Enough Said

Mine Ebenezer

"Then Samuel took a stone, and set it between Mizpeh and Shen, and called the name of it Ebenezer, saying, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us."

1 Samuel 7:12

You would think that after all this time, I would figure it out. I've been in church every Sunday that I wasn't sick since I was 2. I've went to a Christian school. I went to Bible college. I've taught Sunday school in some capacity for almost 30 years. I've read the Bible through too many times to count.

And yet, often I come across a passage of Scripture and have an "aha!" moment. I love the song "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" but I never really knew what an Ebenezer was until today when I read this verse and made the connection. An Ebenezer is a reminder of the Lord's help.

I need the Lord's help all the time, but right now I have a few things that I desire to see the Lord do. Today, I need to raise my Ebenezer and remind myself of all the "hitherto" help that the Lord has already given me. It makes it so much easier to trust Him.


Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
Mount of Thy redeeming love.


Sorrowing I shall be in spirit,
Till released from flesh and sin,
Yet from what I do inherit,
Here Thy praises I’ll begin;
Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Here by Thy great help I’ve come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.


Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood;
How His kindness yet pursues me
Mortal tongue can never tell,
Clothed in flesh, till death shall loose me
I cannot proclaim it well.


O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.


O that day when freed from sinning,
I shall see Thy lovely face;
Clothed then in blood washed linen
How I’ll sing Thy sovereign grace;
Come, my Lord, no longer tarry,
Take my ransomed soul away;
Send thine angels now to carry
Me to realms of endless day.

West Texas

On cloud-shrouded nights
darkness suffocates
among the gnarled arms
of mesquite.
Silence disturbed
by wind-rustled seed pods.
Skyborn cold wrestles
earth-warmed radiance.
Imagination abounds,
Folklore is birthed,
Goatmen roam pastures,
Wolves nurture lost infants.
Dawn unveils the fiction.