Thus far the LORD has helped us
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It’s Tuesday 1st March 2016 and I’m writing this, travelling by train on my way to teach at the Bible College. Up until now I did not have a Message of the Month for March, and now I know why. Just yesterday afternoon my wife, my daughter and I, came to the end of what has been one of the greatest trials of our lives – a trial which lasted over eighteen months. I will not go into details about the circumstances because that would take too long to explain, but I do want to share with you what has come out of all of this.
There were many very dark days during those 18 months and I began to ask certain people if they would pray. One of them was a lady who had been a member of our church in the early days of my ministry. She moved away to another town years ago, but we have kept in touch. She is housebound and often does not sleep very well at night - but she is a prayer warrior. She was one of the first people I asked, and she has been so faithful in praying for us day and night. I must say at this point that many prayers were answered during these months but as time went by, the trial got heavier and heavier. So one by one, I asked others to pray and many of them have been so faithful – often asking us how things were going, and reassuring us that they were still praying.
During one of those very dark days my daughter came to a real point of despair, but the word Ebenezer came to mind - I knew exactly what it meant. The prophet Samuel set up a stone of remembrance for the people of Israel when they were going through great trials too, and he called it “Ebenezer” - “Thus far the LORD has helped us” (1 Samuel 7:7-13). I shared this with our daughter saying, “The Lord has helped us before – he will help us again.” We were in the summerhouse that is in our garden at the time, so I went outside and looked for a stone. I picked up a small piece of black flint, it was pyramid shaped, just about 3x3cm square. “This is our Ebenezer” I said. We prayed and put it outside by the door of the summerhouse and there it stayed. There were many times we forgot that it was even there.
The Lord did help us again after that moment, but there were even darker days to come. Days when we had no idea how we would ever get to the end of this trial. Our prayer partners continued to stand with us, a friend in the USA who also asked the prayer group at her church to pray, even though they do not know us at all, missionary friends in Mongolia and in the Philippines, people in our church and others too. The darkest days of all were still to come, but in the meantime many prayers were answered and my daughter received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit in the midst of all this pain.
There were many times too, when the Lord spoke to us with pictures that really helped us and with words, events and encouragements from many unexpected sources, even from unbelievers! In the middle of this time my wife also got just one word: “TRUST” - and we held on to that from then on. When you are going through things like this it can still be very hard to keep trusting, which is why it was so great to know that all these people were standing with us in prayer – and most of all that the Lord was with us. He had helped us before – He was not going to leave us or forsake us, but it was still VERY hard to endure - and all we could do was to go through it.
There were still darker days to come – and many sleepless nights right up until yesterday when the final breakthrough came. We were so tired and exhausted that we could hardly feel the joy of it – but we just knew it was all over. We were grateful to God then, but now in the light of day we can see it even more clearly – the Lord truly answered all those prayers – exceedingly and abundantly above all we could ask or think! We learnt so many lessons during that time and so many things were accomplished in our lives that it will take even more time to assimilate it.
As I left this morning, I picked up that small stone of remembrance, and put it in an envelope which I placed on my daughter’s pillow for when she gets home tonight - with these words written on it…
“EBENEZER – The LORD has helped us – Praise His Name!!”
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