The Wisdom of Abigal

Today's episode explores the attributes and works of having the wisdom and behavior of knowing who you were created to be. Abigal's wisdom saves not only herself but all the people who were connected to her. 

💖Highlights💖

-  Do you walk in your identity every day?

-  How do your words affect others? Do they lift people up or destroy people?

- Are you surrounded by the right people? Do they encourage your dream or crush it?

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Link to Transcript: The Wisdom of Abigal

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Transcript

The Wisdom of Abigal

Betty 00:01

Hello Queens. Welcome to SheSpeaksLove Women of the Bible Series. We're so excited to share these incredible women of the Bible and highlight their personal story and their legacy. These podcasts will encourage, inspire and share wisdom from God's Word as it relates to women and our unique circumstances. Let's get into their phenomenal story and the power of their voice.

Today's woman of the Bible is "Abigail" shared by Queen Nimiwari.

Nimiwari 00:46

The story of Abigail is found in First Samuel, the 25th Chapter. I'm not gonna read the whole chapter. I'm probably gonna be jumping in and out. So, if you do wanna follow along or you wanna open your Bible, it's okay. If you don't, I'm telling the story, so you'll kind of get the whole gist of it. But I will read verses two and three. There's a lot of introduction to it before she actually comes into the story. So from verse two it says, now there was a man in Maon whose business was in Carmel and the man was very rich.

I'm reading the New King James Version. He had 3000 sheep and a thousand goats, and he was shearing his sheep in Carmel. The name of the man was Nabal and the name of his wife was Abigail. She was a woman of good understanding and beautiful appearance, but the man was harsh and evil in his doings. And he was of the house of Caleb.

So that's kind of just an introduction. We got a first main characters of the story you've got Nabal and we've got Abigail. Nabal was very, very rich. You know back then they used to check your wealth by the number of goats and the number of sheep that you had, so he was considered really rich.

Unfortunately, he was also considered very foolish. His name means fool. I don't know what kind of parents he had, but I don't know why he's called fool, but that was who he was, and he had all the qualities that came with the name, apparently. So, there's a part in that verse I just read where they said he was shearing his sheep. There's actually a Jewish custom, or like a traditional celebration.

When it's time for the rich people to shear their sheep, it's a time to celebrate your wealth because you have so many sheep to shear. So they would have parties and they would have feast; and so this whole time is the time that Nabal is having this whole celebration of his wealth.

Now David enters the story. So David had been on the run from Saul at this point. Saul is still chasing him, trying to kill him. David had the chance to kill him, but didn't take it all this back and forth drama has already been happening. So David and his men pretty much live out in the woods in the wilderness and they kind of move from place to place so that Saul can't catch them.

So they moved from place to place and they always gave protection to the little towns they went into. Like if they went into a small town, they would say, Hey, I mean he's carrying about a thousand guys with him. So this is not just three people walking into a town. It's like a whole army coming in, and they're like, hey we'll stay here and we'll protect you guys as long as you give us food, and you give us provisions, and all that stuff. And most times, the towns would be like, okay. I mean it's not like they could say no, but they were okay with it.

David's men at some point had been through Carmel and they had given protection to Nabal's men. They help protect his sheep and all this stuff. So David hears it's time for the sheep shearing party, and he's like, look this is our opportunity. Remember that time that you guys took care of his guys, we need to go, there's gonna be food.

So pretty much they're going to get some food. They wanna share in the feast and all that. So his men go to Nabal's camp. Instead of Nabal just giving them some food after all, they protected your guys. Nabal is like, I don't know David. Who's David? He could be just any guy that's just roaming the wilderness. I don't know who he is, and I don't know his men. I'm not just gonna give my meat to people I don't know. So David's men go back and report what Nabal says.

David's like, oh, okay. So when you needed help, and you needed protection, you knew my men. Now, we just want some sandwiches and some chicken, and you're trying to be funny with it.

Okay let me tell you what I'm gonna do. Everybody get your swords, get your stuff, we're gonna go and kill all the men in the camp. Can somebody say gives David a Snickers bar, please? I mean, like from zero to a hundred, no food. We're gonna kill all the men in the camp.

So that's your background. And now here comes Abigail. So one of a Nabal's men runs to Abigail. I love the story, cuz it's really like a movie. So he runs to Abigail and says look, your husband has gone and insulted David, and I don't know what you're gonna do, but I'm gonna need you to do something because if not, David's probably gonna come here and start something.

