Chapter Five

Acting with Understanding

At a certain point, I just felt, you know, God is not looking for alms,

God is looking for action.

Bono

When my friend Terri heard about a young woman in her community who was pregnant and considering an abortion, Terri knew she needed to act. She had had three abortions before she got married and wanted to tell this young woman her experience. Terri and Ashley met in Terri’s home.

Terri said, “You cannot believe the guilt I live with all these years later. I know the depression I suffer is from the decision to end those lives. The man I was dating paid for the abortions, and I don’t know if I can ever forgive him.”

Ashley listened intently, then said, “But I’m not very far along.”

Terri later shared with me that although she knew that having an abortion wasn’t God’s way, in her conversation with Ashley she focused on her inability to forgive herself. She shared how she was tormented night and day by guilt over what she had done. Later, when she found out that Ashley had decided to have her baby, Terri told her, “That was the right sacrifice to make.”

Terri acted with understanding, and because she did, Ashley made a life-giving choice. Tragically, many women facing similar choices don’t get the kind of intervention that Ashley received from Terri.

This was the case for a woman in her late thirties who asked me to pray with her at a women’s conference. She told me that she was struggling with anger and resentment for having aborted two of her pregnancies. The first time she had an abortion she was unmarried and way too young to rear a child. Her boyfriend agreed with her. The second time, she was married but felt the timing to have a baby was wrong. As she talked with me about those isolating times, she sounded disillusioned and defeated.

I was saddened by this woman’s story because it told me that the women in her life had missed something. They had not been there for her when she stood at a crossroads; they had failed to act with understanding toward her. If they had, they could have been there to help her make good choices regarding her pregnancies.

Titus 2:3–4 speaks about women ahead in the race: “Teach what is good, and so train the young women” (ESV). The Greek word used for “train” in this verse is sophronizo, which means “to call one to her senses, to make sensible.” The world has become a noisy and competitive place. Making the most of one connection with another person is a way of seeking to understand that person. We have no idea what God is up to in that person’s life, but we can be a part of it if we take the time. As Terri’s conversation with Ashley shows, God can use one conversation, one interaction, to change a person’s course.

Why It’s Important

As we work toward becoming safe havens, we must change our mind-set and stop assuming that the women we know don’t have needs or that they don’t need friendship and understanding. The superwoman myth is over. The false and damaging persona of spiritual independence is a lie. Past writers and current researchers have noted that our spiritual health is dependent on intergenerational relationships.1 When we relate to someone who is older, we see our lives through a long historical perspective of life as opposed to relying solely on our own experiences.

Well-known women such as Harriet Beecher Stowe and her sister Catharine Beecher held Americans to high moral standards because they wanted them to be responsible and assume the character of Christ. These great, thinking Christian women wrote of the obligations men and women have to themselves, their families, and their fellow citizens. One such obligation they described as denying self in order to be kind and good. The Beecher sisters were saying not only is it better for us to be concerned about the welfare of others, even those outside our families, but it’s also a character quality of Christ.2

Could it be that our spiritual independence is keeping us from understanding what the women in our lives need and then acting on their behalf? I think many of us have bought into the spiritual independence that our Christian culture encourages. God’s ways, however, are different. He can give us the right thoughts and plans for those who desperately need our attention—or even our intervention.

What We Should Do

When it comes to our relationships, we need to gain understanding for two reasons: to discern or to perceive what’s going on with another person, and to do what’s right for that person.

While it’s true that no one except Christ can understand our circumstances and know us inwardly, it’s also true that women need other women to understand them, to get them, to know them, and when necessary, to act on their behalf. It’s our job to do everything in our power to let another woman know we understand her—that we see what she is up against and what her world is like.

Understanding is a gift God gives in divine moments. It’s a burst of insight and discernment designed specifically for that situation. Unlike the wisdom we gain from suffering that helps us persevere in the long haul, understanding prompts us to a particular action.

The woman I talked with at the conference needed a few discerning women in her life who could say to her, “Stop! There’s another way to live your life. You don’t have to get an abortion. Instead, you can see yourself in a different light; you can make a better choice as you see the narrow path God has for you at this crossroads.” The point is we need to be the person at the right place and at the right time.

