?
Is there an example to be avoided?
What does this passage and what do these people teach me about the heart and the ways and the character of God?
That’s what we’re going to be looking for in this story.

The first character we’re introduced to—and I want to just give you a quick overview today and then tomorrow we’ll jump into the story. But the first character is a man named Nabal. His name means “fool,” a Hebrew word for “fool.”

In verse 25, we read about Nabal. “As his name is, so is he.” His name means “fool” and that describes exactly what this man was like. He was a wicked, foolish man.

As we study the life of Nabal, we’re going to see a lot of the characteristics of a fool. As you see those characteristics, you may recognize someone you know, maybe more than one person.

But you know what else? You may also see yourself, at points. One of the things we want to do as we go through this series is say, “How can we avoid becoming like a Nabal? How can we avoid having those characteristics in our lives?”

Nabal’s foolish behavior evoked two very different kinds of responses from the other two main characters in the story. First there was David, the man who was going to be king. He had been appointed by God to be king, but he was still a fugitive from King Saul.

David’s response, when he came face to face with this foolish man Nabal, was to get provoked. He lost control. He was tempted to respond just the same way that Nabal had treated him. The danger is that when you get around a fool, you may respond like a fool.

In fact, as we get into this story, we’ll see that David’s response was even worse than what Nabal had done to provoke him. We’ll see in this story that even the most godly people sometimes act in ungodly, foolish ways.

That’s why we all need wise counsel. We need godly people around us who will help us see when we’re being foolish and, when necessary, will confront us, will love us enough to get into our face and speak the truth to us as Abigail did to David.

We need people who will give us godly counsel when we’re acting like fools. And we need to learn to listen to that counsel, to take it, to heed it.

That’s what humility really is. It’s the willingness to listen to wise counsel and to change direction when we realize we’ve been wrong. We’re going to see in David a man who, though he initially responded foolishly to this fool, was willing to listen to wise counsel and to change his course, to change his direction, when he realized he’d been wrong.

The third character, as we’ve already referenced, is this woman named Abigail. She models an incredible response to foolish people. There’s so much we can learn from her, whether the fool in your life is the husband or it’s a boss or it’s a son or daughter or it’s an in-law or it’s somebody in your church or your neighbor. Whoever the fool is in your life, Abigail teaches us how to live with and deal with the fools in your life.

She’s a woman of discretion. She’s a woman of wisdom. She’s a peacemaker. Her life changes the whole outcome of this story.

As in every story, including yours, there’s a fourth, mostly-silent character in this story and that is God Himself. God who is always behind the scenes ruling, overruling and intervening in the affairs of men. God who is always sovereign; He’s always on His throne. He’s always working to achieve His purposes and fulfill His promises.

We see in this story a God who is never absent, a God who is never asleep on the job. It’s the same God who is in your story, a God who is involved in your life, who cares about the fools that you live with or work with or go to school with. There’s a God who is involved.

Verses 2 and 3 tell us:

There was a man in Maon whose business was in Carmel. The man was very rich; he had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats. He was shearing his sheep in Carmel. Now the name of the man was Nabal, and the name of his wife Abigail. The woman was discerning and beautiful, but the man was harsh and badly behaved; he was a Calebite.

Most likely this marriage between Abigail and Nabal had been arranged by her parents, as most marriages were in that culture. She probably had no say in the matter. She was beautiful. He was rich. Her father may have thought he was really doing her a favor by marrying her into this rich man’s family, thought he was doing a good thing for her.

A beautiful woman and a rich man—you’d think that was a great combination. But the problem is that beauty and wealth are only external characteristics. What really matters when it comes down to real life is the heart, the character, not the outward appearance or the material wealth.

In the case of this couple, the difference between their hearts and their character could hardly have been more extreme. It was like night and day. This is a totally mismatched couple when it comes to matters of the heart.

He was a foolish, ungodly man; she was a wise, godly woman. We don’t know if he had always been that way, if he was that way when they got married. Maybe she thought he was a great man when they got married. As is true of many women that I’ve heard from, they say, “I had no clue till years into our marriage what kind of man he was going to turn into.”

Or maybe he’d always been ill-tempered and ill-mannered. We don’t know. All we know is she ended up in this very difficult marriage.

There are a couple points of application that are pretty obvious to me already in this chapter. First is the fact that if you are godly, that does not necessarily guarantee that your mate will be godly or that others in your life, others you live with, family members, friends, co-workers will be godly. The fact that you are a godly person does not guarantee that the people around you will be godly people. Neither does it guarantee that they will change.

