Remember the wonderful story by Charles Dickens,

“A Christmas Carol“? I’ve always thought it was such a great story. The main character, Ebenezer Scrooge, is very much like all of us, at one time or another in our lives. We get involved in our lives and cynical when things don’t turn out quite the way we expected or hoped. I wondered about his name, Ebenezer, especially when I heard it in one of my favorite songs, “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing”. You can listen to it here. So, being the curious sort of person that I am, I looked it up. This is what I found.

Ebenezer means “Stone of Help.” It was the name of the memorial stone set up by Samuel to celebrate God’s help to Israel in their great battle against the Philistines (1 Samuel 7:7-12)
An ebenezer is a stone, but can also be a pile of stones on the ground.

A really smart person named Christian said “It represents help from God, raising my ebenezer means I am going to ‘praise God’ and mark the spots of His grace toward me as places to REMEMBER! [In the song “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing”,] the song writer is saying to this place in my Christian walk I have come dear Lord, a glorious place, I never thought I would reach on my own, and Lord I did not reach it ON MY OWN, but by YOUR HELP, therefore it is a place worthy of a mark in my mind, in my heart and in my acknowledgement of YOU, as my Gracious God. I think if we wanted to raise an ebenezer today, it would not necessarily have to be a pile of stones, though there would be nothing wrong with that. It could also be a date we remember and celebrated on our calendars, or an extremely highlighted and MARKed, remembered and celebrated place in our diary! “

I love that explanation. Maybe Charles Dickens named his character Ebenezer to represent that Ebenezer Scrooge’s parents were grateful, christian people who wanted to acknowledge God in their lives.

And now that I know what an ebenezer is, I will raise my ebenezer in my life.