home… and thinking about Ebenezer

I’m home from the trip to Nashville, and it is as if the Lord was weaving a thread through my thinking. I am at a place where I am raising the stone of Ebenezer in my life.

AnotherThink: Here I Raise My Ebenezer is where the needle was threaded, for me.

In this essay, Charlie remarks on Samuel’s raising this stone, “”the stone of help”—for he said, “Up to this point the Lord has helped us!” —1 Samuel 7:12, NLT” at a place where restoration had begun. For this was not Israel’s beginning…. they had been through a bit of history, some successes and some failings, but at this place a testimony of faith for the future and for completion was set up. A prominent reminder to those who passed by in this place.

At this point I feel like someone with a bit of history… someone a bit worse for wear, but still with hope. And at the wedding I attended the song, ‘Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing’ that Another Think posted, was sung and as I heard it I felt that inner confirmation. This is the time for me to raise that stone of help, remembering that the Lord is a Helper, a very real help in time of need…. One who Restores Breaches. The same of whom David would later sing.

And far later Robert Robinson would pen this hymn:

1. Come, thou Fount of every blessing,
tune my heart to sing thy grace;
streams of mercy, never ceasing,
call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
mount of thy redeeming love.

2. Here I raise mine Ebenezer;
hither by thy help I’m come;
and I hope, by thy good pleasure,
safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
wandering from the fold of God;
he, to rescue me from danger,
interposed his precious blood.

3. O to grace how great a debtor
daily I’m constrained to be!
Let thy goodness, like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
prone to leave the God I love;
here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
seal it for thy courts above.

“”Thus far the LORD has helped us.” So the Philistines were subdued and did not again enter the territory of Israel; the hand of the LORD was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel. The towns that the Philistines had taken from Israel were restored to Israel, from Ekron to Gath; and Israel recovered their territory from the hand of the Philistines”.

Sometimes in life things are taken from us, things that were promised and which others have usurped. But if we turn in faith and are ‘hearing’, the way Samuel was hearing, God will be our help, in a lasting way for the remainder of our lives.

It is time to tune the ear to God’s message… it is time to tune the heart in harmony with that, and we will have reason to raise a stone of remembrance for all who follow after us. Remembering how faithful God has proven, once again.

MORE…Ebenezer…God’s personal word to you