Thus far the Lord has helped us
“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
Reflection
After an unlikely victory over the Philistines, Samuel stopped everything to do something seemingly simple: he raised a stone and gave it a name — Ebenezer, "stone of help" — with a sentence engraved forever: "THUS FAR the Lord has helped us". It was a marker of retroactive gratitude: a deliberate look backward before moving forward. Israel had erred much, wandered much, lost much — and even so, adding it all up, the honest conclusion was this: we made it this far, and not by our own strength.
Do the same exercise now, with your own story. Think of everything that tried to stop you: the crises that seemed final, the losses that seemed unbearable, the nights that seemed to have no morning, the years you cannot explain how you crossed. And yet... you are HERE. Reading, breathing, with enough faith to open a devotional. That is not luck nor your merit alone: it is the trail of help. "Thus far the Lord has helped us" is not the sentence of someone who had an easy life — it is the conclusion of someone who did the math right.
The Ebenezer has a double function in time. Looking back, it is gratitude: it names as God’s help what haste would call coincidence. Looking forward, it is faith ammunition: the God of "thus far" is the same of "from here on". David’s logic before Goliath ("the Lord who delivered me from the lion will deliver me from this Philistine") applies to you: God’s track record in your life is the best argument against fear of the future. Whoever brought you to this page did not bring you to abandon you in the next chapter. Past faithfulness is a signed guarantee. And today you complete a marker here too: ninety days of walking through these devotionals — ninety mornings, or nights, when you chose to stop with God. Raise your stone: look back and name the helps (the answered, the endured, the ones that became something better), give thanks one by one, tell someone. Then turn to what comes, with Samuel’s sentence as your banner: if THUS FAR He has helped — and He has — what is there to fear of tomorrow? The road continues, and so does the grace. Ebenezer. And onward, with Him.
Prayer
Lord, today I raise my stone: THUS FAR You have helped me. In the crises that did not destroy me, in the doors You opened, in the strength I did not have — it was Your hand. Receive my gratitude for every "thus far", and my trust for every "from here on". Ebenezer! Amen.
Put it into practice
Raise your Ebenezer today: write the sentence "Thus far the Lord has helped me" on paper or your phone, list 5 "helps" of your story below it — and tell one of them to someone.
To reflect on
Looking at everything that could have stopped you and did not: who brought you this far — and why doubt that He will carry you onward?
Bible text: King James Version (public domain).