Sometimes people who write us about our program say, “You give me the feeling that if I just live a godly life, my husband will become a godly man.”

I want to make it clear. We are not saying that, because the Scripture doesn’t say that. Scripture does teach that a godly mate can have a powerful influence on an ungodly mate. But there’s no guarantee that your choosing to live God’s way will change the people around you who are fools, who are Nabals. They may never change.

There’s a second application here, and that is that you don’t have to let a harsh, badly-behaved man turn you into a harsh, badly-behaved woman. That’s one of the powerful things about this story. The fact that your mate or someone else that you have to live with or work with on a regular basis, the fact that they are ungodly doesn’t mean that you can’t be godly yourself.

You see, we tend to feel that our level of godliness or spirituality is tied into the people around us. They make us react this way. No one can make you react in an ungodly way. The fact that you have to live with a person who is ungodly doesn’t mean that you can’t be godly yourself. Your character, your responses don’t have to be controlled by theirs.

One of the things that I love about this story is by the time we enter into it—we don’t know what all had preceded it but we know that Abigail has been living with this harsh, badly-behaved man. We know that had to affect her. She was living with the man.

But it’s obvious that she had not let Nabal destroy her. She was still a discerning, wise, godly, beautiful woman. She had not let his behavior control hers. She was still winsome, courageous, gracious.

And most important, she had not lost her faith in the promises of God just because she was living with this wicked man who, as far as she knew, never would change. In fact, he never did change.

We’re first introduced to Nabal in this story and then to David and then to Abigail. Verse 2 tells us that this man was very rich. He was a business man, a wealthy business man. He was influential.

As you read this story, and this will unfold over the next few sessions, one of the things that’s real obvious is some of the potential pitfalls of wealth. These things don’t have to be true of wealthy people, but they often are. By the world’s standards, we are wealthy. So these are qualities we need to watch out for in our own lives.

People who are wealthy can become independent-spirited. Others need them, others are dependent on them, but they don’t need anybody. They don’t need anything.

Sometimes with people who are very rich in the world’s standards in material goods, it’s hard for others to be honest with them. In verse 17 the servants said about Nabal their master, “One cannot speak to him.” He won’t listen to anybody.

Nobody can tell the truth to him. He’s powerful. He’s influential. He’s wealthy and people are scared to death of him. Nobody will really speak the truth to him.

We all need mirrors in our lives. We need people who will be honest with us, who will love us enough to speak the truth. But here’s a man who, partially because of his wealth, had gotten into a position where no one would be honest with him.

People were afraid of telling him the truth, afraid of losing their job. What if one of those employees had spoken up and said, “Nabal you’re wrong; you’re acting like a fool”?

“Off with your head.”

So, people were afraid of him. Sometimes when you have a lot of wealth by the world’s standards, it’s easy to assume the worst of others, to assume negatively of others, as we’ll see that Nabal did of David.

Proverbs 18:23 is a verse that has always been very convicting to me. It says, “The poor use entreaties.” They appeal. They plead. “But the rich answer roughly.” They can talk any way they want to talk. They own the world. It’s all theirs. There’s this pride, this arrogance that sometimes, not always but sometimes, goes with wealth.

Not only was he very rich, but verse 3 tells us he was harsh. If you’re using the King James Version you’ll have there the word churlish. It’s a word that in the Hebrew means “hard, unyielding, unbending, uncontrollable.” You get the picture of this man? He’s a harsh man.

He’s an abusive man. He’s abusive to his wife. He’s abusive to others. He’s verbally abusive. He’s a hard drinker; we’re going to see that. He’s just a mean man.

There are those men in this world and sometimes you have to live with a fool. It may be in your marriage, in your workplace, in your church, in some other sphere of your life. We’re going to see from this study that there is a way to deal with fools in your life and there’s a way not to deal with fools in your life.

The Scripture says that not only was he harsh, he was badly-behaved. The NIV says in that verse that he “was surly and mean in his dealings.” He was corrupt. Chances are he’d gotten some of his wealth by cheating others. He was a badly-behaved man.

And then that phrase, “He was a Calebite.” That may mean that he was a descendant of Caleb, who was a godly man from the tribe of Judah. But the word Caleb in Hebrew means “dog.” Some commentators suggest that, rather than being a descendant of Caleb, what it’s really saying is that it was an adjective to describe his behavior.

