Get Your Life Back, a 5-Day Devotional from John EldredgeSample

If you’ve spent any time in a more traditional church, the type that still sings hymns, you might recall stumbling across an odd moment during the second stanza of “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing”: “Here I raise my Ebenezer / Hither by Thy help I’ve come.” The rest of the hymn is now lost to me as I get sidetracked with, What the blazes is an Ebenezer? Why am I raising one? I don’t think I have. Am I supposed to? Would I recognize one if I saw it? All the while I’m equally distracted by associations with good old Ebenezer Scrooge, which takes me further off on rabbit trails.

This hymn refers to a story from the Old Testament, to one of those fabulous Lord of the Rings–type battles when it looked like Israel was about to be utterly massacred by a marauding army. But God intervened, and He intervened so mightily that the people of God ran their enemies all the way out of the country and then some. The prophet Samuel then “took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, saying, ‘Thus far the Lord has helped us’ ” (1 Samuel 7:12). The point being, every time an Israelite passed that way again, they would see the stone and remember what God had done, remember how utterly faithful He is.

It does the heart good to remember. 

By the way, this intentional use of memory is a cure for one of the soul’s most common diseases, that “what have you done for me lately?” posture we fall into towards God. That unattractive attitude of ransomed Israel when they whined, “Sure, You delivered us from slavery; You’ve miraculously fed us every morning; but what about spring water? Can You do that? What about some meat?” I hate this part of me. Will You come through for my children this time? For this trip? This need? It’s embarrassing. 

Memory pulls us out by turning back to the goodness of God in our past. It allows us to savor the many gifts He has given. I’m suggesting you establish a practice of it.