Ebenezer Stones
“God, are you there?”
Have you ever prayed those words during a time that God felt absent or unconcerned with your problems? You felt like you were fighting life’s battles alone; and you were losing.
You’d seen God perform miracles and bring victory to others so you knew He could do it for you too, but He wasn’t coming through this time. Maybe He was too busy, maybe He was punishing you, maybe He just didn’t care.
Job knew this struggle well when God allowed Satan to take everything he loved. In Psalms, David indicates that he felt, at times, that God was absent or unjust in his circumstances. I imagine Joseph also questioned God’s love and concern when he was sold as a slave (by his own family), and later wrongly accused and imprisoned.
At some point, in the life of every Christian, we’ve felt like God was absent, silent, or even cruel in a time that we needed Him.
In the book of 1 Samuel we find a relatable story, a time that the Israelites felt abandoned by God.
“At that time Israel was at war with the Philistines. The Israelite army was camped near Ebenezer, and the Philistines were at Aphek. The Philistines attacked and defeated the Army of Israel, killing 4,000 men. After the battle was over, the troops retreated to their camp, and the elders of Israel asked, ‘Why did the Lord allow us to be defeated by the Philistines?’”
-1 Samuel 4:1-3a
Israel, as we know, is God’s chosen people in the Old Testament. They witnessed, or heard stories of, God doing miraculous things on their behalf—delivering them from Egypt, parting the Red Sea, providing food and water in desert wasteland, leading them to the promised land, and giving them abundant victories in battle.
Israel prospered under God’s hand. It’s only natural that they would assume an automatic victory in any battle; but this one doesn’t go quite as anticipated. When the Israelites come out of this battle, they question why God would allow their defeat. Where was He? Why wasn’t He bringing the victory they were expecting?
They come to this thought:
“Then they said, ‘Let’s bring the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord from Shiloh. If we carry it into battle with us, it will save us from our enemies." So they sent men to Shiloh to bring the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, who is enthroned between the cherubim.”
1 Samuel 4:3b-4a
Israel concluded that God was not with them in the first battle, which caused their defeat. So their plan now is to go back to battle, but this time “bringing God with them” via the Ark of the Covenant.
The Ark of the Covenant was a sacred chest meant to symbolize God’s presence with His people. It traveled with Israel and was housed in the Tabernacle when they would set up camp. The Ark helped Joshua and the Israelites cross the Jordan River and it was present when the walls of Jericho fell. Surely, bringing it into battle will give the Israelites victory! Or so they think…
The second battle commences:
“‘What’s going on?’ the Philistines asked…When they were told…the Ark of the Lord had arrived, they panicked. ‘The gods have come into their camp!’ they cried. ‘This is a disaster!…Who can save us from these mighty gods of Israel?’…So the Philistines fought desperately, and Israel was defeated again. The slaughter was great; 30,000 Israelite soldiers died that day. The survivors turned and fled to their tents. The Ark of God was captured,”
1 Samuel 4:6-11a
Imagine how the Israelites must be feeling after this. Not just one defeat at the hands of the Philistines, but now a second. A defeat that shouldn’t have happened (by their calculations).
Israel had the Ark of the Covenant, God was with them! How could they still lose?
But they did lose and, to top it off, the Ark was captured. Israel must grieve their physical defeat but, much worse, they must grieve their spiritual defeat. Lives were lost, but God’s favor on them was also lost.
After 7 months in Philistine possession the Ark is returned to Israel. It goes over to a home in Kiriath-jearim to be stored and safeguarded.
“The Ark remained in Kiriath-jearim for a long time—twenty years in all. During that time all Israel mourned because it seemed the Lord had abandoned them.’”
1 Samuel 7:2
In a time when militaristic rule was sought after, and highly honored, Israel suffered back to back defeats. For the next TWO DECADES Israel lived under the shame of these defeats. And it wasn’t just the shame of losing in battle, it was the shame of the God they worshipped and trusted not coming through for them. It was enough (understandably so) to make them question God. And after enough doubt and enough time, the Israelites began to worship other gods.
Israel was stuck in a place where all they could see or remember was their losses. After two defeats at Ebenezer, I’m sure that every time they heard the word “Philistine” or “Ebenezer” they were overcome with shame. Each time they looked at their armor it would be a trigger that reminded them of defeat. When they thought of their fallen friends and family they were surely struck with grief. Every day, for nearly 21 years, the Israelites felt that overwhelming sense of abandonment by God.
