The Ridiculous Hour Foundation’s June 2021 Mobile Monthly Mission
By Founder, Kat Silverglate Copyright 2021
Max Lucado wrote a kid’s book called You are Special in the late 1990’s. It’s beautifully illustrated and deeply moving. Without going into spoiler level detail, it was generally about the difference between God’s grace and the world’s judgment. He used grey dots on the main character’s skin to represent what it feels like to have others call out in judgment our weakness, our lack, our imperfections, our sin or our mistakes. Not a mark to help or edify or build up, either. A mark to shame or push down or gawk or feel superior. And while we don’t normally associate the giving of gold stars with an act of judgment, the author uses them to represent the way it feels when the world puts its mark of approval on us for the things it deems star-worthy: physical beauty, achievement, perfection, etc. I won’t spoil the story for you, but the set-up is absolutely brilliant. Suffice it to say, there’s a whole lotta marking going on by a whole lotta folks in that story.
Nathaniel Hawthorn wrote a novel in the 1850’s called The Scarlet Letter where the main character, Hester Prynne, is forced to publicly wear a scarlet letter “A” after an affair -- adulterer. She is marked by her sin so that no matter where she goes, you can’t miss the thing that marks her life. Her identity is synonymous with her most public sin. The whole book is about marking a singular moment in a life.
Robert Lopshire wrote a children’s book in the 1960’s called Put Me in the Zoo about a red spotted leopard that was rejected by the zoo. He responds by changing the color of his markings – his spots -- again and again. There’s a whole lot of marking, actually remarking, going on in that story.
These stories display our human tendency to mark. To judge what is worth and not worth marking. We are a people who mark, and as the spotted leopard reminds us, a people who re-mark as well.
Years ago on a mission trip to Cuba, I met a group of pastors who did a whole lotta marking too. In fact, it was a regular and consistent practice in their circle. Their practice went like this. They would regularly pray for God to help them in their struggles. Sometimes when they prayed, they’d go up to this secluded place on a mountain. To me it seemed like a mountain. To them, it was probably just a steep hill. Anyway, they took me there so I could pray with them. I remember thinking three things on the way up: 1) if I fall off the edge here, nobody’s ever gonna find me; 2) what an effective way to get people to pray; and 3) what exactly do they do with that pile of rocks over there?
“What’s that?” I asked as we got close to a pile of neatly stacked rocks.
I don’t remember the exact response, but the general substance of the various discussions we had about those rocks can be summarized like this: “When God answers our prayers or we feel His touch in our affliction, we come up here and we mark it. With a rock. It gives us a visible way to remember His touch. His answers. His presence. A way to hold on in faith when we are praying through the next struggle.” They started to point toward particular rocks on the pile. “That’s when God answered our prayer for ….” and then they’d launch into a story of God making a way when there seemed to be no way. Today, the particulars of their stories don’t remain with me as much as the palpable sense of hope that ignited that day. And the joy at meeting such great marksmen and women.
Rather than track the marks others placed on them or the mark they were making on the world, they tracked the marks of God. His touch. His presence. His remarkable work in them and around them. They were giving themselves a practical way to visit what they couldn’t see with their eyes -- God’s active presence. It is such a wonderful and much needed shift in focus toward the thing most worthy of marking in our one ridiculous life, God’s presence.
When I got home and shared the rock story, someone pointed me to 1 Samuel 7, the story of God delivering the Israelites from the Philistines for the last time under Samuel’s rule. They’d gathered together to give their whole lives to God. To recommit wholeheartedly to Him. This gave their long time enemy, the Philistines, an opportunity to wipe them out. The Israelites hear of their plan and are filled with fear. They see no way out. Without God, victory is clearly impossible. So they beg Samuel, “Do not stop crying out to the Lord our God for us, that he may rescue us from the hand of the Philistines.” Samuel does indeed cry out to the Lord on their behalf and sacrifices a lamb. When they are delivered completely through the battle, Samuel doesn’t hand out medals or gold stars to the bravest soldiers or sideline the weaker ones to mark them with black dots for more training. Instead, he takes a stone and sets it up for all to see. A marker. And not just any marker. He gives this marker a name. He calls it “Ebenezer” which means stone of help. And then he says this: ”Thus far the Lord has helped us.” He marks God’s presence. His help. His touch. Thus far.
Don’t you love the hope in that predicate, “thus far?” It reminds me of a phrase my brother-in-law says when you compliment his cooking – “you thought that was good, wait till you taste what’s coming next!” He’s a great cook. If “thus far” was good, we come to trust that there will be a great “thus further.” Marking God’s touch changes the way we perceive the marks of others and of ourselves. More, our Godly “thus far’s” give us hopeful expectation of God in our present and in our future. We see these stones, and we see where our help came from and where it will come from again. From the Lord, the cornerstone of the foundation on which life is built. We see this theme in Ephesians 2:19-22. When we let the markers pile up, we see mountains of hope.
OUR JUNE MOBILE MISSION:
Our mobile mission this month is to look back at the way God has shown up in our lives in the past so that we can use those markers – those “Ebenezer Stones” -- to encourage us to respond to Him as He continues to prompt us toward His good purposes today.
In your May Mission Pack, you received a sheet of stickers. Each sheet has between 30 and 45 dots. Markers, if you will. Symbolic Ebenezer stones. Use these dots in your journal or on a piece of paper to record the remarkable times you’ve seen God carry you. Answer you. Show up. Take your time. Go slow.
Perhaps you’ll lay down one stone a day for the month of June. Or perhaps you’ll set aside some time to do this one morning or during your devotional time. Our prayer is that this will be a remarkable month for you! A time of celebration at all God has done.
At the end of each memory, consider writing Samuel’s phrase “thus far.” Let it encourage you as you look toward your “thus further” with the Lord.
Remember as you do this, we are a marking people. A people who are judging all the time what is worth marking and what is not. When you slow down to mark your God moments, lay down your Ebenezer stones, you give yourself and others a gift. A ready way to remind yourself and them that the Lord is, and always will be, our source of help.
We pray you have a remarkable June.
