She Loaded the Donkeys Before She Told Anybody

There is a woman in First Samuel who has about ten minutes to prevent a massacre, and what she does with those ten minutes is the whole message.

Her husband had insulted a man with four hundred armed men behind him. He had been asked politely for provisions, he had refused rudely, and now that man was on his way with a sword.

A servant ran and told her. And Luke's sense of pace is nothing next to what happens next.

Then Abigail made haste, and took two hundred loaves, and two bottles of wine, and five sheep ready dressed, and five measures of parched corn, and an hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs, and laid them on asses.

Read that list again. That is an enormous amount of food, prepared and loaded, in almost no time.

And then the line that finishes it: and she said unto her servants, Go on before me; behold, I come after you. But she told not her husband Nabal.

The food was on the road before the conversation happened. She got the help moving first and dealt with everything else second.

Haste is the first verb

Read the sentence and notice which word comes before anything else.

Then Abigail made haste, and took two hundred loaves, and two bottles of wine, and five sheep ready dressed... and laid them on asses. (1 Samuel 25:18, King James Version)

Then Abigail made haste.

The speed is reported before the inventory. Scripture is telling you that the defining feature of what she did was that she did it immediately, and then it lists the enormous amount of stuff, which is the second most impressive thing about it.

That is worth sitting with, because most generosity that fails does not fail at the deciding stage. Almost everybody decides. The failure is in the gap between deciding and moving, and that gap is where good intentions go to die quietly.

The moment passes. The person gets through it some other way, or does not. And the thing that was going to be given is still in the house.

You are able to move on it today, and the deciding has never once been the part that helps anybody. That is not me scolding a slow week. 1 Samuel 25:18 puts haste at the front of the sentence, and it is the Holy Spirit who converts a settled intention into something actually leaving the house.

She did not consult

Now the part that is going to make somebody uncomfortable, and it should be handled carefully.

She told not her husband Nabal.

I am not going to build a doctrine of household independence out of one verse and I would be wrong to. What that verse says about her particular marriage is grim: Nabal is described in that chapter as churlish and evil in his doings, and a servant says plainly that he is such a son of Belial that a man cannot speak to him.

She was not going around a reasonable man. She was moving fast in a situation where a conversation would have ended in a no and then in a funeral, and Scripture praises her for it.

What generalizes is smaller and still useful: some help has a window, and running it past four people usually closes the window. Not every act of generosity needs a committee.

You are able to act inside a window, and consultation has never once been required for an ordinary kindness. 1 Samuel 25:19 has her send the food ahead before she speaks to anybody, and the Spirit of God is the one who gives a person clarity about when a thing is theirs to decide.

She showed up herself

She did not just send the supplies. That is the second thing.

She sent them ahead and then rode after them, and she got off her donkey and fell on her face in front of a furious man, and she talked to him. She took the whole thing on herself, including responsibility that was not hers.

Upon me, my lord, upon me let this iniquity be. She says that about a thing she did not do.

So the generosity in that chapter is not only the food. It is a person putting themselves in the middle of a situation that could have killed them, and doing the hard part personally instead of paying for it to be handled.

You are able to bring it yourself, and sending something has never once been the same as showing up. 1 Samuel 25:23 has her get down and fall before him in person, and the Holy Spirit is the one who supplies the nerve for the part that cannot be delegated.

What she actually prevented

And it is worth saying what came out of that speed, because it was not mainly about Nabal's household.

She talked David out of it. Read what he says to her afterward: blessed be thy advice, and blessed be thou, which hast kept me this day from coming to shed blood, and from avenging myself with mine own hand.

He was a man about to do something he would have carried for the rest of his life. Four hundred men and a bad night, and a future king with blood on his hands over an insult about sheep.

Her speed saved her household, and it also saved a man from himself, and she had no way of knowing the second one when she was loading donkeys.

You are not going to see everything your quickness prevents, and it has never once been limited to the thing you were aiming at. 1 Samuel 25:33 has David name what she kept him from, and the Spirit of God is the one who does more with an act of kindness than the person could have intended.