Ask before you read. Not for a good feeling about the passage. For understanding.
The Bible was not written to be figured out by cleverness. Every writer who wrote it prayed before they wrote it, and the Spirit who moved that pen is the same Spirit you are asking to move your reading.
Keep it short and specific. Something like: open my eyes to see what is really here, and give me the will to do something about it once I see it. Understanding a passage and being changed by it are not the same request, and it is worth asking for both.
Then read. The prayer does not replace the reading. It is what you do right before it, every time, until it stops feeling like a step and starts feeling like the only way in.