I was reading John this morning, and was reminded of to the lyrics of Joy to the World, specifically, ‘Let every heart prepare him room.’
The reason why I was thinking about this is in John 8, Jesus is talking about his role on earth as Light of the World, and his relationship with the Father.
‘They they asked him (it says in Verse 19-20) “Where is your father?”
“You do not know me or my father,” Jesus replied, “if you knew me, you would know my Father also.”‘
I’ve been thinking recently about how we have to make space for God – and how sometimes this means revising things, or getting rid of unhelpful mindsets or ideologies.
Let every heart – the carol says – prepare him room.
Because I think it is kind of like our brains are like houses. We have little rooms we go off into where we keep our favourite things to think about. Or else others where we have other thoughts we don’t like, but we go there anyway, and take a seat in the comfortable chair as we rehearse our frets. We have an attic of storage, of things both good and bad we might have forgotten about.
But what I’ve been thinking about recently is how we can often lose sight of what God is up to, and who he is in our circumstances, because he doesn’t fit into what we’ve filled our houses with.
The Gospels is full of it – Pharisees, and Jews alike who basically bother Jesus from the start of his ministry until he dies, saying ‘Well… you can’t be the Messiah because you’re from Nazareth’ or something like that.
It is kind of funny sometimes how we like to tell God what to do. That we have preconceived ideas of what we think he is up to, or more likely, what we want him to do, and as a result, we kind of feel how you do when you’ve brought a longue suite way too big for your living room, and it is all a bit cramped.
It startles me how many times people in the bible and here in John 8, there seems such a disconnection between what people expected from God, in action, and character, and who he actually was.
And I wonder sometimes if we do the same?
That we can become so consumed by the stuff around us, both helpful and non helpful, be they thought processes, or memories, or theologies, or experiences, and we encounter difficulty as we try to invite God into that, believing that he will fit seamlessly in amongst the clutter.
So maybe since Joy to the World tells us to, and because it’s Christmas, we need to clear the clutter out.
That in our hearts, we need to prepare Him room.
Maybe we do need to do that this year? After the chaos that was 2020, and the ups and downs, and intensities, and highs and lows, and fulfillments and disappointments, that perhaps we need to stop, and take stock.
Look at what’s in our houses. Not our literal houses (although maybe that too) but our spiritual houses.
Really look at what is inside it, in the light of day, and humbly and genuinely start to sort through it, so we can make space for God.
For God who he is, not who our fears tell us he is, not who our disappointments tell us he is, not who we tell everyone else we think he is, all the while being worried that he isn’t actually that.
I found myself googling something really, really obvious the other day.
I say obvious because I feel like it was something I should have known, and had a good answer for but regardless I found myself asking the question.
I was going through the book of Judges in my Bible and was hit by how super violent it was? And like, wow I just do not get why God is this savage to people other than the Israelites, how is this the loving God we sing carols about?
So I googled it, even though I sort of half know the answer, ‘Why is the Old Testament so violent’ – and I felt super sheepish doing it.
And I found lots of great answers that talked about God’s nature and the nature of wickedness, and the plan of his restoration over humanity and if I’m honest it really made me feel better.
But I had to admit to the awkward shaped question I had sitting in my ‘house.’
And even now, you know? Approaching a New Year, when I think fondly back at the end of 2019, when we all ran around telling people this was ‘my decade!’ or optimistically declared that 2020 was the start of something awesome and magical, only to be sucker punched by a Pandemic pretty early on in the mix.
All that aside to say, I’m purposefully reassessing the stuff in my house at the moment, and purposefully making room for Christ.
I want to ‘know the Father’, I want to know the Messiah, I want to be changed by this, and I want to walk according to the Light of who he is.
So I encourage you today to do likewise.
Knot your hair in a top bun, push your sleeves up, and get down to business – take stock at what’s in your house, and prepare room for God.
For who he is, really.
brighteyesbigworld 