With technology these days, it’s easy to secure a hotel online. You pull up the website, click the date you want, the number of people, choice of room size and immediately see availability. Many times the hotel we are looking for in a particular city may show completely sold out when trying to book online. However, there have been times that I have called directly and was able to secure a room because a hotel may keep some of the rooms held back from the website in order to fulfill requests for those who walk in looking for a place to stay.
I often wonder if when a hotel shows sold out online and I call and the information desk tells me there are no more rooms available if really there is that ONE room that is a deluxe or penthouse room that is held back “just in case”.
You know… like if a famous athlete, singer or actor should call and wanted to stay in that hotel. Would there suddenly be an available room that opened up for the famous person? I often wonder if hotels have that “just in case” room secured in the unlikely event a famous person would be visiting their city.
I think about that with Mary & Joseph as they were traveling to Bethlehem. They knock on the inn keeper’s door asking for a place to stay and he says “I’m sorry. We’re all sold out.” Joseph probably begged him to find them a room due to Mary’s pregnancy. But they weren’t famous to the inn keeper. They didn’t come with body guards or secret service men. They weren’t riding on a Cadillac camel or wearing gold jewelry and a crown. If the inn keeper had a “just in case” room, he certainly wasn’t going to give it to the ordinary couple.
But little did the inn keeper know who he turned away. Why couldn’t he have found one small area in the inn for the couple to rest? Why couldn’t he just have let this sweet, young, pregnant girl rest in the corner of the lobby? Did he regret turning them away when the baby was born in the barn up on the hill? Did he ever even know how famous the couple he turned away really were?
Those are all human questions to ponder but the truth is, it didn’t matter why or what if or if there was a “just in case” room because prophecy said that the famous King would be born not in a hotel lobby or a plush penthouse room but in a stable, a dirty old barn to show that the King of the World came to save everyone.
When things don’t go our way, we need to remember that maybe God isn’t giving us the “just in case” room because He actually has something far better down the road, up on a hill in a simple barn that can make all the difference in our world. May you be blessed today by the Baby who was turned away from the sold out hotel and born in a stable to become the most important person in all of creation!
