Have you ever found yourself bogged down in Scripture? You set a goal to read through the Bible in a year…and you come across long chapters that are just tedious to plow through. My advice…read it anyway.

I mean no disrespect, but a while back I was doing my “through the Bible in a year” reading. It was in Ezekiel. The Israelites were in captivity. God was showing the prophet in a vision the details of the temple to come. Length of the walls. Thickness of the walls. Width of the gate openings. Yawn. Height of the walls. I’m sorry, it felt like I was slogging through the Scripture. But I kept reading. And I got to a curious passage.

But when the people come in through the north gateway to worship the Lord during the religious festivals, they must leave by the south gateway. And those who entered through the south gateway must leave by the north gateway. They must never leave by the same gateway they came in, but must always use the opposite gateway.

Ezekiel 46:9 NLT

What was that all about?

Let me take a pause and tell you a brief story from my childhood. My family would take short vacations, sometimes several states away. My Dad would drive…and drive…and drive, rarely stopping for much of anything. However, my dad liked a certain soft drink. Root beer. At times he would tell us three kids in the back seat, “If you see a root beer stand, we’ll stop.” Now, there weren’t many root beer stands back then. Not like McDonald’s today. But it was amazing how quickly we could find a root beer stand. Why? Because we were intently looking for it.

The lesson I learned at that early age was that it was easier to find something when you were focused on finding it.

Fast-forward to my Bible reading. I asked the Holy Spirit to help me understand the passages I read. And there are times (slogging times) I really need His help. So, what about this “go in one way and out the other way” passage? What was the Lord saying?

My interpretation is this: When we enter into the Lord’s presence, in worship, in Bible study, in our prayer life, we should never leave the same way. Never. We should never read God’s Holy Word and then toss it down and go on. Never. We should never show up for church, sing, listen to a sermon, then head out the door the same way we came in.

My friend Dr. Henry Blackaby in his daily devotional Experiencing God Day by Day puts it this way:

“Have you lost your sense of awe that the Creator still chooses to speak to you, His creation? Do you approach the reading of your Bible with a holy expectation, listening for the life-changing words that God has for you that day?

“When God speaks, nothing remains the same.”

When people in Bible days encountered God, their life was never the same. They usually were driven to the ground by what today’s songwriter calls “awe-struck wonder.”

I am so amazed and grateful that God…the great God of the universe… still has a personal word for me. A message for me. A plan for me.

Awe-struck wonder. What about you?

God’s best…