Start At Mizpah, End At Ebenezer

A new year always greets us like a doorway — one side opening toward the unknown, the other side framed by everything we’ve lived through to get here. We step into January with a mixture of hope and hesitation, expectation and reflection. It’s human nature to look forward and backward at the same time. We can’t help it. Even as we imagine what might be different this year, something inside us quietly replays what has already been.

Turn on a television during this season and you’ll see it everywhere — the “best and worst of the year,” the highlights, the failures, the milestones, the losses. The world looks back before it looks forward. And in a way, so do we. Because memory is not just a scrapbook; it’s a spiritual instructor. It teaches, warns, strengthens, humbles, and clarifies. Our memories become the mile markers of our faith journey.

Some memories lift us.

Some burden us.

Some remind us of God’s goodness.

Others remind us of our weakness.

But taken together, they become the story we carry into the next year.

And here’s the truth: how you remember determines how you begin.

If you only remember the disappointments, you enter the new year limping.

If you only remember your successes, you enter the new year drifting.

If you forget God’s faithfulness, you enter the new year unanchored.

If you forget your own need, you enter the new year unprepared.

This is why Scripture cares so deeply about memory. God tells His people over and over again: “Remember. Remember. Do not forget.” Not because He needs the recognition — but because we need the clarity. When we remember rightly, the future suddenly becomes something God can shape.

So as we stand at the edge of a new year, we do what Israel often did — we look back and we look up. And sometimes, when we look back, we discover something uncomfortable: that somewhere in the mixture of busyness, routine, and survival… we drifted. We prayed, but not like before. We trusted, but not consistently. We obeyed, but not completely. We lost something — not intentionally, not rebelliously, but gradually.

Israel knew this feeling all too well. They had memories of God’s faithfulness, but the story of their last season was a story of spiritual drift. They lost battles. They lost courage. They lost direction. And in the saddest twist of all, they even lost the ark — the very symbol of God’s presence among them.

And when the Philistines captured it, they celebrated like children who’d stolen a treasure. They marched it from city to city, showing it off, parading it like a trophy. Until God reminded them He was no trophy. And when tumors and rats plagued their land, they panicked and sent the ark back with an unforgettable guilt offering — five golden rats and five golden tumors. You almost have to smile at the absurdity of it. It’s as if they said, “Here, Israel — we’re sorry, please take your God back before He destroys us!”

But when Israel received the ark again, something profound happened:

The presence of God did not automatically return.

Because the people had drifted too far.

The symbol came home,

but their hearts did not.

The ark was back,

but their devotion wasn’t.

They placed the ark on a hill and left it there for twenty long years — untouched, unreturned to the tabernacle, unhonored. They wanted God’s protection but not His authority. They wanted the memory of His presence without the surrender of their lives.

And that’s where some of us stand at the beginning of a new year.

We have the symbols — the language of faith, the familiarity of worship, the memory of better days with God — but if we are honest, our hearts have wandered. We want a fresh start, but not always a surrendered one. We want Ebenezer — the stone of help, the reminder that “thus far the Lord has led us” — but we want to skip past the place where help actually begins.

And so God, in His mercy, leads His people to Mizpah.

Mizpah — the place of honest return.

Mizpah — the place where you stop pretending.

Mizpah — the place where repentance has more power than resolution.

Mizpah — the place where you pour out the old year before God so He can fill the new one.

This is the doorway into our title.

This is the truth behind the journey we’re about to make:

You cannot end at Ebenezer until you first start at Mizpah.

You cannot celebrate God’s help until you surrender at the place of return.

You cannot lift a stone of remembrance until you bow at the altar of repentance.

You cannot claim victory until you yield control.