Dharius Daniels - Help a Sister Out (Mother's Day)

Here’s the topic of today’s teaching. I’m going to see if this is the 115. Help a sister out! Is that okay? Alright, family. I want to LEAP into this lesson today by exploring a term that has become increasingly interesting yet culturally controversial. The term is captured in two words, family: it’s called «soft life.» Although I am unaware of the exact origin of this concept, I know that it has been co-opted by extremism. To my knowledge, this concept, in its purest form, is simply a call from women to women to resist and reject the notion that struggle, stress, and strain should be a social norm for sisters. A soft life, in its purest form, is not some naive notion that life will be easy, but it is a healthy hypothesis that life doesn’t have to be this hard. The concept of a soft life is not a suggestion that women don’t want to do anything; rather, they simply don’t want to have to do everything. It recognizes that people admire traits that some women possess, traits those women wish they didn’t have to carry. It’s as if some sisters would suggest that you are admiring them for something they wish they didn’t have to be. We admire women for being strong, not realizing that strength is not always their preference. For many of them, strength is a necessity. They’re not strong because they want to be; they’re strong because they had to be. They’re strong because their survival depended on it. They’re strong because they wouldn’t have advanced if they weren’t strong. They’re strong because they had to carry burdens they never thought they would have to carry, and some didn’t know how much strength they had until they faced a season and situation that required them to reach deep into the reservoir of their spiritual and emotional well and pull out strength to carry what they hadn’t expected to bear. We applaud them for their ability to multitask, not realizing that this skill is not always a preference; it’s a necessity. We commend them for their resilience and resolve, their ability to push through without stopping when they deal with sickness. We don’t recognize that the reason they don’t stop when they’re sick is not because they don’t want to stop or because they don’t need to stop. It’s because they know everything will come to a halt if they do. So they keep going, which makes it easy for sisters to find themselves overwhelmed, overextended, and exhausted without receiving the proper amount of empathy. What do you do when you’re overwhelmed, overextended, and exhausted, and the people that exhausted you have no empathy for you? Where is the 115 today? Consequently, the desire for a soft life is simply some sisters sagaciously suggesting, «Help a sister out.» The text that we just read in your hearing in the book of Samuel is an amazing example of what I’m trying to articulate. This story introduces us to an asset in the form of a woman named Abigail. Listen to me: Abigail is not an asset just because she’s a woman; Abigail is an asset because of the type of woman she is. The Bible teaches that every kind isn’t the same kind. Now, there is a person in the Bible who would know; he’s not a woman, but he dealt with enough of them to understand them, and his name was Solomon. What do my Bible readers know? Here’s what he said in Proverbs, chapter 14, verse 1: «The wise woman builds her house, but the foolish one tears hers down.» Notice the dichotomy: one’s wise, one’s foolish; the wise one is constructive, the foolish one is destructive; the wise one is an asset, the foolish one is a liability. Every kind isn’t the same kind. So when we talk about Abigail, we’re talking about a woman of wisdom. Listen to how the Bible describes Abigail; I love this description. This description of Abigail debunks some dichotomies that people think they have to live with because of what we see in culture. The description of Abigail debunks the myth that you have to be this or that. Abigail’s description shows us you can be this and that. Here it is: the text says, watch this, 1 Samuel 25:3 states that Nabal’s wife was named Abigail. Watch this: she was an intelligent and beautiful woman. Did you hear that? She had beauty and brains. She was not this or that; she was this and that. She is an example of an ambidextrous woman—someone who can do multiple things. She is one who can bring home the bacon and fry it too. Come on! I want to know, am I talking to any ambidextrous women today who will say, «I can do both»? Yeah! When I walk into a room, I’m not just a looker; I’m a lifter. Things are going to be lifted in the room, family! This is Abigail. She is externally attractive but intellectually valuable. When she shows up, help shows up. She is the personification of God’s intention for women, revealed in Genesis 2:18, when it says, «The Lord God said, 'It is not good for the man to be alone.'»