Isaac Watts penned this
line in a piece that would eventually become the famous Christmas carol, “Joy
to the World:”
Let every heart prepare him room.
As a kid, I sang the
line, knowing that there wasn’t room for baby Jesus in the inn. I figured it
was our collective eternal responsibility to right that wrong.
But exactly how do we
prepare room for Him?
When we prepare for a
roommate to move in with us or a new baby to come home or guests to visit, we
start by allocating the space. We find space that had an old purpose. A purpose
that is now less important than the new one we assign. We methodically clean
out that space, so we can begin to fill it with the new purpose.
And so it is with our
hearts. To prepare room in our hearts for Jesus, we don’t usually find our
hearts already empty and waiting. Often our hearts are filled up with things
that take up all the space. The clutter might involve bitterness or anger or
fear or regret or shame. We might find these in small piles in the dusty
corners of our heart that have collected there over time. We might find them in
a big hurt, fresh and raw, that has just wounded our heart. Sometimes our heart
clutter is simply busyness, schedules filled with good things, but leaving
little time to court a heartthrob.
Jesus knocks on the
doors of our hearts in any condition. Yet he never pushes His way in. He waits
for us to prepare our hearts for Him. When we clean out all the stuff that
separates us from Him, the lover of our soul can move in. We prepare Him room.
Just like any relationship,
the little weeds grow up over time and choke out the open communication lines. Soon
we aren’t even talking and He’s wondering if we still love Him. But then we tidy
up and ask Him back. We prepare Him room again.
Eventually our love changes.
We stop viewing it as “our” place, where we just make some room to share with
Him. Instead, we sign over the deed of our hearts to Him. It’s yours, Lord. Sometimes
we sell out when we hit our rock bottom. Or when we realize how little control
we have. Or maybe when our heart is broken in pieces so tiny, we don’t see how
it can be put back together.
It happens at the end
of ourselves and the beginning of Him. That’s when we fully prepare Him room. Let every heart get there.