One translation renders it, “He was snappish as a dog.” His character is best described as we’ve seen by his name—Nabal, fool.

When we see the word fool in the Scripture, we need to remember that a fool is not somebody who is mentally deficient. It’s someone who is morally deficient. “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God’” (Psalm 14:1). It’s a person who wants to live his life as if there were no God.

He has no fear of God, no fear of man, no regard for what is moral, no regard for what is spiritual. As a result, he acts stupidly, foolishly, disgracefully.

Isaiah 32:6 says, “The fool speaks folly, and his heart is busy with iniquity, to practice ungodliness and to utter error concerning the LORD, to leave the craving of the hungry unsatisfied, and to deprive the thirsty of drink.”

We’re going to see that Nabal, the fool, lived up to that description of a fool. He kept back food and water from those who were hungry and thirsty. He was a foolish man.

I think you can see already that your heart determines your character and your behavior. If you have a foolish heart, you will act foolishly. Your character and your behavior reveals your heart. If you’re acting foolishly in foolish ungodly ways, that reveals that you have a foolish heart.

All through this series, it’s going to be easy as we read about Nabal to think of someone we know. But I want us as we examine this passage to let God shine the spotlight of His Spirit and His Word into our hearts and say, “Could any of this be true of me?”

Am I sometimes impossible to deal with?
Are people not honest with me because I’ll blow up?
Am I arrogant, proud, harsh?
Do I assume negatively of others, assume the worst of them?
Do I answer roughly rather than graciously?
If I act in those ways, if I speak in those ways, that tells you something about the condition of my heart.

The Scripture says we’re all born fools. Only the grace of God and the power of the Gospel, the power of Christ, can transform our hearts, give us a new heart and give us a wise heart.

That’s why we need a heart transplant. It’s only the grace of God if there’s anything in us that is gracious and kind or sweet-spirited, in our homes and in our other relationships. That’s why we desperately need God’s grace.

Apart from the grace of God, every one of us would be a Nabal. That’s why we desperately need the grace of God.

Leslie: That’s Nancy Leigh DeMoss reminding us of how needy we really are. All of us need to learn to not be a fool and how to love other people who are being foolish.

Roniya brought this up on another thread and I thought I would post it here to keep the unity:

[url=http://www.cbmw.org/Danvers]The Danvers Statement[/url]

Revive Our Hearts:

"The complementarian position regarding roles and functions of men and women in the home, and in the church in particular, is summarized in a document called The Danvers Statement, which was prepared by several evangelical leaders in Danvers, Massachusetts, in mid-1987."

"....Sometimes people who write us about our program say, “You give me the feeling that if I just live a godly life, my husband will become a godly man.”

I want to make it clear. We are not saying that, because the Scripture doesn’t say that. Scripture does teach that a godly mate can have a powerful influence on an ungodly mate. But there’s no guarantee that your choosing to live God’s way will change the people around you who are fools, who are Nabals. They may never change.

There’s a second application here, and that is that you don’t have to let a harsh, badly-behaved man turn you into a harsh, badly-behaved woman. That’s one of the powerful things about this story. The fact that your mate or someone else that you have to live with or work with on a regular basis, the fact that they are ungodly doesn’t mean that you can’t be godly yourself.

You see, we tend to feel that our level of godliness or spirituality is tied into the people around us. They make us react this way. No one can make you react in an ungodly way. The fact that you have to live with a person who is ungodly doesn’t mean that you can’t be godly yourself. Your character, your responses don’t have to be controlled by theirs.

One of the things that I love about this story is by the time we enter into it—we don’t know what all had preceded it but we know that Abigail has been living with this harsh, badly-behaved man. We know that had to affect her. She was living with the man.

But it’s obvious that she had not let Nabal destroy her. She was still a discerning, wise, godly, beautiful woman. She had not let his behavior control hers. She was still winsome, courageous, gracious.

And most important, she had not lost her faith in the promises of God just because she was living with this wicked man who, as far as she knew, never would change. In fact, he never did change...."

http://www.reviveourhearts.com/radio/roh/today.php

Nabal was a fool and he was rich:

Nabal- “As his name is, so is he.”

Isaiah 32:6 (English Standard Version)

6For(A) the fool speaks folly,
and his heart is busy with iniquity,
to practice ungodliness,
to utter error concerning the LORD,
(B) to leave the craving of the hungry unsatisfied,
and to deprive the thirsty of drink.

