This one should be easy. It is almost the most wonderful time of the year for most or many of us. The start of NCAA Basketball, the NBA season, NCAA Football Bowl season. And Superbowl ???  is only a couple of tantalizing months away.  What do you mean that is not the most wonderful time of the year? What is wonderful about …..Christmas? Opps, there, I said it. Now you know how I really feel. But sometimes I mean it. What is wonderful about endless shopping and worrying if it is the right size and hoping they like it and wondering if it is enough? “Bah” don’t say it. We can really become concerned about things that don’t matter can’t we? And what about the things that do matter. I don’t mean just about Christmas, but everything; eternal things.  What do you lose sleep over? What was it that kept you awake the last time you had a sleepless night? I hope the things that matter to God are the things that are keeping me awake at night. Have you ever invited God to keep you awake with the things that matter to him?  David did. In Psalm 132 David prayed, actually declared, “I will not enter my house; or go to my bed – I will allow no sleep to my eyes, no slumber to my eyelids, till I find a place for the Lord, a dwelling for the Mighty One of Jacob.”

 I never thought about God being homeless before but that is what David is saying of sorts. In fact, that is what is keeping him awake at night. He wants God to have a place; “a place for the Lord.” He wants God to have his rightful place. He wants God to be welcome in everyplace. I think about China. Every year we send a team there and every year we meet people who are desperate to know the Lord. Our team leader Martin, just returned from one of the most powerful trips we have experienced there. He told the story of how they went to a meeting in a school and he was teaching. At a designated point in the session a number of the students had to be dismissed so they could attend a Chinese law class taught by a member of the Communist Party. A few minutes after the session resumed all the students who had been dismissed came back in and Martin was told that the Party member wanted to talk with him. Through tears this person told Martin how she had been coming to the school for years to teach Chinese law, but this was the first day she had heard the message of Christ. She brought all the students back into the class and told them they needed to hear what was being taught because “it was the truth.” The Lord had his place. David was kept awake by the fact that God did not have a place or a temple in Israel/Zion, but I wonder if we can think bigger than that for a moment. There are places on this planet where God is homeless; where he has no place to make himself known; where he is unknown or at least a stranger. And he longs to make himself known to those who do not know him. What do you think about that? Does that concern you enough to stay awake a few extra minutes tonight and pray for those where there is no place for the Lord. On a personal level maybe we need to begin by asking ourselves, “Where is God’s place in my life?’ Is he an alien, a stranger, a visitor or a resident? The answer to those questions is worth losing a little sleep over.

Just a thought. Game is on.

Blessings

doug