“I have read in Plato and Cicero sayings that are wise and very beautiful; but I have never read in either of them: Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden.”
– Saint Augustine –
How that husband’s heart must have dropped when he and his wife trudged up to the last inn.
“No room left.”
What blessings did that innkeeper forfeit by relegating his leftovers to the use of God coming to dwell with us?
How far does our no-vacancy sign reach? What do we miss?
Lives crowded with deadlines, appointments, employment, outreach, study.
And what, after all, does it profit?
And slamming the door, saying there’s no room, grudgingly giving in and handing over that least leftover room of ours, even that teeming with life-overflow that rings in our ears like barnyard clatter and fills our nose with the stench of waste.
Wasted time, that’s not His time.
Wasted work, that’s not pledged as worship to the Master.
Wasted words, that carry on until hoarse of works and days and brimming living–all for nothing.
Why do we head-down charge into nothing, waving our no-vacancy sign and pushing away the claims of a Man who is also God, the only One who owns us anyway?
But wait…stop the headlong rush.
What does God mean, when He says, “No room left”?
Does He come to His own door and turn away, shutting the blinds, barring the windows, bolting the door?
What does He mean, “No room left”?
Can it be that our reckless plunging has taken Him past the point of mercy, too far to give us a place of rest?
But there is a promise of mercy that’s everlasting, of One who always answers a heart’s cry.
Sisters, hear!
Because we, in our willful avoidance, were stopped.
Glorious interception! It wasn’t that we felt our need and ran to Him.
No. When we were running away, thrashing and screaming to escape His hand, He chased us down and accomplished His rescue mission.
Won this stone-dead heart in a history-making wrestling match with Sin, Death, and the enemy of my soul.
Won this cold heart and breathed right in.
And this is the part where there’s no room left.
When my Ransom-payer cradles a now-pulsing heart and fills it.
Fills it up to overflowing, until there’s no room because of the fulness.
He takes this dry well and floods it with so much life-water that I cannot contain it all.
“Jesus stood and cried out, saying, ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.'”
– John 7:37b-38 –