Today, Adam and I started a new family tradition. The Ebenezer Box.
Yesterday, I was able to visit my friend Allie who was in town from South Carolina. Our conversation was encouraging and warm, and just before we left she gave me a gift. She handed me a small box with burlap flowers on top and told me it was her wedding gift to Adam and I, the Mollica Family Ebenezer Box. She went on to explain that in the book of 1 Samuel, after God defends the Israelites in an answer to prayer, Samuel places a large rock in that place and calls it the Ebenezer rock because thus far the Lord had helped them. It was placed there as a memorial to all that God had done for the Israelites, a place to remember what the Lord had brought them through. So today, we started our own Ebenezer box. We both spent time with the Lord this morning, and then came together to read the story in 1 Samuel when God defended the Israelites and the rock of Ebenezer was dedicated. Then we wrote down the things we are thankful for that God has done in our lives, and the prayers He has answered. It was a time of reverence and thanksgiving. A time to look back at what God has done in our lives.
1 Samuel 7: 2-12
Then all the people of Israel turned back to the LORD. So Samuel said to all the Israelites, “If you are returning to the LORD with all your hearts, then rid yourselves of the foreign gods and the Ashtoreths and commit yourselves to the LORD and serve him only, and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.” So the Israelites put away their Baals and Ashtoreths, and served the LORD only.
Then Samuel said, “Assemble all Israel at Mizpah, and I will intercede with the LORD for you.” When they had assembled at Mizpah, they drew water and poured it out before the LORD. On that day they fasted and there they confessed, “We have sinned against the LORD.” Now Samuel was serving as leader of Israel at Mizpah.
When the Philistines heard that Israel had assembled at Mizpah, the rulers of the Philistines came up to attack them. When the Israelites heard of it, they were afraid because of the Philistines. They said to Samuel, “Do not stop crying out to the LORD our God for us, that he may rescue us from the hand of the Philistines.” Then Samuel took a suckling lamb and sacrificed it as a whole burnt offering to the LORD. He cried out to the LORD on Israel’s behalf, and the LORD answered him.
While Samuel was sacrificing the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to engage Israel in battle. But that day the LORD thundered with loud thunder against the Philistines and threw them into such a panic that they were routed before the Israelites. The men of Israel rushed out of Mizpah and pursued the Philistines, slaughtering them along the way to a point below Beth Kar.
Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, saying, “Thus far the LORD has helped us.”