Come Thou Fount

Since I quit last November, people ask me all the time what I am up to these days. What do I do to fill in those 40-60 hours a week that I was normally spending doing my job?? And that answer to that question is... I don't know? I mean, I can tell you I do not sit around my house all day and do nothing. I could go into a list of things I do, but then I would just feel like I was trying to justify myself to you. I was volunteering at the church, but then I had to take a good look at my life. I was running around trying to do everything I could not only to be busy but to be a good and active member of the church, and one day, I just wound up unhappy and tired and miserable and crying at my friend Emily's house wondering why I feel like a terrible person. And here is what she said to me:

"You have the good girl syndrome..."


And there was a good and amazing conversation that happened after that. I believe I probably have struggled with that all of my life. The problem is, with us good girls. We want so much to DO things for the Lord, we forget to live life WITH God. I know you think that is silly because if you are doing something for God, you must be doing it with Him right? All I can say is that sometimes in my desire to do, I forget as to whom I am doing it for, and I hope I am not the only Christian on this planet that has done that, because if I am, that is so sad...

So, I have taken a step back and started to do things WITH God that I have not been doing that are very basic, for example, reading my Bible. Seriously, I will admit, I neglected it. Not proud of that, nor am I really happy with myself I admitted this on the internet. Moving forward... I started in Judges, I don't know why I just felt a need to read the Old Testament, and the only reason I know that I am reading where I need to be is when I am reading I feel like I am drinking in every word and I can't get enough. Loving these Old Testament stories. So then I come to 1Samuel and I read this Passage

"Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer (which means stone of help) saying "Thus far has the Lord helped us."

Now, this is where Come Thou Fount Comes in. Come Thou Fount (of Every Blessing) is one of my favorite hymns only tying with Amazing Grace. I have loved to sing the words of this song, I look forward to it whenever I hear the intro. But here I have been singing it for most of my life and not knowing half the lyrics is unacceptable. This hymn is chalk full of Biblical references and here is the Ebenezer reference, right in 1 Samuel. Which got me thinking...

Samuel raised his Ebenezer when he won a HUGE battle, the first of the many battles he won as a judge of Israel. When do I raise my Ebenezer? When was the last time, I looked to God and said "Hither by thy help I've come!!" The first Ebenezer in any Christian's life is Salvation, for Salvation is from the Lord. There have been many Ebenezer's in my life. I don't want to name them, cause I'm sure you have Ebenezer's too. But in the Old Testament, the judges were always putting up literal images of reminders of where God had brought/helped them. That they may never forget, still seems as if Israel had a bad case of amnesia anyway.

All in all, this has taught me that, I need to raise Ebenezer's in my life. I need to be more intentional about remembering and having some type of literal image to raise when I can recognize a time where God Helped me. I want to build my life around God and the reminders of where He has brought me, because to be embarrassing honest, I guess I suffer from amnesia a lot myself. Because the next time I sing those beautiful lyrics "Here I raise my Ebenezer, hither by thy help I've come!" I want to be able to pin-point the most recent victory in a hard fought spiritual fight. Something just to chew on today friends!