Let every heart
prepare him room. But my heart is cluttered, jammed to
over- flowing, and it’s not all pretty.
I’m booked, slammed, juggling because two hands won’t hold it all. I have commitments, activities,
responsibilities, possessions. I suspect
that when Jesus knocks on my door, he hears me holler, Uh, hang on a minute… and while he waits his mind drifts to the
story his mother told him about the inn in Bethlehem having no vacancy.
What Jesus wants for Christmas is a vacancy, an opening, some room. He can’t be crammed into my heart if I keep
everything I’ve accumulated. I have to
do some letting go, I have to get on my Spring cleaning here in late
November.
What Jesus wants from me for Christmas isn’t so much some ability I
might have – although he gave me whatever ability I have so I could use it for
him. What Jesus wants isn’t my ability
but my availability. I may have ability, but frankly I’m just not
available to God, or to the people God loves – and thus I am a noisy gong, a
clanging cymbal. No wonder I wonder what
the point of it all might be.
Can my prayer be listening more than talking? Dare I pray Speak, Lord, your servant is listening?
Can I divest myself of a few things this Christmas? Santa Claus wants to haul more things down
the chimney and into my cluttered world.
Maybe in my imagination I reverse that chimney function and toss my
busyness, my over-commitments, my divided loyalties, my frenetic pace, into the
fire, and let the holy smoke waft up toward Jesus, who will then know I’m here,
I’m available, there’s room in the inn.