Proverbs 18:23 (English Standard Version)

23The poor use entreaties,
but(A) the rich answer roughly.

I used the English Standard version because that was the version "Revive Our Hearts" referred to in case your wondering. By the way this isn't a thread for women only. :-)

destinysweet wrote:
Always enjoyed the story of Abigail..bold woman of God!
Thanks for taking the time to put up these links.

Interesting thread..I'll have to join in as led.

Their definately seems to be a need for this. The Lord put this on my heart.

Are You Approachable?

Series: Abigail: How to Live with the Fools in Your Life

Thursday, April 17 2008

Leslie Basham: Here’s Nancy Leigh DeMoss.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: In the crisis situations of life, you and I need to be women of discernment. How do you get discernment? You ask God for it. Ask God for it before you get in the crisis....

[url=http://www.reviveourhearts.com/radio/roh/today.php]Listen to it on audio, top right of page or you can just read it here.[/url]

Are You Approachable?
Series: Abigail: How to Live with the Fools in Your Life

Thursday, April 17 2008

Leslie Basham: Here’s Nancy Leigh DeMoss.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: In the crisis situations of life, you and I need to be women of discernment. How do you get discernment? You ask God for it. Ask God for it before you get in the crisis.

Leslie: This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss for Thursday, April 17. The Bible says love is not provoked (1 Corinthians 13:5). That’s easy to understand until a two-year-old asks you the five hundredth question of the day, or someone cuts you off in traffic, or your husband forgets to pay the bills on time . . . again.

Well, today we’ll hear about a righteous man who let his guard down. He was so provoked he was ready to kill the person who offended him. Here’s Nancy in the series, How to Live with the Fools in Your Life.

Nancy: We’re looking at a story in the Old Testament in the book of 1 Samuel, chapter 25. If you have your Bible, let me ask you to open to that passage. It’s a story with three main characters. We see first a man named Nabal, who was a wealthy business man, but he was a harsh, mean, ill-behaved, ill-mannered man who acted like his name, Nabal, which means fool.

Now as we come to verse 4 today, we see that David heard in the wilderness—David and his 600 men, who are fugitives with him from King Saul, are fleeing from Saul. They’re out in the wilderness. David, verse 4, heard in the wilderness that Nabal was shearing his sheep. Nabal is a rancher. He’s a herdsman. He has a lot of sheep and a lot of goats.

Verses 5 and 6:

So David sent ten young men. And David said to the young men, "Go up to Carmel, and go to Nabal and greet him in my name. And thus shall you greet him: 'Peace be to you, and peace be to your house, and peace be to all that you have.'"

Here’s David wanting to be a peace-loving man and being gracious and kind in the way he approaches this man who has the heart of a fool and David’s going to reap some consequences from that.

Verses 7 and 8:

[Say to Nabal] "I hear that you have shearers. Now your shepherds have been with us, and we did them no harm, and they missed nothing all the time they were in Carmel. Ask your young men [Nabal] [your workers], and they will tell you. Therefore, let my young men [my servants, my workers] find favor in your eyes, for we come on a feast day. Please give whatever you have at hand to your servants and to your son David.”

Now let’s unpack that passage a little bit and see what’s happening here. David had treated Nabal and his herdsmen honorably. In this passage we see, and we’ll see even more later in the chapter, that David and his army of 600 men had provided protection out in the wilderness for Nabal’s men and Nabal’s herds. Protecting them from thieves, from bandits and marauders.

Now David was coming back and merely asking for what was his rightful due: compensation for services rendered. It was like a tip. This was the way things operated out in the wilderness. David and his men provided protection. They made sure that marauders stayed away from Nabal’s sheep and his herdsmen. Now they’re saying "there’s a feast day coming. Would you provide compensation for my men?" It was a reasonable thing to ask.

Verses 9 and 10:

When David’s young men came, they said all this to Nabal in the name of David, and then they waited. And Nabal answered David’s servants, "Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants these days who are breaking away from their masters.”

Now right off the bat, Nabal accuses David of having been disloyal to King Saul. “You’re just a servant who’s run away from his master. You’re a runaway slave. No way am I going to help you.” He goes on in verse 11,

Shall I take my bread and my water and my meat that I have killed for my shearers and give it to men who come from I do not know where?

