In the blink of an eye

There’s this intersection that I bike through once a week that is in my mind one of the most dangerous intersections I’ve ever seen in a non-urban area for anything that’s not a car. It’s University Ave. and Donohoe, in East Palo Alto. So last Wednesday, there I was, coming to the intersection on the left side sidewalk (because the right side is so tight that it’s just, well, no a good idea), and I’ve got the green. I see a Green Camaro looking left (away from me), but I’ve got the right of way. I go, and in a split second, I know he’s going to hit me. He clips my back tire, and before I know it, my bike is down, but somehow, I jumped off my bike and I’m standing there, backpack on, unscratched, shocked. Driver gets out, checks if I’m ok, and I don’t really say anything, I’m just bewildered. I check my bike (a couple scratches), go back to the sidewalk (I missed my green), and carry on my day.

Sometimes those things happen so quickly, don’t they? I don’t really remember how I got off my bike, only that I was standing and the bike was down. Gut reaction I guess. Or, more probably, the Lord enabled me to do it. Praise God!

So I was thinking about that this morning, and it got me thinking about the value of repetitive Scripture reading. I’ve been meeting with two other great guys, once a week on Tuesday mornings at Starbucks, and we commit to reading 25-30 chapters of the Bible every week. If one of us doesn’t finish, we say, “I guess the Lord wants us to read it again!” and we reset our counter and start the reading again. We spent 8 or so weeks in Colossians this way, and now we’re in our 7th or 8th week of Galatians. The way it adds up to 25-30 is through repetitive reading – right now it’s Galatians five times in a week. And can I say, it’s been awesome. I love it. I love being steeped in the same passage daily, and week after week, until I sort of get it. Sometimes reading it just once isn’t enough.

So how does this connect? Well, I think if I just skim by the Bible, I’ll miss a lot of things, and when the time comes that I need to use it, I won’t be ready. I’ll be fumbling with it. But, like riding a bike has become second-nature to me, I want the Word of God to become second-nature – it just comes up in my brain and my heart. And I think that’s part of the value of reading it over, and over, and over again.

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