My bride and I took an anniversary journey last summer to Washington State. We stayed at a boutique hotel located on Bellingham Bay. We drove each day to Mount Baker where snow was piled higher than our heads on the road leading over the top of the mountain. It was a great time of hiking and sightseeing.

I booked a hotel for us in Seattle for the evening before we flew home to Texas. The hotel is a grand old building that has stood there for many years. It was renovated by the Hilton chain as a one-of-a-kind experience. Its restaurant and bar are highly regarded by visitors to the city and local business leaders alike.

After touring Seattle’s Pike Place Market, including the first Starbucks location, we decided to check into our hotel and rest up a bit before we enjoyed a nice seafood dinner. 

Trash was everywhere in the streets around the hotel. The only humans visible for blocks were homeless people. A tent city stood within a hundred yards of our hotel entrance. Every business was closed. 

I climbed the steps to the hotel entrance only to discover there was no doorknob or handle or anything to grip, push, or pull. The hotel was closed. From the looks of things, it had been closed a long time. We had wandered into the part of town that was so frequently on the news during the worst of the troubles earlier in the year.

We paid for that special hotel experience with points. Now to find another hotel was going to cost real money and more than average. We decided we would see if we could change our flight from the next morning to that night. As it turns out, there were two seats on the last flight to DFW. The change fee was about what we would pay for a decent hotel at the airport. 

Our bed felt so good that night. 

Tomorrow we are taking a morning flight to Houston to see our grandson play drums in the praise band at a Christmas Eve service. The good thing is that we do not have to carry luggage since we are driving back home with our grandson and his parents after the worship service. 

It will be a busy day at the airport and at BUC-EES on the way home. Even so, we will get to sleep in our own beds. There is something about our own beds, even when the mattress could use replacing, that enables us to rest better. 

Mary, Joseph, and Jesus spent their first night together, and probably a few more, in circumstances much less accommodating than their beds back home. This would not be the last time their journeys would take them away from comfort and rest. Inconvenience and danger shadowed their every step. Hearing and obeying God can be like that, can’t it?

Sometimes a manger and a tightly-wrapped newborn are as good as it gets. 

Sometimes having a carpenter and stonemason as a husband and surrogate dad comes in handy.

Sometimes simple starts lead to universal change. 

I wonder what inconveniences lie ahead? I wonder how our Father in heaven will use them to provide growth, development, and service in his name? I wonder what he wants to do through those challenges?

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