A Biblical Model: Abigail

Before becoming king, but after his anointing, David spent a lot of years running from Saul. In 1 Samuel 25, David found meaningful work to do while he and his men were running in the wilderness; they formed a kind of watch group. Besides defending from lions and bears, this group protected themselves and others from robbers, criminals, and muggers. It was in this context that David encountered Nabal, a wealthy landowner whose name ironically means “fool.”

One day, ten of David’s men approached Nabal and asked for food. Why not? They had generously protected Nabal’s land and his herdsmen from thieves for a time. Fool that he was, Nabal’s response to David’s polite request was beyond a no. Nabal was so rude he belittled David’s family line. When he heard about it, David vowed and threatened disaster on Nabal’s entire estate. David was ready to kill, to take revenge with his own hands.

But someone was there at the right place and at the right time: Abigail. She was convinced that the health of the Jewish nation and her family depended on her to act. She had a deep feeling of obligation, not just to a few people, but to everyone in her sphere of influence. Whether her intervention with David was solely for David’s best interest is not the point. How she showed up and what she said at this crossroads in David’s life model how an intelligent woman uses understanding at an opportune time.

As Proverbs 13:15 says, “Good judgment wins favor.” Abigail used discernment in a crisis, and while her wise and successful ways may seem cunning, they were not. Abigail was able to make the most of her one connection with David and stop him from making a horrible mistake. I love how Eugene Peterson recreated the Abigail and David story:

Abigail on her knees in the wilderness, on her knees before David. David is rampaging, murder in his eyes, and Abigail blocks his path, kneeling before him. David has been insulted and is out to avenge the insult with four hundred men worked up into a frenzy. Abigail, solitary and beautiful, kneels in the path, stopping David in his tracks.3

Here’s what Abigail did and what we can do.

Living Out the Pattern of Understanding

Be Present to What Is Happening around You

Abigail was a prominent woman who managed her household and business details with good management skills. She paid attention to what was going on in the lives and conversations of those she came in contact with. Her servant, upon hearing of David’s threat and the impending doom, said to her, “I need you to understand this, to really get this; don’t miscalculate. Dig deep so you can recognize what’s about to happen.”

Because she was present to her servant, Abigail discovered what had happened between David and her fool of a husband. Because she lived in the everyday with her servants, Abigail was approachable. Clearly, her servant knew her daily routine and the ways in which she operated when he said, “Now think it over and see what you can do” (1 Sam. 25:17). Abigail spent her days talking about ordinary things with ordinary people. She reflected on the everyday matters of life with her family and her servants, and she acted on what she learned by making a plan.

Abigail stands in stark contrast to the way many people respond in a dire situation. We might be tempted to spend our days thinking of how things should have been, which creates discontentment, or we might obsess about how things will unfold, which is called worry. Both worry and discontentment destroy our abilities to reflect and live in the everyday.

I’ve found that heaven and earth intersect for me most often when I’m solving an outrageously practical problem in my ordinary life. When I “think it over and see what” I can do, I get understanding: I see the need for action.

Erwin McManus in his book Chasing Daylight talked about divine moments: “When you seize divine moments, you instigate an atomic reaction. You become a human catalyst creating a divine impact.”4 Abigail seized a divine moment.

What Abigail did and said next shows us the pattern of living out understanding in a serious situation where our spirits say, “God, your ways and thoughts are so different from mine. Give me your understanding, teach me, and give me a plan.” And God did; he gave her a plan.

Enlist Help, If Needed

Abigail’s plan included feeding David and his men, who had been on the run from Saul and were hungry and tired. Scripture says she “acted quickly” (1 Sam. 25:18). She did not hesitate. She took enough bread, wine, sheep, and raisin cakes to feed David and his men and loaded the goods on donkeys.

While I don’t think Abigail was trying to tear down the superwoman myth (after all, the concept and word didn’t even exist!), she didn’t try to implement her plan all by herself. She recognized the job was too big for her alone, and she enlisted the help of her servants to get it done.

We can do something similar by asking God to open our eyes for the younger women who are five, ten, or twenty years younger than we are and want to support us. Sheri does a good job of inviting younger and older women to join her when she holds women’s conferences in the Pacific Northwest. Her most recent committee has two women in their twenties, two in their thirties, one in her forties, and one in her seventies. Sheri is tearing down the false image that she can do things all on her own.

