Is There Room In Your Heart?

I checked into my hotel for work travels last night. There were several of us trying to check in at the same time. The young lady behind the counter seemed overwhelmed. She was doing her best to check in one, but I could see her anxiously monitoring the growing line behind that one.

I felt for her.

I wondered if that's what it was like for the innkeeper where Mary and Joseph were trying to check in to Bethlehem. Crowds were coming from all over to participate in the census. Many of them trying to check into the same inn as Mary and Joseph and the still unborn baby Jesus.

Was the innkeeper stressed? Was he exhausted from a long day of turning people away? Was the innkeeper giving everything she had just to keep up with the demands of all that was going on around her?

It's interesting. The bible doesn't talk to us about this inn, or even if there was an inn at all. The bible simply says:

"...and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them."

If you believe that God is the author of the bible, and I do, just as I believe God is the author of these words I write to you, then you wonder, why so closely to the words "she gave birth to her firstborn, a son (Jesus)" would God write into the story, "she placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them."

Why did we need to know there was no guest room available?

I wonder if it's because God knew a greater challenge to us than believing in this baby in a manger would be making room in our hearts to accept that baby. I wonder if God knew our world would one day grow so frantically fast-paced that even though we'd know there was a baby over there wrapped up in a manger, we'd be too busy tending to our inns to pay much notice.

It is the temptation of this Christmas season. It is actually the temptation of this life, to grow frantically too busy tending to the demands around us to openly consider the one whose only demand is that we allow him to love us.

To allow us to love him in return.

There is a Casting Crowns song: Make Room.

A section of that song says:

Mother holds the Promise tight
Every wrong will be made right
The road is straight
And the burden’s light
For in His hands
He holds tomorrow
Is there room in your heart
For God to write His story
You can come as you are
It may set you apart
When you make room in your heart
And trade your dreams for His glory

The young lady at the desk yesterday, she had no idea the stories living in the people in front of her wanting a room. The only story she knew was the one demanding that she keep up with the hectic life she was living.

I believe that is also true of the innkeeper. The innkeeper had no idea there was one waiting to check in who longed to write his story on that innkeeper's heart.

But us?

We know.

We know that story.

We know that Jesus is looking for a room. In our hearts. To write a story that will make our burdens light and our roads straight.

We know this.

But do we have room?

The baby Jesus comes on the other side of belief. The difference that baby makes in our lives comes on the other side of our choice to give him a room.

We are staring over the counter at this baby in a manger, who wants nothing more than a room in our heart.

Will we be too busy to notice?

And even if we do notice, do we have room?

It's maybe the most important question we can ask ourselves on the way to Bethlehem. It's maybe the most important question to ask no matter where we are going.

Do we have room?