Here I Raise My Ebenezer

I love the old hymn Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.  I especially love the phrase that reads “Here I raise my Ebenezer; Hither by Thy help I’m come.”  That part of the song is a reference to the story found in I Samuel 7, particularly verse 14.

I Samuel 7:14 Then Samuel took a stone, and set it between Mizpeh and Shen, and called the name of it Ebenezer, saying, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.

Once again, the Israelites had sinned, and once again they cried out to God.  (Sometimes I feel like the Israelites.)

The Philistines were coming, and they were afraid.  Samuel called the people to repentance; he offered a sacrifice, and God heard their prayer.

With God’s help, the Israelites overcame the Philistines.

Samuel then took a stone, and he called it Ebenezer, which means the stone of help.  The Ebenezer was a memorial to remind the Israelites of  the time that God helped them, the time He fought for them.

There would be more battles, and they would need the reminder.

Do you have a time that God carried you through a storm that you can look back and say, “This is where the Lord helped me”?  While I don’t live in the past, I need the reminders of God’s work in my life to help me face the future.

I look back at the journey walked and the battles braved. I see the muddy path where my feet stumbled just to find a way through the night.

I look back at valleys and mountaintops; sparkling rainbows breaking through rain, where good overcame the times of unrelenting pain, and I know I didn’t walk alone. God was there with me, always holding me.

I look back at storm-tossed skies, at hurricanes and hail falling on me, no hope in sight. But the blessings came despite Satan’s best thrown shot, and Jesus walked every step with me.

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