But the story doesn’t end there. The story never ends in God abandoning Israel—or us!
“Then Samuel said to all the people of Israel, ‘If you want to return to the Lord with all your hearts, get rid of your foreign gods and your images of Ashtoreth. Turn your hearts to the Lord and obey him alone; then he will rescue you from the Philistines.’ So the Israelites got rid of their images of Baal and Ashtoreth and worshiped only the Lord.”
1 Samuel 7:3-4
The many years of shame and defeat had to wear on the Israelites. Samuel saw their confidence and their faith dwindling more with each passing year, so he invites them to turn their hearts back to God. And when they do so, then God will rescue them from the Philistines.
So Samuel and the Israelites gather at a place called Mizpah where they confess their sin, they fast and pray, and Samuel offers a prayer and a sacrifice to God on their behalf. The Philistines hear about the gathering at Mizpah and mobilize their army to attack. But as the Philistines approach, God speaks with a might voice of thunder that throws them into a confusion, allowing the Israelites to finally achieve their victory. (1 Samuel 7:5-11)
Isn’t it interesting that Samuel said, “If you want to return to the Lord”? Wasn’t it the Lord who supposedly abandoned them? Shouldn’t He be the one returning to the people? Or, maybe, it was never God who did the abandoning. Maybe it was Israel that had abandoned God.
From the outset of the first battle, Israel had their understanding of God all wrong. They thought that being God’s chosen people would produce victory in every battle. They believed that God’s presence with them meant things would always be in their favor. They used Him as a good luck charm. So when Israel’s circumstances didn’t line up with what they believed about God they accused Him of abandonment, while they were the ones to go and worship other gods.
Many of us have the same misunderstanding sometimes. We were taught—or just adopted the idea over time—that being a Christian means life will be easier. We believe that God’s presence and His favor means we will never get sick, we will never lose what we love, and we will never suffer financial insufficiency. And when our experiences contradict these beliefs we question God’s love and His goodness, and we feel abandoned.
There’s a truth we must know and remember in these moments:
Just because our situation is not ideal does not mean God is not with us, or that He doesn’t care.
God has never abandoned the people He loves. Sure, it may feel like it when we live through defeat after defeat and God is silent through it all. But He will never leave us or forsake us.
For the Israelites, their victory wasn’t a matter of God returning to them (as if He had left), it was a matter of them returning their hearts to God. For us, it is only when our hearts are turned to God that we can see His presence and the victorious work He is doing in our lives.
After the Israelite’s returned to God and gained their victory, Samuel commemorated the moment with a reminder of God’s ever-present help:
“Samuel then took a large stone and placed it between the towns of Mizpah and Jeshanah. He named it Ebenezer (which means ‘the stone of help’), for he said, ‘Up to this point the Lord has helped us!’”
1 Samuel 7:12
Samuel chose to see and believe that God had been with the Israelites all this time, and he observed this in a pretty surprising way! Samuel placed a stone on the battlegrounds at Mizpah and named that stone “Ebenezer”.
Wait, you mean the same name of the battleground where they lost twice before? Yep, that very same name.
The name that had seared “defeat”, “shame”, and “abandonment” into the minds of Israel for over 20 years was now the name that would remind them of victory, honor, and God’s presence.
Of course that wouldn’t be an immediate change. Working out decades of trauma and bad memories takes time and hard work. But eventually, the Israelites would learn to see their past in a new light. The Ebenezer stone would serve as a physical reminder, for all the years to come, of a time that God was with Israel and redeemed them from defeat.
Are there circumstances in your own life that you felt defeated and abandoned? Try to think back through them and look for the ways that God was actually present with you then. Set up your own “Ebenezer stone”—some sort of physical reminder—of God’s presence in that time and how he redeemed you from the situation.
It can be a simple picture of a moment you felt God with you. Write a journal entry, noting the ways that God brought some good out of a less-than-good situation. Or have a specific worship song you listen to that reminds you of God’s faithfulness.
Whether we feel it or not, God is present in every moment of our lives. Thankfully, our faith is not built on feelings; it is built on the goodness and faithfulness of the God who loves us. Our faith reminds us that, even when God feels silent, absent, or cruel, we know that His plans are always for a greater purpose and for our good. What might feel like abandonment by God is only ever that—a feeling. And when those feelings come, we can look to our Ebenezer stones to remind us of the times that God has been present and redeemed us before; and we can trust that He will be present and redeem us again.
-Stephanie Lauren Jordan
