I still remember when I got my first bible as a child, I was so excited to read it and made it a goal to finish it within a year. I started reading Genesis, full of anticipation, yet when I got into the ho-hum parts of Exodus, where the bible just talks about building the tabernacle and making the priestly robes, I gave up. I felt like I was reading the instruction manual of some absurd object, and in my 8 year old mind I wondered: What does any of this have to do with God?

Since then, I’ve avoided reading Exodus, Leviticus, and such books because I felt like I couldn’t get anything out of it. I didn’t feel like God was speaking to me. Even with a devotional to help me get through the chapters, everything still seemed dry and dead. I could only hear the voices of the author of the devotional, not God’s.

But this past weekend at the San Jose Bread of Life Conference, it was as if God opened my spiritual ears and eyes. I’ve been in the dry season before that, and that weekend, I told God I was going to turn over my life to Him in total submission. And from that moment on, things changed drastically. I no longer had to rely on the devotions to help me get through Exodus. Every day I read a chapter, and the words just seem to come alive for me, I felt God revealing Himself through these “ho-hum instruction manuals” and I got more out of it than I ever did with the devotions!

When I committed myself to God, it wasn’t out of a spiritual high or a feeling, but out of the realization that I needed to make a choice if I wanted to get out of this dry season. For the first time in my life, I felt like I made a choice like a true adult: one not based on my emotions or what I want, but based on what I should do. I made a choice to leave everything behind and seek Him, and like He promised, I found Him.

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”
Matthew 7:7