Gird ye on Every Man His Sword

I’ve been listening to the book The Peacegiver by James Ferrell and I was intrigued by his application of the story of Abigail and David in 1 Samuel 25.  Abigail was the wife of the rich Nabal, and though she was “a woman of good understanding,” her husband was “evil in his doings” (v3).  David was in the wilderness hiding from Saul when he sent a request to Nabal for assistance via ten young men.  They went in peace to Nabal, told him how they had treated rightly his sheep shearers, and requested assistance from him.  He responded roughly to them saying, “Who is David? and who is the son of Jesse? … Shall I then take my bread, and my water, and my flesh that I have killed for my shearers, and give it unto men, whom I know not whence they be?” (v10-11)  The young men were rejected and went back to David to tell him of Nabal’s treatment.  What would David do after finding out about the mistreatment?   

             Instead of choosing to let it go and move on, David chose to seek revenge.  He justified himself by saying, “Surely in vain have I kept all that this fellow hath in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all that pertained unto him: and he hath requited me evil for good.  So and more also do God unto the enemies of David” (v21-22).  David was offended because he felt that Nabal had returned evil to him when David had treated him rightly.  It appears that he justified going up against Nabal based on the fact that this is what God does to his enemies.  But even if that were the case, it still didn’t give him the right to go up and take matters into his own hands.  In fact, God would cause Nabal to die about 10 days later.  David said to his men in that pivotal moment when he had to decide what to do with the offence: “Gird ye on every man his sword” (v13).  It seems like we have opportunities all of the time in our lives to make the same kind of decision.  So often we are offended or hurt or injured by the inappropriate actions of others, and we are left to decide how we will respond.  Will we like David say metaphorically, “Gird ye on every man his sword” or will we simply let it go.  Gratefully for David, Abigail showed up and was able to convince him not to seek retribution on Nabal, and we two have a Savior that seeks to stop us from taking things into our own hands.  The Lord will indeed cause justice to come upon the wicked in his own due time, but in the meantime our job is to simply let the offense go.  It reminds me of the story President Packer once told of a man who had lost a child due to the carelessness of a physician who hadn’t washed his hands.  The man was bitter, but his stake president came and spoke to him, telling him, “John, leave it alone. Nothing you do about it will bring her back. Anything you do will make it worse. John, leave it alone.”  It’s never the easy choice to let hurts go when we feel so much the victim, but it is the only way to allow the peace of the Savior to heal us.