God often calls us to something that is bigger than we are, and we need to take note when divine understanding says, “You cannot do this on your own.” God works wonders in impossible situations. I was reminded of this truth one Saturday evening when a neighbor came over and knocked on the front door. When I opened it, she stepped inside and began to sob. In between her crying and talking, I learned that her husband had had to leave town to take a new job and that she was left to load up the moving truck on her own. She had no one to help her. After I consoled her, I sent her home and said I would see what I could do. In a burst of insight and discernment, I realized I couldn’t help her by myself and immediately enlisted the help of neighbors I knew. I sent out emails, texts, and calls, explaining this neighbor’s plight. None of us knew her well, but the next day close to twenty neighbors showed up to what looked like an impossible situation. Within two hours, the group had helped load most of her belongings onto her moving truck.

Be Yourself, Not an Image

While Abigail sent her servants ahead with the food, she didn’t send a servant in her place to approach David. She didn’t send a messenger saying, “David, don’t do this; you’re going to regret it!” She brought her authentic self to talk directly to David. When she saw him, she hurried off her donkey, fell at his feet, and said, “On me alone, my lord, be the guilt” (1 Sam. 25:24 ESV). She then explained why David shouldn’t kill her. “Look,” she said, “I’m humble. I’ve brought you food, and I’m a woman traveling alone.”

To be honest, I wouldn’t naturally respond to the threat to murder my family and household the way Abigail did. I would have jumped off my donkey, huffed and puffed as I marched to face David, and said, “Back off!” In the case of David and Nabal, that wasn’t God’s way. Abigail’s wise response showed that she was listening to God and that he gave her understanding.

When we are engaging with women who are younger than we are, we can think we need to have all the right answers and even use a certain language. In our efforts to be spiritual, we say to a woman in crisis, “Just take it to the cross; surrender it all. I’m praying for you.” Or to show we understand, we talk about the facts of that crisis. But the understanding Abigail showed to David was the kind that spoke directly to his heart: “Please let your servant speak … hear [me].… Please …” (1 Sam. 25:24, 28 ESV). Abigail was vulnerable with David and let him see how she really felt—that he was in danger of losing his crown (vv. 23–29).

Similarly, when we are talking to a woman in crisis, we must express how much we care about her, without concern that it might come out wrong or make us feel awkward. We have to put aside our ideas about the way we want others to see us. We must resist these inclinations and be honest and authentic, even if it means sharing our mistakes and stumbles. When we have understanding, we realize those times when the most helpful thing we can say to a younger woman is that we don’t have things all together.

My friend Jillian, days before speaking at her first retreat, called with this request: “Pam, think back to your first retreat. What practical advice would you give me?” Thinking back sixteen years to that conference required me to dig deep! I told her a couple of things that only experience could bring. I shared with her how years ago, I felt the need to protect myself at retreats. Often I wouldn’t get to know the women, sometimes relying on the other team members to interact with the group. I missed out because I wasn’t open. My behavior changed late one night when a shy woman came knocking at my door. It took her five minutes to tell me what was on her mind. Finally, she said, “I think you’re holding back from us all the Spirit wants to give us when you stay in your room.”

My vulnerability encouraged Jillian. She appreciated that I was real with her and said, “That helps me to pay more attention to what really matters—the women.”

Think about Your Words

When Abigail asked for David’s forgiveness on behalf of her rude husband, she did so with goodness-filled language. Reasoning again from God’s point of view, Abigail said, “The LORD has kept you from bloodshed” (1 Sam. 25:26). Abigail understood that the pathway to David’s heart was through his history. She knew Saul’s history with David, and she knew David was preparing to be the future king. Spoken words can shape us and fill us, altering our perspective, and that was the case with David. He began worshiping God: “Praise be to the LORD, the God of Israel, who has sent you today to meet me” (v. 32). This change came about as Abigail spoke about God’s goodness to him.

Abigail took the blame (again) for her foolish husband and at the same time saw David’s rage in light of his promised future: “The LORD your God will certainly make a lasting dynasty for my lord” (v. 28). In other words, don’t ruin your future! Abigail referred to a specific promise God had made to David.

