EBENEZER

We sang one of my favorite hymns during a worship service a few weeks ago, “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing” by Robert Robinson. I especially love the line, “Here’s my heart; O, take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above.” But this time, the word, “Ebenezer” caught my attention.

Here I raise my Ebenezer;
hither by thy help I’m come;
and I hope, by thy good pleasure,
safely to arrive at home.

Ebenezer is a Hebrew word that means “stone of help.” In 1 Samuel 7:12, we read that Samuel took a stone and set it upright, like an altar of gratitude, and named the stone, “Ebenezer.” Samuel had done this to remind the Israelites of God’s goodness to them while they lived in a time of war and faithlessness. Years later, Robert Robinson wrote this hymn, including the phrase, “Here I raise my Ebenezer.” He had been living a troubled young life when a preacher inspired him to accept Christ. He then became a minister, and he wrote this hymn as a written altar of gratitude he could raise to God.¹

With these thoughts in mind, I noticed this large rock on my walking route the other day. “That could be my Ebenezer rock,” I thought to myself. I have not had a conversion experience like Robinson, but God has certainly been with me, loving and helping me through every moment. I picked up the rock to “raise my Ebenezer” and found it quite heavy!

And here is what came to me…

I have most readily felt God’s presence and help through my greatest grief, during my most difficult challenges, for my heaviest guilt, and in my deepest wounds. So, my Ebenezer rock is appropriately heavy, representing these burdens of my past, burdens I could only bear with the help of God. And in setting the rock down as an altar of gratitude and remembrance, the weight of these burdens was again relieved, physically and symbolically. I walked on, aware and now unencumbered, relieved and now grateful.

Here I raise my Ebenezer. Thank you, God. I remember.

Here’s my heart; O take and seal it;
seal it for thy courts above.

¹Information summarized from https://www.biblestudytools.com.
Lyrics found at https://hymnary.org/text/come_thou_fount_of_every_blessing
Photo by Karen