always has the potential to do two things...
1. to stop us dead in our tracks
2. to bring us back to what is right and true
last night, we look at a beautiful illustration of this in the life of david as he encounters a woman named abigail in the bottom of a ravine. david is caught up in a moment of sin...full of anger and rage and vengeance. abigail represents beauty.
here's a eugene peterson quote that sums up well much of the teaching:
“When some Abigail or other shows up – a sudden beauty in song or face, in aspen or iris – we see ourselves in a larger, truer light. David had been living in the huge, vast world of God – God’s love and redemption, prayer and holiness – and it nearly got away from him as he pursued his puny, small-minded revenge. Abigail’s beauty – her double-edged beauty of character and countenance – recovered the beauty of the Lord for him. Abigail on her knees put David back on his knees.”
paul talks in 1 corinthians 10:13 about the fact that when we are tempted, God will provide a way out. and yet, in the moment when we feel sin barreling down on us, it can feel challenging to actually recognize that way out.
and i wonder if more than anything, our inability to recognize that way out, is a result of the fact that we have lost our eyes and appreciation for beauty. that we need to allow beauty, true beauty, to cause us to stop dead in our tracks and to be brought back to what is right and true.
what if in our moments of temptation, when we are caught up in anger and rage, we actually went out hunting for beauty. believing that it would realign our compass and bring us back to our true north.
if you are interested in listening to the entire teaching, you can check it out here.
“When
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