Make Room: Trusting God in the New Year

-Make room. A leftover from Christmas, these two words will not let me go. The failure of the innkeeper in Bethlehem echoes through the ages, challenging me to allow the celebration of Christmas to make a lasting impact on my heart. Will I make room for God to work in new ways in 2024, or will the lessons of the Christmas story be forgotten like ornaments in the attic?

Throughout the holidays, the phrase “make room” echoed in my mind and heart. I sensed God questioning my priorities, my viewpoints, prompting me to consider my trials in a new light. Perhaps making room is just another way of learning to trust God with every moment of my life. Even as the boxes of decorations make their way back to the attic for another year, the phrase lingers, encouraging me to stretch and grow in the coming year.

And she gave birth to her firstborn son; and she wrapped Him in cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. Luke 2:7

Make Room: A Challenge to Open Our Hearts

A song by Matt Maher and Casting Crowns entitled “Make Room” asks the question:

Is there room in your heart
For God to write His story?

You can come as you are
But it may set you apart
When you make room in your heart
And trade your dreams for His glory

The last few years have brought challenges to my life that won’t go away quickly. What might my life look like if I truly make room for God to work in new ways? Throughout the holidays, I contemplated the drastic way Jesus’ birth changed the lives of people who played a part in his story, and discovered that their lives were full of challenges also.

A normal teenaged girl living with her parents is visited by the angel, Gabriel, who says: “‘And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call His name Jesus … The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.’” (Luke 1:31 & 35)

Mary must have dreamed of a wedding under a canopy, of entering the home built by her beloved as a new bride. Instead, her heart was broken when Joseph decided to divorce her quietly. Her parents may not have believed a story that sounded too fantastic to be real. They were poor and obscure. Angels didn’t just appear to people in Nazareth. Mary’s dreams were destroyed, but she trusted God. She knew the scriptures, and so she shut her own dreams inside her hope chest, and made room. Mary opened her heart to the new calling, and experienced the miracle of Immanuel, God with us.

Do I make room in my heart when God’s plan differs from my dreams, and no one understands? Do I truly believe God is with me?

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3:5,6

Make Room: God Invites Us to Enter His Story

A young carpenter working hard to make a home for his future bride saw his world crumble when she told him she was pregnant. Ashamed, and heartbroken, he decided to divorce her quietly so she wouldn’t be stoned to death.

Then the angel of the Lord appeared in his dreams, calling him by name: “‘Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.’” (Matthew 1:20-21)

The child Mary carried wasn’t the son of Joseph’s body, but he made room in his heart and allowed God to write him a new story. Since betrothal was marriage without consummation, he and Mary omitted the wedding, and traveled to Bethlehem for the Roman census. They probably talked as they traveled, learning to make room for God’s plan, so very different from their own.

Joseph searched for an inn because Mary was in labor. How hard it would have been to trust that he was the right father figure for the Son of God when he could only provide a stable. But Joseph chose to accept the invitation to enter God’s story, and began to see the meaning of Immanuel, God with us, as angels directed their way.

Do I make room for God to work when I feel wronged and disappointed? Will I trust that God is writing a beautiful story, and believe He is with me when I don’t understand His plan? 

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. James 1:17

God is with Me When I Have No Roadmap for the Future

Mary and Joseph had been away from home far longer than it took to report for the census. As a new mom, she must have longed for her own mother. What began as a brief trip became a major move, and it would get worse. What heavy responsibility Joseph must have felt when they heard that the cruel king, Herod was searching for their son.

Once again, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph: “’Get up,’ he said, ‘take the child and His mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.’” (Matthew 2:13)

The trip from Bethlehem to Egypt was over 400 miles, a long way for the little family to travel. Then, when Jesus was and His mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead.’” (Matthew 2:19, 20) However, they did not return to Galilee because Herod’s son, Archelaus, reigned, and was no better than his father. So, after all the moving around, they returned to Nazareth. And many years later, the day would come when Mary watched her child die. Along with His disciples, she made room again, and experienced God with us in the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost.

Do I count the trials as joy? Do I make room, believing God tests my faith and teaches me perseverance to bring me to mature faith? (James 1:2-8)

Make Room for God to Bring Blessing from Trials

The Savior who had no home invites us to make Him a home within our hearts. He never promises prosperity or success. There is no guarantee that life will be safe or easy. Paul and the disciples suffered persecution, imprisonment, and death.

Will we make room when a spouse dies, or a job is lost? When a pregnancy miscarries, or the diagnosis is cancer? Can we make room when a child announces they’re gay, or a marriage ends? Will we learn that surrendering our dreams to God allows us to experience God with us in powerful ways? How much better could we weather the storms in life if we set aside our dreams, the way we want life to be, so that God might be glorified?

Jesus asks us to respond with the same obedience evidenced by Mary and Joseph. In this new year, the Lord invites us to enter into the story of Immanuel. Will you make room, for He is faithful and true?

 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. Ephesians 3:20, 21

Tree-6835828_1280 – Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay

Snow-5914604_1280 – Image by Pat from Pixabay

Road-4730553_1280 – Image by Ioannis Ioannidis from Pixabay