Here is day #2 of Kif Anderson's "Staying Focused at Christmas" daily devotional.  I hope you are as blessed by this as I am every year I read it.   Again, feel free to comment and add your thoughts to the comments section below.

December 2nd
The Inconvenience of Christ

I believe it was comedian Gallagher who once joked, "And Christmas...it comes right in the middle of the holidays...so we don't have anytime to enjoy it." Have you ever felt that way? One can get so wrapped up in the activities this time of the year brings that they can struggle to find time for Jesus. But lets face it...we were not the first ones to be put upon by finding time for Jesus.

Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed wife, who was with child. So it was, that while
they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered.

"And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger,
because there was no room for them in the inn."  (Luke 2:4-7)

Have you ever noticed what an inconvenience Baby Jesus was? If it had been me, I can only imagine the questions that I would have been asking if I had been in Mary or Joseph's shoes. "Come on God, don’t we have enough to deal with? Why does this baby need to be born here in Bethlehem? Can’t you hold things off until we get back home to Nazareth? Or at the very least secure a motel room for us?"

Let's face it, our culture has done a great job of conditioning us to expect convenience. We’ve come to believe that it’s some sort of entitlement that each of us deserves. Everything is advertised as being more convenient, and therefore anything that poses an
"inconvenience to our lives" is by default negative. Enter Jesus. As the Christmas account shows, the Lord does not make life more convenient for us. In fact, as you read through the Bible you find that those who were closest to the Lord were those who were most
inconvenienced. Jesus is many things, but He isn’t always convenient.

We struggle with this because we want life to fit in with our own plans and expectations.  This is painfully evident during this time of year as we make our plans to celebrate and enjoy the Christmas season. We strive to make our agendas precise and airtight. But
God’s agenda will often conflict with ours, and at these moments we have to make a choice. We can either fume at the fact that we’ve been inconvenienced, or we can surrender our expectations to God and ask Him to fill us with His agenda for our lives.  When we choose God’s choice, we find the joy of obedience in the midst of being inconvenienced.