I Samuel 25:26 The Lord hath withholden thee from coming to shed blood, and from avenging thyself with thine own hand.
I believe it was Dwight Eisenhower who had a special kind of formula, a chart, by which he made decisions. Eisenhower, of course, was the Supreme Allied commander during World War II and then President of the United States. He had extraordinary and hard decisions that he had to make. His chart for making decisions was something like this: decisions are either urgent, important, or both. For instance, a decision may be urgent but not important. So, you are in a meeting you have had planned for a week when the phone rings. The ringing phone is urgent; the meeting at hand is important.
On the other hand, raising a child is very important, but it is not always urgent. You’ve got eighteen years before you raise this child. So, some things are important, some things are urgent, and some things are both urgent and important. If I’m in the water and I’m gasping for air, that issue is both urgent and important. So, this formula is a way to make wise decisions when it is hard to know exactly what one must do.
In I Samuel 25 you find a chart of sorts about how to make decisions when it comes to people and what they have done to you. It is a story of David. David had protected the flocks of a man named Nabal, whose name means “foolish.” He was churlish and cruel. Nabal rejected David and did not want to give David any kind of provision in light of David’s protecting his flocks. So, David intended to go kill Nabal and all that was his. In the meantime, Nabal’s wife, a woman of good understanding named Abigail, had heard what had happened, the rough way her husband had treated the servants of David. She went to David, who was on his way to kill everyone, and took food, provisions, and an apology.
You find in this story four things you can do when it comes to people. First, you can return good for good. That is at the very end of this story when David changed his mind and did good to Abigail because she had done kindness to him. Goodness for good is the second easiest way to respond to people. But sometimes people do me a good turn and I totally forget about it. I can fail to be thankful for what they have done.
Second, you can return evil for good. That is what Nabal did to David. David had protected Nabal and Nabal spoke very roughly to David. Verse 21 says, “Now David had said, Surely in vain have I kept all that this fellow hath in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all that pertained unto him: and he hath requited me evil for good.” We can produce evil for good. That is wicked. Why would anyone reject the kindness of someone else and return evil for good? It is actually easier to do than one might think.
Third, we can return evil for evil. This is probably the easiest, most natural thing for anyone to do. In verse 26 Abigail is pleading with David not to take vengeance, “Now therefore, my lord, as the LORD liveth, and as thy soul liveth, seeing the LORD hath withholden thee from coming to shed blood, and from avenging thyself with thine own hand, now let thine enemies… be as Nabal.” It is amazing that David had passed this test earlier. He had not killed Saul when he had the chance, and Saul acknowledged that David had rewarded Saul good for Saul’s evil. God protected David because David did right by Saul.
Lastly, in verse 33 David said to Abigail, “And 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.” Abigail overcame evil with good. Romans 12 says, “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves.” Then it says, “Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.”
At the end of the day, the decisions you make regarding other people are usually simple, not hard in the sense that we don’t know what to do. These decisions are simple, not complicated, but they are hard. They are hard in the sense that we don’t know how to do what we must do. That is where a person has to rely upon God to do what only God can do. David said that God had kept back his servant from evil. “For the LORD hath returned the wickedness of Nabal upon his own head.”
Some decisions are not easy, but they are often simple. So, what is a chart for doing the right things by people? Overcome evil with good in the strength of God Almighty.