Now it’s not surprising that a man who is harsh and badly behaved, as we saw in the previous session, should speak in a way that is harsh and badly behaved because as Jesus said, “Out of the depths of your heart you speak” (Matthew 12:34, paraphrased). What’s in your heart comes out in the way that your respond to people in life.

So Nabal is a foolish man. He’s a harsh man. He’s a badly behaved man. When David’s men come to him in peace just wanting what is their rightful due, he says, “No way.” Now in his response to this request, Nabal’s real heart motives come out. He’s selfish. Look at all the my's in verse 11. My bread. My water. My meat. My shearers.

Here’s a man who had a lot more than he needed and could well afford to share with these who had provided protection for him. But he refuses to share. He gives David’s men a slap in the face. I mean, this is a huge insult to David who is one of the most powerful men in the region and the man who was going to be the king.

Nabal is foolish. He’s a foolish man. He has much more than he needs, but he refuses to share. Sometimes wealthy people are extremely generous, and you can probably think of some that fall into that category. But wealthy people can also be the most stingy. Sometimes those who can afford to give the most end up giving the least.

Then you’ll notice in your church or you’re involved in a ministry in some way, sometimes it’s the little widows who can least afford to give who sometimes give the most. They’re generous. But sometimes those of us who have the most can hold most tightly onto what we have, and we see that in Nabal.

We see a man who’s controlling. “I don’t mind giving if it’s my idea, but not if it’s your suggestion. Not if it’s your request. No one is going to tell me what to do with my stuff.” That’s the attitude here. Here’s a man who’s suspicious. In verse 11, he says, “These are men who come from I do not know where.” Suspicious of their motives. Suspicious of what they’re up to.

He assumes negatively. He jumps to conclusions. He makes false accusations. Here’s a man, Nabal, who is insensitive to the needs of others. He couldn’t care less. “So what you guys are hungry. Go find food somewhere else.” He is utterly, absolutely unconcerned about their welfare.

You know why? Because he’s utterly, absolutely obsessed with his own welfare. “My stuff. How can I get more? How can I hold on to what I have?” I think this really is a man who just has this drive to have the upper hand. “THE BOSS” in big letters is what he wants on his mug. “I’m in charge. I’m in control.”

Now we’re going to learn even more about Nabal as the chapter unfolds, but first in the next verse we get a look at David’s initial response. Verses 12 and 13:

So David’s young men turned away and came back and told him all this. And David said to his men, "Every man strap on his sword!" [It’s war time!] And every man of them strapped on his sword. David also strapped on his sword. And about four hundred men went up after David, while two hundred remained with the baggage.

Now, in this account we’re going to see two very different ways to respond to provocation. Two very different ways to respond to the foolish people in your life. David’s way and Abigail’s way. How did David respond? His natural reaction was what? To get even. Vengeance. It was an impulsive reaction. I’m sure that David did not stop to think.

Isn’t that when we get in trouble. Somebody provokes us. Somebody irks us. Somebody’s rude to us. Somebody cuts you off in a lane of traffic. You don’t stop and think. You just react. You get right up on the backend of their car. In some bigger, more significant issues of life, what’s our natural reaction? Get even. Strap on your sword. We’re going to war. "You want to fight? We’ll fight."

But what you see here is that David’s initial response to Nabal was to act just like Nabal. Nabal is a harsh man. He’s badly behaved. He’s a warrior. He’s contentious. David says, “You want to be that way? Two can play that game. I’ll be that way.”

Isn’t that what our natural response is when we’re provoked? We may not strap on literal swords, but don’t we do it with our words? We pick up swords. Don’t we do it even sometimes without a word, just with our eyes? You can do it to your children. You can do it to your mate. You might do it to somebody who’s in the next office at work. Just our demeanor can communicate that we’ve picked up a sword. “You have hit my button and I’m going ballistic.”

Nabal had returned evil for good to David, and now David determines to return evil for evil. Now in all fairness to David, let me say that humanly speaking, I think this is a very understandable response. David is vulnerable. You’ve probably heard the acronym—I think I’ve shared it on Revive Our Hearts before—H-A-L-T.

If you’re:

hungry
angry
lonely
tired—you need to halt before you speak. Halt before you act.
David certainly had reason to be all of those things at this point. He was hungry. He was saying our men need food, and it’s not just David who is hungry. It’s 600 of his men that he’s responsible to feed. He was angry. His rights had been violated. He was perhaps lonely. Samuel had died. He may have felt abandoned. He could have been tired easily. He’s running through the wilderness from Saul.

