I go to a church named Ebenezer. This morning [at our weekly student devotion breakfast] I decided to talk about Ebenezer but I wasn’t talking about our church but rather what Ebenezer means. I asked if anyone knew what it meant and none of the students did. So I solicited guesses. One guess was it was named for the street that borders it. That is a very logical guess. Unfortunately for this logic, our church was put here prior to roads even being in the area. The church dates back to 1818. I told him that the road was probably named for the church, not vice versa. The next guess was that it had “something to do with the Bible or church” in general. While nebulous, this is a “correct” answer.
During Isreal’s beginnings, while it is strengthening as a nation and fighting for its Promised Land, the kingdom runs into an issue. This issue is named the Philistines. They were a more powerful group of warriors, aggressive, and they terrified the Israelites. The group came to Samuel, the judge/leader of the gang at the time, and asked him to pray that God helps the Israelites defeat the Philistines. Samuel does. God answers.
One of the crazy “God interventions” in the Bible occurs. He basically makes it start thundering like crazy and this scares the poop out of the Philistines, thus causing confusion, thus allowing the Israelites to attack when they weren’t prepared and win. In tribute to God’s “showing up,” Samuel erects a monument, a single stone, and names it Ebenezer [which means "Rock of Help"].
Interesting history lesson perhaps but you may be curious where I am going with this…
I wonder if we have faith that “God will show up” when we need him most, like Samuel did. Do we have real faith in God even in our most trying hour or is it just a nice word we throw around to mean we think that “God sometimes does some okay stuff for us when he wants to”? Do we honestly, truly, whole-heartedly trust that God can intervene on our behalf in miraculous ways?
I struggle with this aspect in my life. I like to think I am a faithful person but do I honestly believe God would send a wave of thunder to disrupt my enemy? Do I truly believe that Jesus could heal someone that I know, without touching him, but just by speaking healing into existence? Do I whole-heartedly believe that if I just touch the clothing that Jesus has on that I’ll be healed? I am not so sure.
America teaches us to become self-reliant. I am not going to go off on some anti-American tangent here but I am curious if the “American Dream” is a bit juxtaposed to the “Biblical Promise.” I hope to grow a little less self-reliant each day and grow a little more God-reliant.
Agápē!
thanks ryan! i needed that!
Ryan, I really gave some thought to yoyr disseration. There is noting like losing everything you treasured to make you realize you were possessed by your possessions. Life in a Nursing Home has taught me to be totally God Reliant. I thought I was before, but looking back, I took to much pride in what I thought was my contribution to God’s work, and not enough time in singing or praying to thank God for the priviledge of doing what little I could. I realized I was busy doing things for the Church/Sunday School and hospital volunteer work, I wasn’t taking time to listen to God, just smuggly going along, feeling good about all the good works I was doing. Faith without workw is useless, but I was taking to much pride in my sacrifices of time and money. Sometimes God has to rein us in, just as He did the Isarelites, and make us realize work without faith and prayerful asking for God’s guidance, and giving thanks for the ABILITY TO DO THE WORKS, IS THE SIN OF PRIDE . Each night when I say my prayers before I go to sleep I beg God to take me home. When I wake in the morning and have mt hour with God, between my r AM and 5 Am pill, I tell God, if it’s your will I live another day, please give me an opportunity to be a Disciple of Christ, and even here in my confined space, He show me way to follow Christ’s words, “as you do ont the least of these so do you unto me. Sometimes it’s nothing more than emptying out my talemates cold coffee and giving her a fresh cup of hot coffee, and when she says, “why are you so good to me, thank you so much”, I reply with “thank you for giving me an opportunity to be a disciple of Christ. She has Parsinson Disease, and can’t even remember her room number, so I never leave the dining room until she is ready to go, and I lead her to her hallway, and tell her she’s in room 79. God rewards with a smile, that is worth more than rubies and gold. Keep up the good work. I hope you and Morgan are doing well. I want the best for my god given granchildren. Love G’ma Carol