How to diffuse rage and anger – 1st Samuel 25, Part 3

Have you ever been so angry, so hurt, so embarrassed, or feeling so disrespected, that you are ready to rage against the person who has hurt you? This week as we’ve been studying 1st Samuel 25, we’ve been talking about two roadblocks to David’s progress to becoming king. We’ve met the first roadblock, a man named Nabal who refuses to help David. But what is the second roadblock? (If you haven’t figured out that second roadblock, check out the two previous posts here and here before you continue with this post.)

It’s David himself!  David is the major roadblock.  He is so angry at Nabal, that David is about to take drastic, murderous action against Nabal.  Whatever is going on inside David erupts out of him, firing him up to take out his anger against Nabal.  David himself is his own roadblock.  Maybe you’ve experienced that before.  We truly are our own worst enemy sometimes, aren’t we?  We can allow ourselves to think wrongly because we have been slighted, offended, hurt.  It can be so easy to let self-control and gentleness and peace and goodness fly out the window of our lives when we feel like someone is mistreating us.

If David gives in to the murderous thoughts that anger is motivating inside him, David will have committed a huge sin.  David himself is the roadblock to becoming what God anointed him to be, the future spiritual and political leader of Israel.  But David doesn’t see his anger and vengeance that way.  He thinks he is right.  He is strapping on his sword, mustering his men to battle Nabal.  David is all-in on committing an atrocity that would be as evil as the atrocities that King Saul has perpetrated. 

Though David doesn’t see the evil inside, Nabal’s wife Abigail, and the servant who alerted her to her husband’s decision, absolutely saw the roadblock inside David.  To reveal the roadblock to David, Abigail demonstrates her genius thinking and communication skills.  She wants David to open his eyes, see the roadblock and deal with it.  She sees the amazing potential in David, and she is afraid that this roadblock is going to keep him from realizing his potential.  Also, she’s probably afraid that David is going to bulldoze her entire community.  Her world hangs in the balance.  She knows that how she handles David could have a major impact.  She knows she needs to remove the roadblock within David.

Let’s walk through Abigail’s incredible approach to this super-tense situation.  In the previous post, we observed her quick thinking to gather a huge amount of food, to motivate and direct her servants, and to keep her husband in the dark.  But there is so much more to her diplomacy.

In 1st Samuel 25, verse 20 we see Abigail’s courage in meeting David face-to-face.  In verse 23 she bows down to him, literally falling at his feet.  In verse 24, she pleads for pardon. In these actions, she uses her body language to catch David’s attention, causing him to pause his rage long enough to listen.

Next notice the first words she speaks. In verse 25, she apologizes for her husband’s selfish rudeness, and shows that she is not defending Nabal’s actions to David.  She also says, “I wasn’t there by the way,” exonerating herself.

In verse 26, she redirects David to God, pointing out how God has kept David from any evil bloodshed.  This point is foundational to the case she is trying to make with David, to help David see the roadblock, to see himself.  She wants David to see how David is veering away from righteousness to wickedness.

It is only after saying all that, that she then refers to the gift of food she brought David and his men in verse 27.  This timing is super wise.  She has in verse 26 just confronted David.  By encouraging David to remember the Lord, she is insinuating that David, in his action to kill Nabal and Nabal’s men, is not remembering the Lord. 

Abigail’s confrontation, though we might see it as brief or not a big deal, is something that David could easily take great offense to.  He could easily say, “Time out, woman.  You just accused me of not remembering the Lord?  You just accused me of taking matters into my own hands.  Who do you think you are?”  But before David can get offended by Abigail’s confrontation and turn his anger on her, she redirects him to the gift of food, to the food truck buffet she has just brought out to him and his men.  She is solving the problem that started all this in the first place.  Abigail is extremely wise in her step-by-step diplomatic process.

But Abigail is far from done.  Look at verse 28.  She knows she has stepped on David’s toes, so she asks for his forgiveness.  Before David can squirm, Abigail affirms that God will not only make David the leader of Israel, but also give him a dynasty.  She’s playing on his emotions and dreams. She’s buttering him up.  But notice the last phrase in verse 28, “no wrongdoing will be in you as long as you live.”  Just like that she is back to confronting him of impending wrongdoing.  She holds fast to her central point.  If David takes action to kill Nabal and Nabal’s men, David would be wrong.  Abigail wants David to see this as a massive roadblock to his future success.  And she is right.

She’s on a roll in verse 28, and she keeps it going in verses 29 through 31.  In 29 she again directs David to think about the situation from the Lord’s perspective.  She even uses this phrase “your enemies he will hurl away as from the pocket of a sling.”  At that point in her talk, I wonder if a smile started forming on David’s lips.  Abigail has just referred to David’s iconic weapon of choice.  The sling.  Everyone in the nation would have heard the story of how David killed Goliath with a slingshot. 

I wonder if David smiled and thought, “Okay. I see what you’re doing here.”  Abigail is saying, using not only direct words, but the imagery of the sling, “David, remember how God used you to defeat Goliath!  Remember God’s mission and God’s methods.  Remember God!  Do not do this evil thing.  And then, when God lifts you up to the throne, as he surely will, you will not have any evil on your conscience.  Oh, and when the day comes, remember me too.”

That brings us to verse 32.  How will David react?  I’ve already said that I think he is smiling by the time Abigail gets to the end of her case.  She has removed the minor roadblock, but she cannot remove the major roadblock.  That major roadblock is within David himself.  That roadblock is his fury, his desire for vengeance, his plan to not use God’s methods.  Only David can remove that roadblock.  Only David can choose to get out of his own way.  Only David can redirect course. 

And you and I know that is very, very difficult to do when we have built up a passionate rationale in our own hearts and minds for why we are right, and the other person is wrong.  It can be nearly impossible to see things a different way when we are furious, embarrassed, fearful, jealous.  When fear and embarrassment are raging through us, it can be nearly impossible to see ourselves correctly.  We don’t think we are the roadblock.  We think we are right.  It is the other person who is wrong!  It is amazing the incredibly poor decisions we can justify when we feel hurt, embarrassed, disrespected.

In the next post we will find out how David responds.

Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash