Abigail Moments

By Tim Flachman

The Lord loves to deliver His people from bondage. When we are stuck in seemingly impossible situations, He is faithful to send deliverance. However, His answers to our prayers for help may not always look like deliverance when they come. Sometimes those answers look like destruction to the natural mind.  In a season when economic meltdown is being prophesied and the economy is significantly down, it is important to understand that the Lord will often send His deliverance in a package that appears contrary to His heart of love for us. Despite appearances, His deliverance is pregnant with destiny and the Lord’s love.

Abigail’s Destiny

Before David and Abigail were married, Abigail was trapped in marriage to an alcoholic, evil man named Nabal. The Lord’s plan for deliverance included sending her future husband and deliverer to her doorstep. Yet as David approached, he was not coming for the purpose of delivering Abigail. He was coming to kill her entire family. Abigail’s response to the coming of David changed the course of her entire life.

The Lord had been looking out for Nabal and Abigail’s family business, by giving their shepherds protection under the watchful eye of David and his mighty men who were camped in the desert, fleeing from Saul. As David’s men watched Nabal’s shepherds, they could have stolen some of Nabal’s flock any time they wished. One day David decided that he would send servants to ask Nabal for some food. In spite of David’s kindness, Nabal answered David’s servants harshly “Who is David? And who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants today who are each breaking away from his master.  Shall I then take my bread and my water and my meat that I have slaughtered for my shearers, and give it to men whose origin I do not know?” (see I Samuel 25:10-11) This response angered David, prompting him to round up four hundred men to destroy Nabal’s entire encampment. David declared “Surely in vain I have guarded all that this man has in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all that belonged to him; and he has returned me evil for good. May God do so to the enemies of David, and more also, if by morning I leave as much as one male of any who belong to him” (see I Samuel 25:21-22).

When a servant informed Abigail of the threat, the Lord gave Abigail wisdom. In the face of certain destruction, “then Abigail hurried and took two hundred loaves of bread and two jugs of wine and five sheep already prepared and five measures of roasted grain and a hundred clusters of raisins and two hundred cakes of figs, and loaded them on donkeys.  She said to her young men, "Go on before me; behold, I am coming after you” (see I Samuel 25:18-19).

Abigail interceded on behalf of Nabal and her entire encampment, staving off the destruction that was headed their way while her husband Nabal held a drunken feast—unaware of the looming danger. When Abigail informed Nabal the following morning, he had what appeared to be a stroke and died within ten days. “When David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, ‘Blessed be the Lord, who has pleaded the cause of my reproach from the hand of Nabal and has kept back His servant from evil. The Lord has also returned the evildoing of Nabal on his own head.” Then David sent a proposal to Abigail, to take her as his wife” (I Samuel 25:39).

It was Abigail’s attitude and response to this trial that set her apart in the mind of David. Likewise, our attitude and response to our trials this year will set us apart, not only for deliverance from the Lord but for supernatural blessing.  If we seek the Lord, He can take even destruction and turn it into blessing.

Although David came to destroy their entire encampment, the end result was that David was actually a blessing from the Lord for Abigail. Likewise, encapsulated in many of the trials and tribulations that are coming upon us in this season of economic and physical instability is the deliverance that our nation and the church have been waiting for.

A Personal Testimony

In the early years of my business, I faced a few such deliverances that at first appeared to be my destruction. In those days, as my business floundered with lack of promotion, I ran up against a wall of debt and lack of sales. I was travelling 50,000 miles a year over two states trying to sell my wares. I truly hated cold-calling and the pressure this created in my life.  I needed deliverance but had no idea how to get around this obstacle to future growth in business.

This season came to a climax during a three-month period when sales completely dried up.  The heavens were brass and no amount of prayers seemed to change the situation. In retrospect, I understand now that this was not sent by the enemy to destroy me.  It was sent by God to make room for my provision.  At the time, if felt like the destruction of my business.

This period without sales caused me to try new avenues for selling products on the internet. I now know something which wasn’t obvious to me at the time. Much of my destiny was to be involved in internet marketing.  When I began to make this shift to internet sales, immediately the heavens opened and sales poured in from both the non-internet avenues that previously had been dry, as well as the new avenues the internet provided.  I went from being in debt for the equivalent of seven months income to having seven months income in the bank in a period of forty-five days.

This season that appeared to be the destruction of my business was in reality my Abigail moment of deliverance from bondage to cold-calls and 50,000 miles of driving per year. In the years following this deliverance, we transitioned to a business model that eliminated cold-calls and driving to customer’s locations to make sales. The new challenge became managing growth.

Timing and Method are Important

One lesson to be learned from this story in the Bible is that sometimes these Abigail moments come in forms that at first appearance may seem morally contrary. Just as it would have been morally improper for Abigail or David to think about marriage before the death of Nabal, or morally improper for David to kill Nabal to seek Abigail’s hand in marriage, Abigail moments have a timing and method that are important to discern.

In the years prior to starting my own business, I worked for the business of another Christian man who trained me and helped me to learn his industry. I served him faithfully for a few years but always longed to be in business for myself.  Even though the man I worked for was not wicked, in comparison to the desires of my heart to be in business for myself, serving him was like being married to Nabal.

During this season, the man’s primary vendor approached me with an opportunity to purchase directly, leave this Christian businessperson who had poured into my life, and start my own business. Although starting my own business was the desire of my heart, this would have been like David having an affair with Abigail prior to the death of Nabal. Fortunately, I understood that sowing and reaping can work both positively and negatively.  If I had sowed this seed into my business mentor, the harvest of employees that undermined my business would have plagued me for years to come. It wasn’t yet time for my business to start, and it certainly wasn’t the method the Lord would choose.

Opportunities can arise like this en route to Abigail moments, when you can see the destiny that the Lord has prepared for you, yet the timing and method aren’t correct. This is the same lesson that Abraham and the rest of the world learned the hard way through the incorrect timing and method in the conception of Ishmael before the ultimate fulfillment of the promise in Isaac.

My Abigail moment came six months after being offered the opportunity to conceive an Ishmael business when the company I worked for went belly up. Of course, it still came in a package that looked like destruction, but as it turned out, it was truly deliverance from working for others into the entrepreneurial opening I had desired for years.

For a couple of days after I was let go, all I could see was destruction since I only had one hundred dollars in my bank account with which to try to rebuild. What seemed like the destruction of my vision became the desire of my heart when the Lord gave us what was truly a divine strategy. We turned a couple of clients and equipment in lieu of a final commission check from the now defunct business into the startup capital needed to start our own venture. This time the method and the timing were correct.

Summary

We can see from the story of Abigail that our deliverance still requires the correct method and timing, as well as the right attitude and response in order to receive the blessing of the Lord. As we pursue the Lord in this season of the year of earthquakes, economic shaking, and political upheaval, let us remember that what looks like destruction on the surface can actually be the answers to our prayers and a deliverance from God.