He should have halted but instead he let himself respond in a Nabal-like way. His response was impulsive. It was impetuous. It was passionate. It did not demonstrate the quality of self-control.

Proverbs 25, verse 28, tell us, "A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls.” If you lose self-control even in responding to the Nabals, the fools, in your life, then you become like a city that is defenseless. You become vulnerable to attack from the evil one if you lose control.

There’s another verse in Proverbs that it would have been good for David to heed in this situation. Proverbs 26, verse 4, says, “Do not answer a fool according to his folly, lest you also be like him” (NKJV). So Nabal responds in a foolish way to David’s request. Here comes David answering a fool according to his folly, strapping on his sword. What does Proverbs say? You will become like him.

The very person who drives you the most crazy—do you ever look in the mirror and say, “I am becoming that person”? That may be because you’ve been answering a fool according to his folly and you’re becoming harsh and ill-behaved and mean-spirited and mean-tempered in reacting to a person who acted foolishly.

Proverbs says, “A hot-tempered man stirs up strife, but he who is slow to anger quiets contention.” That’s Proverbs 15:18. So here David has a chance to avoid contention, and instead he stirs up strife.

Now we see the entrance of a woman who says, “That’s not the right way to deal with this situation.” She’s going to demonstrate a very different way to respond. We see in verse 14 that one of the young men, one of Nabal’s servants, comes to Abigail, Nabal’s wife, and tells her the situation.

Now, apparently this young man knew that Abigail would respond differently than her husband. I mean it was obviously common knowledge that this woman was not like her husband. She was beautiful and discerning the Scripture says. He was harsh and badly behaved. This young man apparently knew that Abigail was approachable. She was someone you could talk to. You could reason with her. She would listen.

By the way, in a tension or a conflict, do people know that you’re a woman who can be reasoned with? Or do they stay away from you and say, “No, she’s just going to fly off the handle. She’ll just get emotional.” Or do they know that you’re a woman that they can go, they can talk to, they can explain their story and you will know what to do in the situation?

That’s the kind of woman we need to be. That’s the kind of woman we want to be. You may have a great, godly husband, but you’re going to find yourself at times, whether with that man or with others in your life, in a bad situation, an intense situation where there’s conflict coming and you get drawn into the middle of it. Do people know that you are a wise woman that they can go to, and you will know what to do because you’re following the Spirit of God in that situation?

So verse 14: “One of the young men told Abigail, Nabal’s wife, ‘Behold, David sent messengers out of the wilderness to greet our master, and he railed at them.’” Now that word railed literally means "he flew at them." One translation says he hurled insults. He reviled them. “You want what?! No way!” Nabal was abusive—verbally abusive—to David and his men. We can only assume that if he was this way with strangers, he was not an easy man to live with at home. He railed at them.

So here again we see more about Nabal’s character. He’s an arrogant man. He humiliates these men. He attacks them—David’s men. He’s easily angered. He flies off the handle. Those are characteristics of a fool. If you find yourself responding that way in the midst of life’s circumstances, you need to stop and say, “I’m acting like a fool.”

Proverbs 14:17: “A man of quick temper acts foolishly, and a man of evil devices is hated.” Proverbs 29:22: “A man of wrath stirs up strife, and one given to anger causes much transgression.” Anger is a deadly thing in a marriage, in any relationship, in the body of Christ. It causes much transgression.

So here’s a man, Nabal. He’s out of control. He railed at them. He flew at them. His tongue is uncontrolled. His spirit is out of control. Now this is a totally unfair and unwarranted reaction on Nabal’s part. Nobody has done anything to deserve this kind of treatment. This was not a response that was provoked. There’s no good reason.

In fact, the servant telling Abigail what happened says in verse 15,

The men were very good to us [David’s men] [they treated us well], and we suffered no harm, and we did not miss anything when we were in the fields, as long as we went with them.

Nabal and his men had been protected by David and his men. David did not do anything to incite this response from Nabal.

[The servants said] They were a wall to us both by night and by day, all the while we were with them keeping the sheep.

So Nabal has returned evil for good. David has treated Nabal and his men well and Nabal has returned evil for good.

Now therefore know this and consider what you should do, for harm is determined against our master and against all his house.

Remember David had put on his sword and said, “We’re going to war.” He took 400 men with him. We’re going after Nabal and his men.

