Weekend-spiration - My Favorite!

I'm really enjoying my visits to Faithful Bloggers. Not only is the founder, Courtney Chowning, insightful in her own posts, she gives suggestions for inspirational blogging that others can do. That's really a ministry when you think about it. She could just serve to build up her own site by keeping all the great ideas to herself, but her generosity shows in how she promotes the sites of others, for the building up of the Kingdom and the glory of God.

Love the "for the good of the whole" attitude! But I digress.

I find there are times I need to visit the site for some fresh ideas. What God is
doing in my life right now is some pretty intense work, but I don't want all of my inspirational posts to be heavy. Insightful, yes (well, hopefully), but not burdening!

So I checked it out for my Weekend-spiration article and I found the perfect prompt - What's your favorite Bible Story? Oh, this is something I can really sink my teeth into!

I can't nail down just one favorite because the Lord uses so many of them at different times in my life to teach me things, but the story of Abigail and David in 1 Samuel 25 is definitely one of my favorites!

In a nutshell, David and his army, fighting for their survival against King Saul, settled in an area near Abigail's family. While there, they protected the local cattle, including Abigail's, from outsiders and other dangers. After a while, David sent word to Abigail's husband, Nabal, that they were in need of food. Nabal was less than kind, shall we say. Rude and self-absorbed, he shooed them all away. "Afore I sic the dogs on ya!" Did I mention that his name means "fool"? God has got such a great sense of humor!

David was ticked to say the least. After all, he was surrounded by his warriors, 600 mighty men of valor, and they had been taking care of this rich man's cattle out of the goodness of their hearts for some time. His immediate reaction was to kill all the males of Nabal's empire. I'm guessing that means servants as well as animals, and I didn't see any mention of children.

Yeah, well, ticked had an entirely different meaning back then.

Abigail got wind of this. She knew her husband was an idiot and had put her life and the lives of her children at risk by inviting the wrath of one of the two most powerful men in the country. She set to work, quickly cooking up a gourmet meal fit for a king. In person, she took the meal to David, apologizing over and over, and taking complete responsibility for the insults that her husband had hurled. David was impressed and honored her request to spare her household. Nabal, on the other hand, partied hearty until he stroked out the next morning and died ten days later. And the finale to the love story came when David sent for Abigail to be his wife after her mourning period ended.

There are several things I love about this story.

• First, it is a true love story. The hero is bigger than life, successful, handsome, popular. He is intrigued by the lovely heroine and the humility she showed. He continues to think about her long after their encounter. 
• Second, the strong heroine saves the day. Or at least saves her household. She's placed in a dangerous position through none of her own doing, yet her cleverness and quick action make enough of a positive influence that the anger is dispelled. 
• Third, I love the confusion about the antagonist. If I didn't know who David was, I would assume that he is Snidely Whiplash in the story, but in actuality, Abigail's husband, who should be her hero, is the bad guy. 
• This story even has a great supporting cast. Abigail gets informed of her husband's deeds by a worker from the field. It seems everyone knew about Nabal's character. (lack thereof!) 
• Last, it has a happy ending. (I'm a sucker for those!) I think Abigail was David's greatest love and I often wondered if she died before Bathsheba came along.

Surely some sharp Christian author has already written a novel based on this story. Anybody know of one? 


Oh, I answered my own question! Another mystery unraveled! I found a series by Jill Eileen Smith called The Wives of David. They're all novels based on the true stories. Intriguing . . .