David and Abigail

“And David sent and proposed to Abigail, to take her as his wife.”

- 1 Samuel 25:39b

Abigail on her knees on the wilderness, on her knees before David. David is rampaging, murder in his eyes, and Abigail blocks his path, stopping David and his men in their tracks from killing her brutish husband.

Whoa.

Who would have thought a love story would emerge from the wilderness? Marriage was probably the last thing on his mind when David fled into the wilderness from the fierce pursuit of King Saul.

Abigail. A woman of good understanding and beautiful appearance. Yet she was married to a fool (1 Samuel 25:3). The bible does not tell us the circumstances, nor does it make any attempt to explain why Abigail would have ended up betrothed to Nabal (who name does literally mean fool too, by the way).

But perhaps that is exactly the point. Circumstances don’t always matter. We don’t always have to try so hard to explain why. It doesn’t really matter how or why things had to happen the way they did, but it does matter that we who are made in the image of God may reflect His beauty and captivate all eyes that are intricately bound up in the complexities of our lives and realities.

And maybe that is what’s so fascinating about beauty. Beauty is so simple, and yet so powerful. In the presence of the beautiful we intuitively respond in delight – the very nature of our five senses that pull us into whatever is there – scent, rhythm, texture, vision.

We are all moved by beauty: Stopped in our tracks at the sight of a gloriously golden sunset; soothed by still waters and the lush, green rolling hills and valleys. Our hearts flutter, and we gape and gawk as we come across beauty.

But as Eugene Peterson points out, there is more to beauty than we can account for empirically. Beauty is never only what our senses respond to us but always a sign of what’s beyond our senses – an innerness and depth. In that more and beyond, we discern God. Abigail is an icon (Gk, lit. image): an image that works in such a way that the beauty of God pours through it, a person who lives in such a way that the beauty of God streams through. Beauty from within and without – of wisdom, humility, courage and countenance.

Abigail’s beauty is witness of God in her circumstances. A mere woman in a man-dominated world, weaponless in a sword-rattling world, and most of all, beautifully pure in heart in a materialistic, utilitarian world. She protected her household from harm, and interceded David’s hand from sin on her knees. She discovered God’s call on David not while he was clothed in the splendour of a king’s robe, but David the fugitive, the wanted man on-the-run hiding in the wilderness David.

No wonder David proposed. A girl like Abigail is hard to miss. He recognised beauty when he came across it.

I guess it’s tempting to stop this piece of writing here. Nicely packaged and neatly summed up. I suppose the question that begs is:

What does it mean for me?

I used to think that we are better able to see people as beautiful once we’ve heard their story (We are able to love them). But slowly, I’m beginning to feel that beauty is something that manifests itself in spite of our story. Triumph in the face of sordid circumstances alone isn’t that which qualifies us to be beautiful. It certainly makes us praise-worthy and respectful people, but not necessarily beautiful.

If I am beautiful, it is not because I have been through much. If I am beautiful, it is because I possess the characteristics and qualities that reflect the glory of one who is being conformed to His image and likeness in a fallen world. Every circumstance that I find myself in doesn’t make me beautiful, but it is does give me however, the chance to allow it to cultivate beauty in me.

I’m a far cry from Abigail. Sharing life with Nick is enough to remind me of that. Abigail had wisdom, but she also had humility to exercise her wisdom in love.

We usually like to think that speaking the truth in love means helping those whom we love confront those brutal truths and cold hard facts that they need to hear – Because we are wise, because we know better.

People like me are particularly susceptible to habits like this. For if you know me, you will probably know all too well my penchant for academia and convoluted rhetoric – and add that to my gift of the gab in the “spiritual things”. Deadly combo, especially if you are my boyfriend.

Love, I am reminded, is neither like sounding brass nor an earful of clashing cymbals. Wisdom, I am reminded, is neither loudmouthed nor contemptuous.

It is beauty like Abigail’s that moves me. Her wisdom stirred her to action as she made haste not just to bear the burden of her household, but also to gird David with strength (1 Sam 25:18). She took the initiative to watch out for David, spoke the truth in love – sensitively, humbly – on bended knee no less (25:23), encouraging him, reminding him of God’s hand upon him, and finally preventing him from avenging murder and keeping his hand from evil (25:29,32).

If every man’s desire is to be the hero, so every woman desires to be the beauty. I’m no exception. To be beautiful like Abigail – I wish that too.

Still learning. Amen.