Are You Making Room?

We vacationed in Tennessee with our teenagers one late December. We wanted to spend Christmas in a cabin in the mountains and hopefully show our Florida kids some snow.

To complete our holiday getaway, we sought out a Christmas Eve service to attend. Strolling downtown, we spotted a church on the main street boasting a sign that read, “Join Us Christmas Eve. All Are Welcome.” Perfect.

The quaint church was beautifully decorated inside with red Poinsettias, and bright, sparkling lights. Most of the old wooden pews were already spoken for, filled with worshippers donning winter coats and holiday scarves. We filed into the back row of the remaining vacant pew, along with a few late stragglers. While perusing the church bulletin prior to the start of the service, a note was passed down our pew, oddly . . . to us. Confused, I flipped open the folded paper that read:

We’re sorry, but your seats are reserved for our members and staff.

I met my husband’s gaze with wild eyes while handing him the note. He read the note, remained motionless, and finally looked at me with a blank stare.

There were no other available seats.

Stunned, we sat motionless until one of the elders approached us and whispered, “I’m afraid we need to ask you to leave. These seats are reserved.”

In disbelief, my husband refused to budge until I awkwardly ushered Jeff and our children out of the pew so as not to cause a Christmas scene. As we slithered from our seats, I lowered my gaze while bobbing heads began to turn in our direction. My children were perplexed. My husband was angry, and my face grew hot and flushed with embarrassment. This was not the “love of Christ” example we hoped to display to our children.

Speechless, we exited to the lobby while my husband turned to address the elders.

“Our family is very hurt,” he said. “You don’t know anything about us, and yet—rather than welcome us into your church—you have turned us away. Is this what Jesus would do?”

I suddenly knew how Mary must have felt when there was no room at an inn to give birth to baby Jesus. Rejected. Outcast. Reduced to a stable, complete with hay and livestock. While I shook my head and was about to utter a tsk, tsk, tsk toward that downtown church, my breath halted.

Jesus always makes room for me, but . . . do I always make room for Him?

In all our busy-ness, Jesus is often still crowded out today. He becomes an afterthought. Hundreds of years after His humble beginnings in a lowly manger, there is still no room for Jesus.

This is what Jesus told His disciples on the night before He was crucified:

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.”   (John 14:1-3)

Jesus always has more than enough room for you and me. The least we can do is make room for Him.

Are you making room for your Savior this Christmas?

Lord, I confess You are sometimes a second-thought rather than my priority. I humbly recognize your place of honor and remind myself to always make room for You. Amen.