Mission accomplished! Everybody wins. David and his men go back full of food and all the wiser. Fantastic! Abigail goes home, and her husband puts his arm around her and says, "Honey, thanks. You're a great lady . . . more precious than rubies." No. I wish it said that. On the contrary.
Then Abigail came to Nabal, and behold, he was holding a feast in his house, like the feast of a king. And Nabal's heart was merry within him, for he was very drunk; so she did not tell him anything at all until the morning light. But in the morning, when the wine had gone out of Nabal, his wife told him these things, and his heart died within him so that he became as a stone. (1 Samuel 25:36-37)
She had stood between her husband and death, but the fool was so drunk she couldn't even tell him about it. So she crawled in bed, pulled up the covers, and went to sleep. I'm sure she poured out her heart to God and got things squared away between herself and the Lord, realizing she might never know what it was like to have a husband who appreciated her.
The next morning, after Nabal sobered up, she told him what had happened. And what was his reaction? The guy had a stroke. Literally. He listened to the story of how 401 guys were on the way to cut off his head, and he got really still, his eyes became glazed. I would imagine! Ten days later, "the LORD struck Nabal and he died" (25:38).
Isn't it amazing! When you do what is right, without tiring of it, God takes care of the impossible things. As we've seen, "When a man's ways please the Lord, He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him." The same could be said of a woman, of course. There is no impossible situation that God cannot handle. He won't handle it necessarily your way, but He'll handle it.
Taken from Great Days with the Great Lives by Charles Swindoll. Copyright © 2005 by Charles R. Swindoll. Used by permission of HarperCollins Christian Publishing. www.harpercollinschristian.com
Used with permission. All rights reserved.
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