Abigail's reaction for me was the thing. The Bible actually says she didn't waste any time. As soon as she heard the news, she kicked into action. She got up, spoke to her servants saying look, let's gather some gifts, and let's gather food. She got like thousands of Ram and all this stuff and just put them on donkeys and sent the servants forward.

By this time, David already started heading to Nabal's house, or camp. So she sends her servants ahead with the food and says, look, just meet them on the way. I'm right behind you. Just go ahead. So they go ahead.

So David's coming down a ravine. He's coming down the road. And he's talking to his men like, man, when I reach this camp, the things I'm gonna do to these guys, they're gonna wish they had given me some meat. This is of course the new Nimi version of the story.

So, he's coming down this road, and all of a sudden they just see a whole bunch of people on their own donkeys with lots of food. Remember, these guys were hungry. So when they saw this food, they were like, hold up now, wait a minute. What's going on? There's just random food here and everybody knows that we've been hungry and they're kind of taken aback. And right when that happens, Abigail follows on her donkey. She jumps off the donkey, she kneels down and she starts like pleading with David. She says, and I wanna read that part because I really like what she said in Verse 23. I read this in The Message version, cuz it was really cool.

So she falls on her knees and says my master, let me take the blame. Let me speak to you. Listen to what I have to say. Don't dwell on what that brute Nabal did he acts out the meaning of his name? Nabal fool. Foolishness oozes from him. I was like, wow, you went in on this guy though. So after she does that, she immediately switches gears and she starts to prophesy over David.

She starts to remind him how God has protected him. You are just the one, everybody knows you're gonna be the king. You are this and that. And then she's really technically is prophesying over him. You know, I know that you're being chased now, but you're gonna be in that palace. So David is like, not only is this girl fine, she knows how to talk. So he's totally taken aback cuz you already know how David was. If you were fine, he was already confused. So when she finishes, I like how at the end she throws in, when you become the king, please remember your humble servant. I'm gonna come back to that. That's a really important point about Abigail.

David was so impressed. He said, look, I'm gonna do what you said. You're so wise. They took the food, of course. And he said, okay, I'll just leave Nabal alone since you have come. So Abigail turns around, she's done what she came to do and she goes back home.

So when she goes home Nabal is laid out in the floor drunk. Like he's literally just out for the count, cuz they've been partying all this time. Meanwhile, she's saving everybody, but he's been partying. So now he's drunk. She looks at him, decided to let him sleep it off, and tell him what happened in the morning.

So morning comes, she wakes him up and she's like, look, Nabal, this is what happened and tells him everything. She did all the things she said. And then she gives him the whole story. He is so shocked that the Bible says his heart turned to stone. He literally had a heart attack and goes into a coma for 10 days and then he's out. I mean detailed death. I was like man, Old Testament God was not a joker. I mean  Old Testament God did play games. So, that's the whole story.

Now that we have all that background, that's basically all they tell us about Abigail. She's not mentioned again in the Bible. There's another Abigail, but it's a different woman. Abigal's name means a source of joy. The question that I asked myself then was how does a source of joy end up with a fool? I don't know. I thought that was interesting.

We don't get any background about how this Bible says she's beautiful, and she's intelligent. They don't really tell us how she ended up there. One of the first things that the Holy Spirit showed me about Abigail was that she was basically an intercessor. And at first, I was like, how? Cuz in my mind she didn't pray. Intercessor means we're gonna stand at the altar and pray for other people. You know I suddenly realized that when an intercessor stands in the gap, that's basically what it means to intercede.

When David was coming down the road, Abigail literally stood in the gap between David and Nabal's house. She literally was an intercessor. She got to that point as she stood in the gap for her husband. Now, it also struck me that she really didn't have to do it. If you are married to somebody that you just know is generally foolish, she could have seen this as a way out. She could have been like, you know what? I'm just gonna sit over here in this little corner and let this thing unfold and see what happens. Cuz this guy deserves it. Good for you, but that's not what she did. The reason she didn't do that is because when you already know who you are, you will walk in who you are, no matter what situation you find yourself in. No matter how bad it is. If you are an intercessor, even if you don't realize it, you're gonna always find that need to be concerned and inquire about somebody, because their heart is always thinking for other people.

Abigail didn't really have to do anything for this guy, cuz I mean the way the story makes him sound, he must have been a horrible person to live with. Because she knew who she was, she couldn't help but be who she was because that was her identity. She knew that's who she was as a person. I had to ask myself, and I told you I was gonna go back and forth about the stuff that I had to now ask myself. So I asked, do I walk in who I am, no matter what people think? Do I walk in who I am at all times? Do I walk in who I am when people don't understand why I'm doing the things I'm doing or do I suddenly shift and try to just blend in because I just don't wanna stand out? I've I've had many people tell me that I'm extra. They ask, why are you so extra? Why do you do so much? And I'm always like, why are you just so little though?