An excellent question to ask a younger woman who’s standing at a crossroads is “What was God’s last promise to you? Tell me about it. Tell me the circumstances surrounding that promise.” Use goodness-filled language to rephrase that promise in her current crisis.

A woman did this for me several years ago, and her words were life-giving. Brad had been rushed to the hospital because he was extremely sick. After hours of doctors in and out of his room performing various tests, I started to panic and walked out the door to sit in the waiting room. Sitting there praying for us was a woman from my Bible study who was a few years older than I was. Seeing that I wasn’t handling things well, she said, “Pam, tell me what you’re thinking.” As my panic-stricken words filled the air, she did something I will always remember. She stood close to me and said, “Do you remember last week when you told all of us how God keeps showing you he’s watching over Brad?” I did remember; she helped me re-remember. Somehow her goodness-filled language pushed panic out of the way of controlling my heart; it was still there but much quieter as I whispered, “Thank you, God, that you are watching over Brad.”

Don’t Hold Back

Abigail found the narrow way David needed to take and steered him away from the wide and easy way that led to destruction. By not holding back from intervening in David’s life, Abigail used discernment in keeping David from taking revenge. He was angry and could easily have told his men to slaughter Abigail and her servants right there on the spot. Yet, she got him to accept “from her hand what she had brought him” (1 Sam. 25:35). He heard her words and granted her request.

Most important, she changed David’s view of himself. When Abigail arrived on the scene, David was warrior, seeing himself only as fighter, skilled in killing. What Abigail did by not holding back all she was and all she had was cast David in his eternal light; she helped him see the David God was preparing as king. She became a ray of light to the narrow path for David.

After David worshiped God for sending Abigail his way, he thanked her for her good judgment (1 Sam. 25:33). We need to do for other women what Abigail did for David. When we know a woman is standing at a crossroads, about to make a bad decision, we cannot hold back any good we have. We can’t be vague or make subtle suggestions. We must shine light on the narrow path, pointing and saying, in effect, “Do you really want to live with blood on your hands the rest of your life? Let God take revenge and you go here.”

Just as God used Abigail to change how David saw himself, he can use us to help another woman view herself in a life-giving way. A teacher I know saw scars on a student’s arms and knew the student was cutting herself. When the teacher approached the student and asked her why she was in so much emotional pain, she heard, “I miss my old school with all my friends and the cutting helps me to not feel the pain.” Not wasting one minute or holding back any love, the teacher took the student aside and, using goodness-filled words, said, “You can always tell me how you feel, but I want to introduce you to some new friends I think are a lot like you.” Within a short amount of time, this teacher helped the young girl see herself differently, as someone who could start over. With a divine understanding, the teacher connected students to this new girl and helped her see herself in a different light.

Are you fearful of standing out as Abigail did? It takes grit and determination to stand with others as they decide to walk the narrow road. It feels like a contradiction to say that living out the pattern of understanding may put us in a dangerous situation. Abigail wasn’t afraid to act on the divine understanding that she had received about David, even though it meant risking her life. She understood the situation was perilous, not only for her family, but for David and the kingdom of Israel as well. Had David taken revenge that day, it could have cost him his crown. Even worse, he could have been killed, leaving Israel without God’s chosen king.

Partnering with God

Younger women need to have understanding women in their lives. When, like Abigail, we live in real time and demonstrate understanding, we will have opportunities to be in relationship with younger women. As God gives us insight about how to respond to a specific need, we need to focus on that and let the rest go. He is in the business of protection and promotion. We don’t need to spend our lives preoccupied with how we will be safe or how we will be perceived.

When we hear someone is about to make or is making poor decisions, we must act quickly in going to that person. The key is to check our own ways and understanding at the door and to wait for God’s perspective on the situation. He gives it while we are acting; he reveals the path while we are taking the next step. He provides the energy while we are exercising every ounce of energy and power we have to reach out to the women closest to us. When we live out the pattern of understanding, like the psalmist, we will see how we commend God’s works to another generation. It’s another way of passing along our faith, because we’ve partnered with God in keeping another person’s path straight.