Harm is determined against our master. [That’s Abigail’s husband. Harm is determined against him.] And he is such a worthless man that one cannot speak to him (verses 16-17).

That phrase worthless man is a phrase that literally is the son of Belial. Does that ring a bell with you? Belial is one of the names in Scripture for Satan. It’s a name for the devil. It means "worthlessness" and what this servant is saying, “Our master, your husband, Abigail, is acting like the devil.”

It means "a hellion." It’s a scoundrel. It’s translated sometimes "corrupt man or perverted man or a rebel." It’s somebody who is absolutely, utterly wicked. He’s a son of Belial. He’s a worthless man. So again you see these characteristics of fools. They refuse to listen. No one can speak to him. They’re unapproachable. They won’t listen to reason. They’re stubborn. Their mind is made up.

Now as I describe Nabal, does it remind you of anyone you know? Maybe you’re thinking of someone that you go to school with or you work with. Maybe someone in your own household.

We’re going to see from Abigail some tips, some insights about responding to a person who is a hellion, somebody who is a worthless man, somebody who is a son of Belial, somebody who’s acting like the devil.

But there’s another question we need to ask and that is, does this ever remind you of you? This kind of behavior. Now your behavior may not be this extreme. You may not fly off the handle and throw things and scream at people and rail on them.

But what about when your child comes and asks you a question that they’ve already asked 17 times that morning, and you’ve been interrupted, and you’re irritated; you’re impatient. You go, “No way! Go to your room!” And you speak harshly. The child didn’t do anything to deserve that. You didn’t provoke the child. You speak without thinking. You’re easily provoked, irritated, angry.

You ever find yourself reacting that way? We need to learn from Abigail how to respond in a way that is unlike Nabal, to diffuse the anger, to protect the family in this situation.

Now if you’re thinking about someone that you know who is like this Nabal, you may be asking, “What can I do? How do I respond to this kind of person?” I think of the woman who wrote to us and said,

Can you help me know how to deal with an angry husband? I get so depressed and I want to know how God wants me to handle this. My husband would never abuse me physically, but he gets angry about so many things, and I’m growing weary of being the peacemaker.

I know that woman speaks for a lot of our listeners, not just in regard to husbands but in regard to other fools in our lives.

So here is Abigail caught between two proud, angry men—Nabal, her husband, and David, who is going to be the next king of Israel. Abigail is a contrast. Verse 3 already told us that she was discerning and beautiful. Beautiful speaks of her appearance, but discerning speaks of her heart. That word discerning means "intelligent." It’s a woman of good understanding, a woman who has common sense in a crisis.

Now you compare her with Nabal who was harsh and these are polar opposites. Abigail’s name, by the way, means "the joy of my father." She was a daddy’s girl. She was a girl whose father delighted in her but she ended up married to a Nabal, a fool. Now I think this must have been an incredibly difficult marriage. Though the Scripture doesn’t tell us what it was like inside the four walls of their home, you can just imagine.

Rather than getting a man like her father who delighted in her, probably through no fault of her own, in an arranged marriage, she had ended up married to a man who was impossible to live with. Proud, angry, unreasonable, stingy, controlling.

So what does Abigail do? Well, we’re going to see in the next session that she responds differently to Nabal than David did. She doesn’t become a Nabal in responding to the fool, the Nabal in her life. She acts in a way that is consistent with her wise and discerning character. Her behavior, the way she handles this crisis, reveals that this woman has a wise heart.

So I want to just say even before we see how Abigail responded, that in the crisis situations of life, you and I need to be women of discernment. How do you get discernment? You ask God for it. Ask God for it before you get in the crisis. Single women, before you get married, ask God for discernment to show you who you should marry.

Most of us today don't live in arranged marriages. You have some choice in the matter. Ask God for wisdom. Don’t just marry the next guy who comes along because he showed an interest in you, or he bought things for you. Ask God for discernment and godly counsel and wisdom. Once you’re in a situation, pray for discernment.

Then remember that you can respond differently than Nabal. You don’t have to become a Nabal. Remember that how you respond is what makes all the difference. You may never change your Nabal. We’ll see that Nabal never changed. But you can be a secure, confident, godly, courageous, winsome woman even in the midst of a crisis.

I’m reminded of what my dad often told us and that is, you’re not responsible for how others act or what they do to you. All you’re responsible for is how you respond to others. By God’s grace, we can respond in a way that is full of faith, that is appropriate, that is discerning and wise. That may make all the difference in the outcome of the situation.