Ebenezer Day

Since Monday was a day of reflection, I’m still thinking about how we all need to look back not just on the men and women who have sacrificed their lives for our country, but we also need to look back on the times and people in our personal lives that have made a difference. These are the things that can give us hope in our times of trouble. If we have seen God’s faithfulness in the past, we can trust that He will be faithful to us in our current struggles.

In the Bible when Joshua was leading the people into the Promised Land by crossing the parted waters of the Jordan River, he instructed one person from each of the 12 tribes to pick up a rock from the river bed. They set the stones up as a memorial so that when people saw it and asked about it, they would be told the story of how God had miraculously shown His power in guiding Israel during the time in the desert. In the Old Testament, the wise prophet Samuel set up a stone and called it Ebenezer when God came to the rescue of Israel and saved them from their enemy. These were recorded as examples for us today.

Now I am not saying to go out and find a bunch of rocks to set up as reminders for you, but there are other things that you can do. Maybe God used a Bible verse to help you through a difficult period, so why not post it so that you see it often and can thank God for what He has done in your life? Possibly it is a picture of someone who invested in you so that you were able to grow and mature in your faith. Could you put their picture in a place where you will see it often and thank God for them? Perhaps an object serves as a reminder of God’s presence in times past. If it is displayed where you pass it frequently, why not stop and let it be a prompt to reflect on God’s goodness?

In my opinion, I think it would be great to have a national holiday to be able to look back on what God has done for us personally and for us as a nation. Although I don’t think that Congress would approve an “Ebenezer Day”, it doesn’t really matter if it is an approved holiday or not, since we can each choose when to have our own private day of remembrance or we could even choose to have it everyday. Will you take the opportunity today to look back over your life and see those things worthy of celebrating?

1 Samuel 7:12 Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, saying, "Thus far has the LORD helped us."