How to See What You’d Missed Before
layers in your bible
You know, it’s interesting how God’s Word speaks to us in ways we don’t always expect—especially when we ask the Holy Spirit to open our eyes to see. For the longest time, that phrase used to confuse me. Open your eyes to see? I thought, I can read. I can see the words on the page. But the reality is, I wasn’t coming to the text empty-handed. I was coming with assumptions—with what I already wanted it to mean. I was imposing my worldview onto the text instead of letting the text speak for itself. It’s kind of like watching a movie in the 21st century. You understand what goes without saying. You pick up on all the hidden cultural context—the hidden jokes and easter eggs. But then you come to the Bible—this ancient text—and you bring that same 21st-century lens with you. And without realizing it, you miss things. For me, I was never scared of the Bible not being about creationism versus science. That debate is bogus baloney to me. Because a few years ago, my eyes were opened to something different: that Genesis isn’t about how the world was made—it’s about God bringing chaos into order. And once I started seeing it through Eastern eyes instead of Western ones, I was able to step back and let the text speak. That shift required a lot of unlearning. Because many of the stories we hear growing up come with assumptions baked in. Sometimes these stories become so familiar that we assume we already know them. We stop expecting to learn anything new. But Scripture is living. It keeps speaking—if we let it. Take the Garden of Eden, for example. For the longest time, I thought there was just one tree. I never realized there were two trees—the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil—until I slowed down and actually read the text itself. When I saw that clearly in Genesis, I was like, Whoa. But what really grabbed me were the patterns. As I’ve been reading Genesis 5 this week, I started noticing how repetitive it is in a very specific way. Over and over again, the text tells you: this person was this age, then they had their firstborn. After that, it tells you how many years they lived in total. The same rhythm. Again and again. “X lived ___ years and begot Y” (firstborn highlighted) After he begot Y, X lived ___ years and had other sons and daughters So all the days of X were ___ years, and he died” I think the old me would’ve skimmed it and thought, Why are they listing all of this? boringggg But I kept reading. And then I got to Noah. And for the first time, the pattern breaks. All of his sons are listed together. There’s no firstborn taking priority. No familiar formula. And I remember thinking, Whoa. There’s something there. There’s something there. I got so excited. Later, I learned that up until that point, Genesis is tracing one family line—genealogy, inheritance, firstborns—all the way to Noah. But once you reach Noah, the firstborn isn't emphasized because it’s no longer just about one family. Now it’s about all of humanity. God is about to use this family not just to continue a line, but to move His mission forward for the whole world—re-creation. And that realization blew me away. How intentional is God—using patterns, and then breaking them—yet I had read this before and never caught it. Seeing it now felt like discovering a whole new layer that had been there all along. And that's how to see what you’d missed before. Slowing down long enough especially when it gets boring. Because you don’t need to be a pastor or go to seminary to encounter God’s Word as something alive and speaking. At least that's what I've been learning.
Heart Call:
Open my eyes, that I may see wondrous things from Your law. — Psalms 119:18
Prayer works every time and the Holy Spirit won’t fail to equip you, friends.
The Bible zoom-out and zoom-in throughout the biblical story. And it is so beautifully sophisticated and layered.
If you decide to read your Bible, how can you invite God and the Holy Spirit to open your eyes to see things you’ve missed before?
If reading feels hard, how can you make it easier for yourself?
Maybe you listen to the audiobook first. Maybe you read while the audio plays. Maybe you put music in the background to keep your brain engaged. I know for me, sometimes attention—not desire—is the biggest obstacle.
So what have you tried? What small adjustments help you stay focused?
I don’t think it’s about the perfect time. You can read your Bible anytime, anywhere. It’s about breaking out of the mindset that it has to look a certain way.
Photo Credits: Dushane White.