pride, humility, our home and my ebenezer - part 6 - The Conclusion

At last we arrive at the part where I finally get to tell you about my ebenezer.  If you look up the word, it means, "stone of help."  I'm not a fan of that particular definition per se because it harkens my thoughts to crystals and mystic-nature-y worship of stones etc.  That is NOT what I'm talking about here.  I am getting my reference to ebenezer from 1 Samuel 7: 12, which still references a "stone of help," but I love how it is explained also as a way to remember how so far, on the journey, the Lord has helped us.

¹² Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer,^[a]saying, “Thus far the Lord has helped us.”  

                                                               - 1 Samuel 7:12.

  Back when I was pregnant with Luke, I participated in Beth Moore's Believing God bible study at my church.  And it rocked.my.spiritual.world.  I learned the difference between just believing in God and believing God.  In the study, her teaching focused a lot on God's leading of his people to their much talked about promised land.  She spoke of how when the Bible was written, there was a literal piece of land that was the Israelite's promised land.  However, for us today, the spiritual seed of Abraham, we have our own spiritual promised lands that God is leading us to over the course of our life.  She spoke about how in different seasons of life, we may have different promised lands, but with absolute certainty, we all have them and to arrive in them requires submission, obedience, prayer and willingness to God and HIS plans and timing for our lives.  (Please check out her study and listen to her teaching on this topic.  I promise I am no where CLOSE to doing it justice with my brief summary here.  It is incredible and filled with so many lessons I continue to re-listen to and re-learn to this very day).

Anyways, in one part of the study, she taught from Joshua about the Israelite's crossing of the Jordan river (Joshua chapters 3-4). In this story, the Israelites were, crossing the Jordan at flood stage and God had parted the waters for them to pass through on dry ground.  A miracle that only he could accomplish.  With the waters raging on either side of them, God told his people to cross over and for specific people to take up a stone from the middle of the river that they would use to build a memorial altar to God on the other side.  Their own ebenezers if you will.

The 'middle' is a dangerous place to pause while on a difficult journey, because you are neither close to where you started or close to where you are going- you are right in between.  A lot of crisis can happen in the middle of things...and isn't it interesting that God chose the middle of the Jordan as the place he wanted them to pick up stones- I like to think it is because he wanted to remind them in a place of potential crisis, that He was still with them, helping them, and wanted to remind them that they were going to live to tell the story about their journey someday.  It is like God wanted them to really sear their memory of this particular challenging moment in their journey by taking up a stone from the middle.

God wanted these stones to be used as a prompting to remind them to tell their children about how God showed up BIG and delivered them safely to their promised land against all odds.  Beth taught that God is still in the business of delivering his people to their promised lands.  We just have to yield to His voice speaking in our hearts.  In my experience, it is not only sometimes difficult to hear his voice, for he often speaks in a whisper, but often times, the reality of capturing our promised lands feels impossible because we have to wage battles against doubt, fear, opposition from ourselves and others as well as lies the Enemy whispers that cut us to the quick all along the way. This "impossible" view of our promised land is exactly how Satan wants us to see them- seemingly impossible to possess.

However, God's word tells a different story.  His word is filled with stories of people trusting Him, yielding to him and surrendering to His will and in exchange for their faithfulness and obedience against all odds, their God sized dreams became real.  To God be the glory....not man.  For God, nothing is impossible.

So returning back to my story here, (thank you for still reading it by the way! I know it is crazy long!) One day a few months ago,  Lily and I were on a walk through the neighborhood of beautiful mansions I mentioned way back at the beginning of this series.   Along one of our favorite walking routes, I noticed that one of my favorite homes we regularly pass was getting ready to go on the market..it had the familiar "Coming Soon" sign in the yard.  Feeling neck deep in our own home-selling saga, I secretly wondered how long it would take for these people to sell their beautiful home.  Not more than one week after it finally went on the market, a "SOLD" sign went up in the yard and I could literally feel my sinful, prideful, human heart sink when I saw the sign as we approached.  While I could feel glad for the people inside that they were not having to struggle the way we were, it was simply another confirmation that homes were selling and people were moving on with their lives, just not us.

Fast forward a few weeks later, while passing again by the very same house, I noticed a sign in the yard that said they were having a moving sale that day.  I felt a little nudge in my heart to stop in, and to look for a "memorial stone" of my own to commemorate this difficult season of waiting.  I felt that the Holy Spirit was telling me that I would recognize my "ebenezer stone" when I saw it.  It seemed fitting to get it at a moving sale from a home we had watched be bought and sold within a matter of a few days...our own still-unrealized dream for our little place...so much the same, yet so very different from our own story.

Lily and I headed in, and not only were the people who owned the home lovely (as I imagined they would be), but so was the home (they actually had part of the sale inside their house! Wow!).  I wandered around looking at all of their beautiful things (but sadly, pretty pricy for your typical yard sale) and kept my eyes open for what I was supposed to be looking for, confident that I would know it when I saw it...and I did.  There tucked toward the back of a large table in the corner was my "stone."  It was little, shiny, simple, pretty and I loved it.

I was excited to discover it, happy that I had obeyed the nudge from God to go in and find something to commemorate this journey of refinement and total dependency upon Him.  I brought it home and filled it with water and put some flowers in it and said to myself, "Thus far, the Lord has helped us."   It now sits on the little table in the front room at the end of my couch.  I pass by it probably a hundred times a day and each time I catch a glimpse of it, I am reminded of God's faithfulness to not only the Israelites all of those centuries ago, but also in my life like this summer when forward progress has seemed near impossible.

He is the same God as he was back then.  He is the same God on days we have two showings as he is on days when we have none.  He is a loving God and he is faithful.  That is where we are today.  I purchased this little ebenezer about eight weeks ago now and it still reminds me of His faithfulness and that is what I'm choosing to focus my heart on these days as we wait with wonder and expectancy.  His faithfulness...through the generations, through the years, through the months and in each one of these days.  My heart is open and my soul is watching.  He is faithful.  He is faithful.  He is faithful. Praise Him, he is faithful.

For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; 

    his faithfulness continues through all generations.

-Psalm 100:5