I Raise My Ebenezer

What do you think of when you hear the name Ebenezer? If you're like most people, you think of Ebenezer Scrooge, Charles Dickens, Christmas, and bloody old England. The name, however, comes from a Hebrew word meaning, "stone of help." The ruthless Philistines had attacked God's people, Israel. After God gave His people the victory, the prophet Samuel set up a stone of help right on the battlefield and called it Ebenezer, stone of help. 1 Samuel 7:12 tells us when he set it up, he proclaimed, “Thus far the Lord has helped us.”

Remembrance is important. Remembrance reinforces our values, reminding us where we came from. Those precepts our parents or teachers or pastors instilled in us years ago have become a part of who we are. They have shaped us into the people we are today, and to compromise those truths would be to completely lose sight of who we are. Remembrance can provide a springboard for change, helping us to avoid repeated mistakes or reminding us of places we do not want to revisit. Learn from your mistakes, right? Yes, but better to learn from the mistakes of others. Watch what people do, study history, remember it, and you will avoid pitfalls that would otherwise slow you down, hang you up, or put an end to the journey. Remembrance can be the guideposts when the way is dark and long, keeping us on track with recollections of motives or circumstances that put us on this path in the first place. If you can't remember why you're on the path, how are you going to find the motivation to stay there? If you can't remember how you got to the place you're in, how will you know to avoid or embrace those situations in the future? Remembrance can give us the courage to move on -- and this one is my personal favorite. "Thus far the Lord has helped us." He did not fail us before; He will not fail us ever.

Allow me to introduce you to my Ebenezer:

Those are journals, and that's a lot of words. Stories of God's faithfulness over and over. There are words of great sadness, deep-seated rage, daily minutiae, irrepressible joy, lament, penitence, catharsis, speculation, and page after page of Bible study. Through all of these things -- eighteen years of things -- God has been with me. Thus far the Lord has helped me.

I encourage you to raise your Ebenezer. A candle: scents can be powerful reminders of places and moments in time. A key chain: something you take with you wherever you go. A picture: one that expresses your journey in the arms of the God who carries you. A tree: a friend of mine planted a tree to remind her of the hope and protection God provided through a terrible tragedy. Whatever you can imagine that will strengthen your resolve to stay on this journey and seek the Lord while He may be found...

Raise your Ebenezer!