Last week, I was feeling that my thoughts and outlook on the current US political scene needed some freshening. I was not coming up with any new prayerful thoughts about the divisions, bickering, and fighting between parties. So I thought I would read the weekly Bible Lesson with the situation in mind. The Bible Lesson is a different set of prepared passages each week from the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy for folks to study.
While reading, I got engrossed in the passages and soon forgot about my mission. However, then I came to the biblical story of David and Abigail. In this story, before David became King of Israel, he and his 600 followers were outlaws. In return for protecting a wealthy landowner, they asked him for some food. This landowner, Abigail’s husband, denies the request. So David assembles 400 of his soldiers and intends to retaliate by killing the landowner and his workers and taking the food by force. Abigail hears what is going on, and in order to save her household from the attack, Abigail hurries to take food to David’s army. She meets them on the road as they are approaching.
She tells David to put the blame on her, asks for his forgiveness, and says that surely he won’t want innocent blood on his hands. David quickly realizes that she is right, accepts her gift of food, and promises that she will be kept safe on her trip back to her household. Abigail appears to have the interests of all parties in mind. She is humble, non-judgmental, and knows there is a solution to avoid conflict. This caused me to ask myself, “Could I imagine a politician doing that? Saying to put the blame on him/herself? Asking forgiveness even if they weren’t to blame?” If I can't ask myself these questions, then am I really helping? Since then, my prayers have been to better see that these God-given qualities of humility and tolerance are inherent in everyone.
Of course this really all starts with me. How can I better express the quality of humility and being non-judgmental throughout my day? That’s a fresh outlook - a prayer that can help myself, my dealings with others, and our political environment. It's interesting that a woman is the hero in this story in a Biblical world where men generally dominate. Perhaps we could all use a little more Abigail in our lives.