If you choose to call what I am extra, you can define any way you want, but this is who I am. I'm going to be the person with the big hair. I'm gonna be the person cuz that's who I am.

Abigail didn't care how it looked. That was why I believe that Nabal's servant went directly to her. I mean the Bible even says in that section, your husband doesn't listen to anybody is basically what they said, so we had to come to you.

The second thing that I learned about Abigail in this story was that she was very, very, very wise. When she heard that David was coming, the first thing she did was send the food. And as funny as it was the first time I read it, cuz when I read the Bible, I see it like a movie in my head.

I was just imagining him just fussing on the donkey. This stupid man, when I get there, I will show him. And then this food comes and imagine you're just seeing like Chick-fil-A delivery. Meanwhile, you've been living in the wilderness; and it's not McDonald's, its Chick-fil-A. They brought good stuff. Distraction. So, all the anger was immediately gone. He forgot it cuz first of all, he was confused as to why is there food? And then he was like, but there's food though. So for her to even think of doing that first is extremely wise to me cuz she could have just been emotional and just run, ah, let go see him, I can stop him. But she thought in the few minutes that she heard the story, she was able to just figure out the wisest thing thing to do. But that was because she basically walked in wisdom. You don't just become wise overnight in an emergency situation.

So I really like that about Abigail. She also knew that she needed to wait before she told Nabal what happened. If she had told him while he was drunk, it probably wouldn't have registered. That made me ask myself, should I slow down before I act? Maybe sometimes? Should I maybe ask the Holy Spirit sometimes if I do some things? Yes. How can I be more wise in my decision making? And I think for me, when you learn how to make decisions under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, it starts to come naturally.

It's like, and this is random, I don't even know why I'm saying this. When David always wanted to go to war, he always had them inquire of the Lord. Should we go? Should we stay? In my mind, I'm always like, there are bad guys coming. We should go. I wouldn't think that's the thing you need to ask, but that's what is the difference between a wise person and an unwise person being able to get use to listening to the Holy Spirit.

You don't need a ceremony to hear from the Holy Spirit. You just know in your heart, this is what I'm supposed to do right now, because you've cultivated that over so much obedience, and so much listening, so much missing it sometimes, and then getting it right. So, that was for somebody.

Then thirdly, Abigail knew how to talk. Have you ever heard people say, I don't like her, she just doesn't know how to talk. You can't talk to her cuz she just says the first thing that comes out of her mouth. I have tried not to be that person many times, cuz it's not a person you wanna be.

Abigail didn't just talk. She actually was an exhorter because we have to remember, David's been wandering on in the wilderness for I don't know how long. God told him he was gonna be king and nothing has gone right since then. Everything has gone wrong. And he said, you could take this king thing and put it somewhere else, cuz I don't wanna be fooling around with this if this is the trouble that comes with being a king.

My husband told me this story once about a prophet in Nigeria. Everybody looked up to this guy because this guy was just on point, and a young man comes to him and says, I just want to have what you have. He said, okay, lemme pray for you. He said, Lord Jesus shows this boy all the persecution and all the heartache that I've had over the years, all the suffering, all  the boy was like, wait, wait, wait, I don't want it because you want the good stuff, but the road to the good stuff sometimes isn't what you expect it to be.

For Abigail to tell David in that moment of his life, you are going to be king. It was like she knew the right words to say. I don't believe she was being manipulative. I think it was in her character to lift people up and that leads me to the next question I ask myself. Do my words elevate people, or do they bring them down?

That was a rough one for me, cuz a lot of times, I'm very passionate and strong when I talk. I'm Nigerian. So I'm always, hey look, stop. Hey, let's go. Hey, that's me. I used to pride myself on, well, if you ask Nimi, she's gonna give it to you straight. She's gonna tell you the truth. And I realized people stopped asking Nimi after a while because too many people were getting hurt by this truth. I had to learn that's not exhorting. That doesn't come from a place of exhorting. Exhorting is using words to lift people up, and it's always from a place of love, even if it seems negative at the time. If it comes from a place of love, it is still exaltation.

That's what Abigail did. She spoke over him. She prophesied and said he was gonna have a long life. Look. These words meant a lot to David. When somebody's chasing you, trying to kill you. And somebody's telling you, you will live and not die. You will just hook onto that. Because when you are going through something and somebody is speaking life to you, you're gonna hook onto that person and hold onto 'em because that's what your spirit needs.

