Prepare Him Room

A few years ago, a friend used a familiar line from a Christmas carol to sum up the year on her family’s holiday card. Instead of “Merry Christmas” or “Happy New Year,” printed underneath the photo of her family was this: “Let the weary world rejoice.”

I loved it then and I still do now. The honesty of acknowledging our need for Jesus resonates more with every passing year. And the truth of Emmanuel—God with us—is more and more precious.

This year, another familiar line is ringing in my ears, a line focused on the human part of the Emmanuel equation.

When God came to earth to be with us, what us did he find? One mired in sin, desperate for salvation. And as I turn my focus this season to the miracle of Jesus, what us will He find in me? Still prone to sin certainly, but even more often, distracted, overly-busy, and grumpy and critical from circumstances of my own making.

Prepare Him room. That’s the line ringing in my head. As we turn to Advent, what can I move aside, perhaps permanently, to prepare my heart for Jesus?

I am certainly not the first to note that need. Our lives—and hearts—are so full. And while many of the things filling my heart are blessings straight from the Lord, others can and should be excised without ceremony. Guilt, comparison, entitlement, to name a few. In a season full of giving and getting and magic-making, it is so easy to focus on what we have or don’t have, rather than the shape my heart is in.

Prepare Him room. I don’t have all the answers for exactly how to do it, except to take small steps in that direction.

Make space. Take an extra minute of quiet in a loud season.

Move aside the excess. Choose carefully what I mediate on this season.

Get ready. God is not surprised by the condition of my heart this season or any other. It’s only by his grace that we look around us and notice the difference between the ways things are and how they should be.

This season and every other, prepare Him room.

Written by Meredith Flynn.
Meredith Flynn is a writer and school admissions director. She and her family are part of Delta Church in Springfield.