“…They must never leave by the same gateway they came in, but must always use the opposite gateway.”

I did my best last week to try and explain my career path to a soon to be college graduate.  As I was listening to myself speak I realized (not really for the first time but good to be reminded) that my career has been built on trying to always walk through a new door and not return to one where I have come through before.  There is something about being able to close doors behind you and consider them shut tight with no reason to return.  I’ve watched a few people leave a company and then return.  Sometimes, it works out perfectly as they feel as though they have found their way back home. But for many, what was once a place they knew, has grown to something else and they never quite fit in again.  It is not easy to decipher which doors to walk through. When in doubt look to the one that best moves us forward and maybe to something that we have never imagined doing before.

Maybe this is what God is also telling us in Ezekiel as He gives the instructions for how the Temple gateways were to be traversed.  The prince was allowed to go in and out of the same gateway, but all the rest of the people were to enter in one gateway and leave through the opposite gateway.  Could it be that God was telling them that as they passed through the Temple while in His presence that they were to be made anew and to not try and return to what they were before?  I’m not sure, but it hit me as such as I read this verse and reminded me that today is a great day to move forward from one gateway to the one ahead, in all that we do.

Reference:  Ezekiel 46:9 (New Living Translation)