Making Room
With the New Year just starting, we usually decide to add new things into our lives; gym memberships, diets, new eating programs, new plan to read the Bible trough this year etc. But…to have the new thing or to put more into our lives we need to make room for it. You can only put so much into a container and when it’s full nothing else will fit. It’s simple mathematics.
Of course we do our best to stuff that new thing into our schedule and make it work. That is why so many New Year resolutions fall to the way side; we simply don’t have any more room in our lives for them. We need to first make room. To accommodate means to: To have enough space for, to take into consideration, make adjustments for, to adapt oneself for, to allow room for.
It’s important to sit down and take inventory of our lives to see what isn’t working, what can go, and what is no longer useful or needed. Only then can we add the necessary things that will make our lives function more efficiently and that will fulfill us. The most important thing is to seek God and find out what He would have us add or change. Sadly much of the time we don’t want to adjust our lives or adapt, we just want the new.
Cindy Trimm wrote, “Even the not so glamorous caterpillar realizes he is intended for greater things. So he sheds his old life, struggles to a higher place, attaches himself to a leaf, and risks everything to spin a cocoon and wait. He has done his part; now he waits for the Creator of the universe to do his. Forty days later, it is time for the no-longer-a-caterpillar to experience his breakthrough, the promise of living to his full potential-a caterpillar’s true self-the magnificent, winged butterfly.”
That caterpillar had to do a lot of self-evaluation, hard work and expend a lot of effort to have the new. Nothing ventured nothing gained. To do the same thing over and over and expect a different result is the definition of insanity
We live in such a fast paced world we don’t slow down enough to take inventory of our lives. But to follow God’s plan and be in His will we must do just that, take inventory, ask Him what needs to go and what new thing He wants to add that will allow for His will to be done in our life. To do the same thing over and over and expect a different result is the definition of insanity. God may have an amazing thing planned for us but if we don’t make room in our hearts and lives for it, it’s never going to happen.
It is our flesh that screams at us for more, more, bigger, better, the newest gadget or fad. But…do we really need more? Or do we need to clean out what is obsolete from our lives and add what is necessary, not simply have more? #ouch
In 2 Kings 4:10 the Shunammite woman realized that Elijah kept coming by her house. She went to her husband and said, “I’m certain,” said the woman to her husband, “that this man who stops by with us all the time is a holy man of God. Why don’t we add on a small room upstairs and furnish it with a bed and desk, chair and lamp, so that when he comes by he can stay with us?”
She made room for him. That room wasn’t free it cost her something. For her to have the more God wanted to give her she had to make room, she had to adjust her home and spend money she hadn’t planned to spend. God wanted to bless her with a son that she was never able to have. When she made room in her life for the man of God, God used him to prophesy a son into her life, the desire of her heart. How much of God’s desire for us is simply passing us by because we just don’t have any room for it?
In the parable of the ten virgins (Matthew 25:1-13) five of them took the time to make sure their lamps were full of oil (representing the Holy Spirit) so that when the Bridegroom came they would be ready and could receive what He had for them. The other five didn’t want to be inconvenienced to go and get the oil they needed. They were content with sitting around and waiting, doing their own thing. But when the Bridegroom came and they were not ready, they could not go with Him and experience what He had for them.
This is a season that God desires to pour out more. He has more for each of us but the question is will we be willing to adjust our hearts to receive it? Will we accommodate Him or will we be too full to hold what He is offering? I feel like God is saying…put it down. Put down all of the things that I have not asked you to carry. Empty your life of the things that weigh you down and hold you captive to yesterday. I have more for you; new and exciting things but if you do not make room for them you will not receive them.
Father, help each and every one of us make the adjustments necessary. Help us to lay it all at your feet and allow you to fill us with all that you desire for us in this season. Make us vessels fit for your use.
