The Lord will keep you from all evil; He will keep your life. – Psalm 121:7, Amplified Bible (AMP)

Even the best of us succumb to unholy anger from time to time.

In 1 Samuel 25, David sought help from a man named Nabal. Not long before seeking Nabal’s aid, David had treated several of Nabal’s servants very kindly – a fact to which the servants themselves testified. But in return for kindness, Nabal figuratively spit in David’s face, refusing to supply the exiled king with the food and drink that he requested. When David’s messengers delivered Nabal’s rude response, David was furious. He commanded his men to put on their swords, and then he led his men towards Nabal’s house with the intent of murdering every man Nabal had.

Thankfully, the story did not end the way David intended. Moved by God to stop the slaughter, Abigail, Nabal’s wife, intercepted David with two gifts: 1) provision for his men, and 2) a great amount of remorse for her husband’s wickedness. As his anger waned (decreased), David realized that The Lord Himself had sent Abigail to stop him from committing murder. As 1 Samuel 25:32-34 (AMP) reads:

32 And David said to Abigail, Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, Who sent you this day to meet me.

33 And blessed be your discretion and advice, and blessed be you who have kept me today from bloodguiltiness and from avenging myself with my own hand.

34 For as the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, Who has prevented me from hurting you, if you had not hurried and come to meet me, surely by morning there would not have been left so much as one male to Nabal.

We absolutely have a responsibility to choose to avoid sin, for the Bible is filled with commandments for us to choose obedience over iniquity. However, we sometimes run towards sin without thinking, particularly in times when our emotions are running rampant. Thankfully, God knows how weak we are, and from time to time He will save us from ourselves before we commit some great atrocity against Him. When those times come, His effort to protect us from ourselves will be obvious, and we ought to praise Him profusely (abundantly) for doing so. Before those times come, however, we have an obligation to obey The Lord in every way we know how. And, we have an obligation to pray to The Lord to protect us from ourselves. If we don’t show God that we desire to obey Him when we are thinking before we act, then He won’t be too swift to keep us from sin when we aren’t thinking at all.

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