Looking Back on Blessings
Have you ever needed a good reminder of something you should already know? Jesus gave John the Baptist one while in prison, and recently, He gave me one too.
Jesus answered and said unto them, Go and shew John again those things which ye do hear and see (Matthew 11:4).
Did you catch that little word tucked right in the middle there? Again. John wasn't hearing about the miracles for the first time. This wasn't the first occasion he heard what Jesus was capable of. He already knew. He just needed to be shown again.
I love that Jesus didn't get offended by John's doubt from that prison cell. He didn't send back a scolding message. He simply told John's disciples, "Go remind him."
Sometimes that's exactly what we need too. Not new information, just a fresh look at what we've already seen God do.
I got my own "shew again" moment recently while scrolling through Substack (yes, I love Substack). A woman was writing about her recent grocery trip. She spoke of having a list in one hand and a calculator in the other while anxiety twisted her stomach into knots as she tried to stretch a few dollars across a week's worth of meals.
Reading her words, something shifted in me. Memories came flooding back...and not the warm, fuzzy kind. I remembered those exact days. Every item went into the cart with a mental math problem attached. Every number typed into that calculator felt like a countdown to disaster. And there I was, only at aisle four, already watching my funds evaporate. Oh, I remembered, like it was yesterday.
But just as quickly as those memories surfaced, so did a quieter realization: That wasn't yesterday at all. In fact, I haven't lived that way in a good while.
We're not rich (far from it), and there are still plenty of days when I stare at the bills wondering how they'll all get paid. But there was a time when things were so much worse, and God didn't just get me through it. He brought me to a place where I can walk into a grocery store without a knot in my stomach and a calculator glued to my hand.
That's when I stopped right there and set down my phone. At first, I thanked the Lord. Not because everything is perfect now, but because He is good and has always been good. Then, I apologized because I'd forgotten just how far He's carried me.
Building My Own Ebenezer
Here's where I want to take this a step further, because I think there's more buried in that word "again" than just a nice sentiment. In 1 Samuel 7:12, after God gave Israel victory over the Philistines, Samuel took a stone, set it up, and named it Ebenezer, saying, "Hitherto hath the LORD helped us." He built a physical marker specifically so nobody would forget.
Notice, Samuel didn't wait until Israel was struggling to build that stone. He built it right after the victory, while the memory was fresh, because he knew good and well that human hearts have a way of leaking gratitude like a bucket with a hole in it.
We remember the crisis, but we forget the rescue.
We remember the empty wallet, but we forget the way God stretched it just enough.
That grocery store post became my Ebenezer stone. It stopped me mid-scroll and made me set a marker in my heart, not of rock, but of remembrance. And I think that's exactly what John's disciples carried back to that prison cell too. Not just a report, but a marker. A reminder that said, "Hitherto hath the Lord helped us, and He's still working."
What's your grocery store moment? What memory, if you let it surface, would remind you of a mountain God already moved for you? Maybe it's a health scare that resolved. Maybe it's a marriage that shouldn't have survived but did. Maybe it's simply that you woke up breathing this morning when you didn't feel like you could face another day.
Whatever it is, don't rush past it. Stop. Set up your own Ebenezer. Thank Him! Not because you finally remembered, but because He's been faithful the whole time, whether you were paying attention or not.
For the mountain shall depart, and the hills be removed but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the LORD that hath mercy on thee. - Isaiah 54:10
🔍 PULLING BACK THE CURTAIN: A Peek at the Study Behind This Post
Oddly enough, this devotion developed from a combination of two ideas the Lord gave me months apart. The first idea (about John) hit me months ago when the preacher was preaching on this passage. The second hit me a couple of days ago while scrolling through my Substack feed. When I looked through my devotion ideas, I realized the two thoughts carried the same message, so I decided to combine them.
First, the repetition-of-memory theme jumped out at me while reading Matthew 11 in chapel, specifically where Jesus told John's disciples to "shew him AGAIN." That word stopped me cold because it implied John needed a reminder, not new evidence.
Second, I had my Substack reminder about the lean days that God had brought me through and realized how easily I had forgotten what God had done for me.
Continuing my study, I asked myself, "Where else in Scripture does God deliberately help His people remember rather than reveal something brand new?" That question sent me hunting through my concordance for "remember" and "forget" language tied to God's deliverance.
That search led me straight to 1 Samuel 7:12 and the story of the Ebenezer stone. I'd studied this passage before for a completely different devotion, but this time the phrase "Hitherto hath the LORD helped us" landed differently because I connected it to the "again" in Matthew 11.
The whole thing crystallized when I realized the Ebenezer stone wasn't built during a crisis. It was built right after a victory, specifically so Israel wouldn't forget later, which mirrored exactly what I was doing by stopping to thank God the moment that Substack post triggered my memory.
Time note: All told, this one took me about 40 minutes, but in all fairness, the Lord had already prepared much of it in my heart over the past couple of months.
Want to try this yourself? The next time a word jumps out at you mid-verse, don't just nod and move on. Stop and ask "why THIS word?" Grab a concordance (physical or an app like Blue Letter Bible) and chase that word through a few other passages. You might just dig up your own Ebenezer stone hiding two books over.