Stones of Remembrance, Not Anchors of Idleness

In the third chapter of the Book of Joshua, we find the account of God’s people miraculously crossing over the Jordan River into the Promised Land. In this chapter, God tells Joshua to have the priests carry the Ark of the Covenant ahead of the people and walk into the edge of the river. As soon as the priests’ feet touch the water, the river piled up on itself and stopped flowing, and as the priests stood in the middle of the river, the people crossed over on dry land.

In chapter four, God tells Joshua to have a man from each of the tribes of Israel take a large stone from the middle of the river where the priests were standing and take it to the other side. They were instructed to erect a memorial, and Ebenezer, to mark the place and occasion of God’s miraculous demonstration of power.

Today, we who are God’s people, like the Israelites of old, need to learn the importance and blessing of erecting Ebenezer stones in our lives. We need to mark times and occasions when God has moved mightily to heal, deliver, provide for, rescue, and sustain us when only He could. We need to mark those times and occasions when we are reminded in a very special way that God is ever with us and is forever faithful to His people. But we also must be careful in doing so!

It is easy to forget that Ebenezer stones are simply mile markers along an on-going journey. They are to mark the progress we have made with God’s help, not our arrival! Although the Israelites had reached the Promised Land, they were not finished! There was still a lot of work to be done, people to be conquered, land to be settled, and new lives to be started. If they had settled on the shore of the river and gone no further, they would not have experienced the promises and blessing the Lord had in store for them.

If we allow ourselves to dwell on the blessings of yesterday (not in a way that reminds us of God’s faithfulness and encourages us forward, but rather in a way that causes us to do nothing while we dwell in the past), we will miss out on God’s blessings for today and His promises of tomorrow. Yesterday’s “crossing of the Jordan” was GREAT but what about tomorrow’s “walls of Jericho”? Let’s be encouraged by what God has done in the past. Let us remember. But do not let our stones of remembrance become anchors that hold us back or weights that hold us down!