“Let’s Do It!!!” This is my impulsive reply to the suggestion to go snowboarding today, even though there’s not enough snow, the lines are stupid long, there’s like one run open and I have more than enough work that needs to accomplished today. So the intentional reply should be, “Man that sounds like a blast! But if I wait, the snow will be better, more runs will be open and I’ll have more fun if I choose to skip my impulse reaction today.” And still, it sounds like lots of fun to throw caution to the wind
There’s a chick in the Bible whom I greatly admire because she was more intentional than impulsive. This is Abigail, the wife of Nabal, the jerk. When we first meet Abigail, she is purposefully gathering loads of provisions to bring to David because her foolish husband was self-absorbed and hostile. Nabal had refused to give David & his men food and assistance, even though David had been kind to Nabal’s shepherds. So David had determined to repay Nabal evil for his unkind reply.
Into this toxic mix steps Abigail, who intentionally brings supplies to David, acknowledges her husband’s foolish behavior and prevents David from making a disasterous impulsive decision. Abigail brings heaps of provisions to David, without telling her husband. And when she returns home, Nabal is drunk, so that could be the perfect time to tell him what she did! But again, Abigail is intentional about how and when she communicates with Nabal, waiting until the next morning when he’s sober. Once Abigail tells Nabal what she’s done, the Bible says that his heart is turned to stone, he dies shortly thereafter & David nabs Abigail to be his wife.
Abigail is intentional in lots of ways that could also be helpful to us in our modern living. Here are some things for your consideration about doing life with intentionality:
- External assessment: what is going on around you, in your immediate vacinity & the broader world? How might these events and situations be affecting you? Abigail assessed what was happening with David, along with determining what her husband had done.
- Internal assessment: what’s inside you, what do you want and what are your motives? Sometimes we’re unaware of our core motives and what we want. This can cause us to make impulsive decisions without considering the results. When we look at Abigail, she wanted to prevent destruction from coming to her house, as well as preventing David from doing something he would later regret. She sat with her motives before acting impulsively & maybe lashing out at her husband.
- God’s input: what does God want and what would be God’s best for this situation or season in your life? Although we don’t read of any explicit input from God to Abigail in the Bible, her actions reflect God’s heart of compassion, grace, forgiveness, intervention and generosity.
- Course of Action: what actions could you take that would best support God’s design and character? When I look at Abigail’s decisions: she chooses to be generous, she chooses to interrupt David’s wrath and retribution, she chooses to communicate with her husband when he can best absorb her actions and she chooses to protect her household from Nabal’s foolish behavior.
These helpful keys, when applied into daily living, can prevent us from making impulsive & possibly foolish decisions. These keys can help us be intentional and more thoroughly aligned with God’s purposes and designs in our lives.
So based on these helpful pointers, I’m deciding to not go snowboarding today. Instead, I’ll get my board waxed and the edges sharpened so that when I go, I can have double the fun.