We need to be reminded sometimes of what God has told us. It's not like I don't know that. I shouldn't be surprised that now I'm going to Europe. I am surprised. Meanwhile, I've been praying for it. I don't know why I'm surprised, but there's sometimes when you're in the waiting process, and then you're like I'm gonna stop posting pictures of myself because this is getting silly.

You'll be saying stuff on Facebook, but you've gone nowhere, be quiet Nimi. And if I wasn't surrounded by people who were supportive and people who believed, who see the vision, I see cuz those are people you need to surround yourself with.

Abigail could have been a member of SheSpeaks. Basically, she belongs in this zoom right now because when she speaks, her words are wise and she gives instructions with kindness. Literally, she does all that. She is a SheSpeaks' SisterKeeper. So when she blessed David, she literally was living out her name. She was becoming, she was a source of joy which I find very, very cool.

I've had to catch myself many times. Nimiwari means house of wisdom. I only started believing that a few years ago, because I was like, I don't know anything. Don't ask me. I dunno, why is everybody asking me questions? Because they could see the house of wisdom, but I couldn't see it.

So when you accept who you are, cuz a lot of times, a lot of people around you can see who you are, but you can't see it. When you accept what God's called you to do and who you are and you start to walk with it there, everything just blows up. Everything goes crazy.

What did I ask myself? Let me see what I asked myself. Y'all should pray for me because I wear glasses, but I hate to wear them. So I asked myself, do my words reflect who I am. So the kind of person you are, I believe determines the kind of words you speak. That's why when you see a girl and she's really pretty and she's dressed really well, but then she opens her mouth and she cusses like a sailor. You're kind of taken aback like whoa, but what? Why, because the package you saw, that's not what it reflected.

So our words should reflect who we are as Christians. It should reflect who we are as women of God. We are the ones that are not supposed to talk negatively. We are the ones that are supposed to lift people up. You know how you meet people in the grocery store? I'm sure this has happened to everybody because most of y'all are in Alabama. You're in a grocery store, I'm trying to pick an orange. I want to see is this a good orange. And then one woman says, hi, how are you? I'm having open heart surgery tomorrow. I'm like, okay I'm sorry, I'm holding my orange. She says yeah, you know cause I remember back in 1984, and I'm like who is this woman? Why is she telling me this? I don't wanna know.

I always laugh when that happens. Now I understand Holy Spirit. That's a Holy Spirit moment. So instead of being weirded out, that's where you start encouraging. That's where you start exhorting, not sharing your own. Not saying, yeah me too, my elbow, you know I had to go to the doctor and then we start comparing scars. So your words really have to reflect who you are.

Wow, I'm almost finished. So let's rewind, let's go back to the beginning. Do you remember the first question I asked when we started? I said how does a source of joy end up with a fool? When I was writing these notes and I started with that question in my head, I was like I don't know the answer. Please, God, don't gimme something that I have to say, well, I don't know, but we just trust the Lord. No, no. I want to know how this happened. You know because it just didn't seem fair to me. I mean, she was nice and she was smart and she was pretty and you know, and I'm like why?

And Holy Spirit told me you know I don't put everything in the Bible for a reason. I was like, I don't understand. I've always asked myself some questions about the Bible in the way some things are written. Sometimes, there are just some parts of stories, if you didn't start from the beginning, it kind of just throws it in there. I'd be like, I'll go and research. Like what, who is this person? Who is their father? Nothing. You know, the Holy Spirit was like, what's in the Bible is what you need though. So, if I needed to give you extra, I would've given you an extra book or two, but everything you got in there is pretty much what you need.

I wasn't done asking. I was like, okay, so I'm just supposed to accept that as the answer. I can't tell these women that. They'll be like, why? The next thing I heard, cuz I love how the Holy Spirit answers me, was that the things that happened to her were her past and whatever she may have done, or she might not have done to end up in the situation was irrelevant because it was in her past.

If they needed to give us the history of her past, it would be in there. If we needed to know, cuz you can speculate, oh, maybe her father needed money and he sold her so he could... No, we don't know; and if it was important, I promise it would be in the story, but it isn't. And then, what I got from that was your past is not important.

Your past is exactly that, it is the past. It is behind you. The only reason your past is ever in front of you is that you put it in front of you. Grammatically, the past is behind; it is never in front. Nobody says I'm going to the past. If you're like, I went to the past, it's always back this way.

