Like an arrow which pierces the heart or a loud clap of thunder which startles, so do the words: “And she brought forth her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn” (Luke 2:7).

These words grip the sensitivities of every believing Christian.

There is a kind of pity or compassion which surround the words of Luke as we think about our Lord and Savior being born in a stable because there was no room in the inn to receive Jesus — so he is pushed to the outer periphery to be born.

The context, circumstances and characters differ, but the disordered conditions of overcrowded and unconcerned lives remains even to this day.

It is easy to accuse the innkeeper of all kinds of gross negligence and put the responsibility upon him for the circumstances into which Jesus was born.

It is easy to debate whether or not the innkeeper did all that he could have to provide Mary and Joseph with lodging. Jesus, however, faces the same problem today — no room.

Maybe one of the reasons we are so inclined to come down hard on the Bethlehem innkeeper is because we feel guilty about doing the same thing to Jesus, not leaving sufficient room in our hearts and lives to wholly receive him.

Some of the people whom we dislike the most, we dislike because they are just like us, not because they are different from us. Both good qualities and faults that we readily see in others, we easily overlook in ourselves.

Often, what we dislike about other people is the potential we recognize in ourselves for behaving in the same manner that they do. So whenever we look at the Bethlehem innkeeper, we ought to also look at ourselves (1 Cor. 11:31).

There was no room because others had arrived before Joseph and Mary and had taken up all of the space. This was a very busy time for the innkeeper.

The census taken during the reign of Caesar Augustus, which required everyone to enroll themselves in the town of their birth, had brought many people to Bethlehem, putting a strain on all the private and public facilities of that town.

The innkeeper was grateful for the increased business the census was bringing to town, but, probably frustrated, for he had more business than he could handle.

He didn’t have time to give anybody specialized attention that he or they might have desired.

It’s good to be busy and productive, but sometimes our lives can be overcrowded to the point that we don’t do much of anything well. Our lives can be so crowded with commitments that we run all the time.

Someone has told us that being busy is a sign of a productive life, so from the time we get up to the time we lay down, we are rushing, trying to get a lot done and worrying about how we are going to do it all.

One of the facts we face is the truth that we cannot do everything we want to do without something being crowded out.

When we are trying to hold down a full-time job or career, a full-time marriage, full-time child rearing, church, civic, social and political involvements, something or somebody is going to be crowded out or short-changed.

We don’t have enough room physically, mentally or emotionally for everything and everybody that we allow to make claims upon our lives.

We are built to accommodate only so much, so we have to decide what really must be done and what we simply can adequately do. Otherwise we will find ourselves neglecting what we should not neglect and giving our time and attention to what we could neglect.

Too often, as Luke indicates, when life gets overcrowded Jesus gets pushed out. The church and Jesus are expendable items on  our crowded dockets.

We don’t intend to crowd Him out, but other things have simply gotten ahold of our lives — earlier arrivals like sins which give us pleasure, habits that we support and maintain, routines that we have established, doing certain things with certain people at certain times, grudges that we nurse, bad feelings that we cling to.

Consequently, we have no room, no energy, no time, no money left for Jesus.

Jesus has promised that if we make room for Him, then he will make room for us (John 14: 1-6).

Dr. Waiters can be reached at 704-636-3369.