How Well Do You Go Out and Come Back In?
A Blessing and a Call on Our Lives
You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out.
- Deuteronomy 28:6
It is interesting to consider being blessed by simply coming and going in life. At face value, that is why I would have taken this verse and others like it in the Bible when finding such a phrase.
Yet, in the last month or so, I have encountered this phrase several times and finally found a resource that helped me dive into it more for my life.
I have been reading a book lately that has challenged me in how I connect with God and his presence. The book is called His House, His Presence, by Michael Freeland Miller, pastor of UPPERROOM church in Dallas, Texas.
While there are many great points this book makes, one that stuck out to me recently was understanding what it means in the Old Testament when we read the phrase:
“Go out and come in.”
After doing a little digging of my own, I found this phrase a few times in the Old Testament, and it connects in various ways. However, it is primarily a military term for the people of Israel.
The ten times I found it in the Old Testament come from these references:
Numbers 27:17 - Refers to the need for a leader to guide the Israelites so they will not be like sheep without a shepherd.
Deuteronomy 28:6 - Part of a blessing, stating that one will be blessed when coming in and going out.
Deuteronomy 31:2 - Moses speaks of his inability to lead due to age, mentioning his failure to go out and come in.
Joshua 14:11 - Caleb speaks of his strength for going out and coming in.
1 Samuel 18:13 - Refers to David's military successes and how Saul sent him out, and he came in successfully.
1 Samuel 18:16 - Describes David's actions and the people's admiration for him as he went out and came in before them.
2 Samuel 3:25 - Joab questions David's decision, hinting at possible deceit while coming in and going out.
1 Kings 3:7 - Solomon refers to himself as a little child, not knowing how to go out or come in, in a prayer for wisdom.
1 Chronicles 27:1 - Lists the divisions of Israel, including those who came in and went out month by month.
Psalm 121:8 - A blessing for the Lord to keep one's going out and coming in from now and forevermore.
And as I went into the scriptures to gain more context, something kept coming to me about how this can apply to our lives today.
How We Need to Go Out and Come In
As I have been thinking more, I realize that the blessing is going out with Jesus and coming in to be in his presence. To me, it is more than simply coming and going. It is about how we come and go.
Some of this has been added to my thoughts thanks to Miller’s book. Yet, when you read the context that it is in for so many of these passages, I saw something particular.
When Israel went out with a leader who could ‘go out and come in,’ they went to battle with God. No matter the situation, time and again, Israel was the underdog against many of the enemies.
Yet, they succeeded. They were blessed with victory. And when they were the victors of war, they came in and worshipped God for going out before them.
We Need to Go Out with God
I find that many Christians go about daily life without considering what God might think or how God might do things. They get promotions at work, go to concerts and events, and watch TV or movies without thinking about God.
Sometimes, they try to do something outside themselves that challenges them and requires significant effort, then fail. And when I say “they,” I mostly mean “me.”
We go out into the world to live our lives and, somewhere along the way, forget to go out with God. To have his name go before us in whatever activity or job we do, and when things go south, we wonder why.
Yet, if we went with God and had his name in front of us in whatever endeavor, how might that change the result?
We Need to Come to God
But that is only part of the reality of our lives. We not only need to go out with God, but we need to come in. We need to come to God after the fact. And in these moments, we need to enter into His presence, worship Him, and thank Him for what He has done in our day.
What might it be like for our lives to get a promotion, and the first thing we did was worship God? What might it be like to start a business and it begins to succeed, and we go into God and praise His name?
I believe Jesus is calling us into this lifestyle.
A Lifestyle of In and Out
No, I am not talking about the fast-food restaurant. You can save that for a Netflix docuseries.
What I am talking about is when we step into God’s presence before we go out to do anything, we prepare the road for going out to accomplish things in our lives.
And then, when we go out and accomplish it or take steps toward what we are made to do, we come back in, and we worship and praise God for what He is doing in these places of our lives.
Then we go back out and do more. It’s like a yo-yo. We are in with Jesus. We are out with Jesus. And then we are back in with Jesus. But here is the thing to it all:
It’s not about getting what we want. It’s about giving Him what he deserves.
Ultimately, Jesus paid the price for our lives. So that we would know God, experience Jesus, and walk in the power of the Holy Spirit. God created everything here on earth and in the skies above.
This In and Out Lifestyle is really about God—praising Him. Worshipping Him. It’s about taking everything in our lives and presenting it to Him in adoration. Because that is part of our purpose here on earth:
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” - Matthew 22:37
This is our calling in life. The In and Out Lifestyle is a way, if not the way, to do it.
J.R. Heimbigner is a #1 Bestselling Author on Amazon who writes about faith and writing books. He has self-published three bible study devotionals on Amazon. Check them out below:
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