A lot of times, we get caught up in this is my fault. If I hadn't done this 10 years ago, or if I had said something three years ago, I wouldn't be in this situation and we get stuck right in that place. You get stuck in that place where you're just trapped in you're in this circle, like a whirlwind of the past.

Because the devil knows, once you give into one thought about something in your past, he starts to bring up the most irrelevant past things you did in the past that you didn't even remember at first because he's seen an opportunity to get you stuck in the past. And I mean, we've all made wrong choices.

I have made a lot of wrong choices, but the truth of the matter is it is time to let go of the past. We gotta step out of it. Do not stay there. If you're there, please come out, come with me. Thank you. Don't stay there. There's nothing there for you. There's sadness, depression, and regret. Why would we hang out where that is?

Abigail made the decision instead of just leaving her husband to, whatever happens, whatever will be, will be, you on your own. Instead of doing that, she decided, you know what, I'm going to be, who I am. I'm not gonna let this go down like this.

I don't know where I get this from, it might be my mom. I'll say things like, no, no, no I'm here. So everything has to be okay. I've started telling myself that cuz I used to have a very bad fear of flying. Yeah, this is a great time to fear flying. Right? So, my husband would tell me, you have to start thinking because you are on the plane, nothing can happen.

You have to start thinking when you get on a roller coaster, nobody's gonna fall off. Like there are some legitimate fears I have of these things. I used to think, that the day I get on is the day something will happen. Andrew said, but I thought you were a child of God. You realize that's not how that's supposed to work.

You know, a lot of times we don't make the choice to walk in who we are. We don't make the choice to believe who we are, because if you change that perspective and you look at it that way, you're suddenly like, oh, wait a minute now. Okay, that's true.

So Abigail decided to walk in that's who I am. I am going to intercede. I am literally gonna stand in the gap. She made the choice to act in wisdom. She didn't have to, you know, she could have just been petty. She had every right to be petty, but she decided to walk in wisdom. She made the choice to speak in kindness and to speak in encouragement. Cuz you also realize she could have approached David totally differently. She could have said, I don't know who you think you are, but I don't know why I'm making Abigail act like a black woman. I'm sorry. But I don't know who you are, but my husband is..., but she chose not to do that. She chose to speak with kindness, encourage, and exhort. At the end of the story, Nabal dies.

Then David's like, yo girl, come on girl. Stupid. That guy was a player. Anyway, immediately the guy's out for the count. He's like Abigail, hey, come here. I love this. I love the end of this story. Not just because she ended up with the guy. No, because she will become royalty now because she's gonna marry David, and David's gonna be a king.

The best part of the story is that she was already walking like a queen. She was already doing what Queens does. So she didn't need to marry him to be the queen. Marrying him was just the manifestation of what she already was. Can I run for myself? Is this recording? Cause I'm gonna need to listen to that one more time myself. Wow. Cause that's not in my notes.

She didn't wait to go to the palace to change to become. Okay, Oh, we're going all right. Let me go buy some new clothes, I have to stand. I have to walk like this. Nope, she was already a queen. She already knew that was why in that household when there was a problem, they knew who to go to. They knew that we need to go talk to Abigal. I don't know what this guy is doing.

Who knows how many times she had saved Nabal Who even knows cuz this guy looked like he was just a joke. So, she might have been doing this the whole time. But she already knew who she was. She knew she was a queen. She didn't need to marry him. Like I said, marrying him was the fulfillment, the manifestation of who she already was.

When David saw her, he automatically recognized that, Hmm, she's got that queen thing. She's got that queen thing. And he was like, okay, look, I don't know, Lord, I don't know what's gonna happen to her husband, but I'm gonna need you to work something out. Cuz this one, I can't just leave this one cause you can find a pretty woman, but a pretty, and intelligent woman, and then an exhorter; she's like everything right now.

Imagine if Abigail didn't know who she was. So he could have seen it all day, she wouldn't have known, and she wouldn't have been doing anything queen-like already, cuz she wouldn't have known.

I'm ending now. I'm supposed to declare these declarations for you. I love declarations. So listen to me and believe what I'm saying and make sure you agree with it, and if you don't agree with it, raise your hand and I'll read it again. It's very short and you've heard it before.

You are blessed and highly favored. You are a daughter of the Most High. That's an office that no one can take away from you. And you are a child that no one can replace. I encourage you to hold your head up high in boldness like Abigail and walk like the queen that you are, don't worry about people not knowing or not recognizing who you are. They'll catch up eventually because God knows, and that's really all that matters. Let go of the past and set your eyes on the greatness that He has called you to.

Betty 29:51

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