Relationships

The Hospitable Home

If you were to visit my house in any given week, you are likely to find that at some point during your stay there are other people who are joining us for dinner. Sometimes these are planned events and other times they are impromptu get-togethers, but it is not uncommon for our dinner table to be surrounded by people who don’t live there. When they hear about our frequent guests, many people are tempted to believe that I have a natural bent to hospitality or I have mastered creating a Pinterest-perfect presentation.  However, neither are true. Left to my own devices, I view my house as a place to hibernate. Except for outside influences, it probably wouldn’t occur to me to invite people over to share a meal.

However, by God’s graciousness I have had several things in my life that I have altered my more insular lifestyle and have demonstrated to me the benefits of cultivating a hospitable spirit. First and foremost, as much as I am not given to doling out invitations, my husband is. And because he is intentional about welcoming people into our home, it has created in me a desire to do the same. Secondly, as a result of growing in hospitality I have seen the benefits that can come from the practice. Along the way, I have learned some useful lessons about how to do this better and how to be hospitable without feeling overwhelmed. These practical tools have further increased my proclivity towards inviting others to join us in sharing a meal.

But before we get to the practical tips, it is important to recognize that the first step to create a more hospitable home starts in the heart. We have to understand the “why” of hospitality before we understand the “what.” If we do so, we are more likely to more gracefully bear the challenges of welcoming others into the place we reside.

Here are five things to keep in mind that may help you develop a hospitable spirit:

You Don’t Know Who You Are Having Over

The Bible teaches us that when we welcome others into our home, we may entertain “angels unaware.” While I can say with a certain degree of confidence that I have never hosted heavenly beings, I have discovered that when people are in your home, you learn things about them that you may not otherwise have known. It may seem like you know the people that you talk to on the patio after church, but when you sit around a dinner table or play a competitive board game together, you’ll learn things about their nature, their history, and their walk with God that will help you serve and love them more deeply. I don’t know why going over to someone’s houses affords greater intimacy than eating food at a restaurant, but it does. If you want to build genuine relationships with people (and if you are a Christian, than you should), invite them to break bread with you in your home.

You Can Build Bridges

As I mentioned earlier, my husband has a natural disposition towards hospitality. However, his giftedness in this area can be seen even before people enter our home because at any given event, he is working to help people feel welcomed. If he sees a new person at our church, he will introduce himself, find out something about the other person, and then walk them over to someone else who shares that characteristic in common. I have seen him do this time and time again, and when it comes to have people into our home, this desire to help build relational bridges extends even further. Twice, when new pastors have assumed leadership of the ministry in which we serve, we have had the new pastor and several other leaders in the ministry over to our home. He reasons that since we have served in the ministry for a while, we likely know more people than the pastor does. As it is the pastor’s job to lead the leaders, he can help make their job easier by affording them the opportunity to get to know several of them at once. He uses hospitality so that not only we can get to know people better, but so that he can help others feel more connected and united in service to God.

It is not only within the Church body that we have seen the bridge-building effect that comes from hosting other people. When we have had unbelievers over for dinner, we find that they are much more willing to later accept our invitation to church. This isn’t a ploy – we would gladly share a meal with them even if they didn’t accept our invitation – but we recognize that we can use the means of this world for eternal gain. If God uses a meal at our house to ultimately draw someone to Himself, than that is an incalculable blessing.

You Can Provide Respite and Healing

It is probably unsurprising to learn that the word “hospitality” shares the same root word as the one for “hospital.”  Just like a hospital is a place where healing and respite occurs, so we can bring solace and comfort by welcoming others into our home. We may not even know that we are doing so. But in a word full of turmoil and pain, people often need a place to go to for consolation. Allowing people to share a meal with us, to be in the place where we are the most comfortable, can bring this sweetness to their soul. The impact of this generosity of spirit may not be immediately realized, but we can trust that the more we are willing to host other people, the more likely that as we do so we are going to help bear one another’s burdens and ease one another’s pain.

I learned about this benefit of hospitality by proxy. Throughout his high school years, there were several families who would, without hesitation, invite my husband to spend considerable time at their house. He had dinner with them, he got to know their families, and they helped provide him roots that he otherwise would have lacked. To this day, my husband drops Christmas presents off at their houses because their generosity in his life had such a lasting impact. I doubt that any of them realized the difference they were making in the life of a young teenager, but he is innately aware. He treasures those memories and is ever grateful for their willingness to open their doors, and their hearts, to a kid that needed it.

You Can Help Your Family Consider Others More Important Than Themselves

As parent, I would be remiss if I didn’t write about one of the greatest benefits of hospitality – namely that it compels your children to realize that they are not the center of your universe. When you invite other people, including other children, into your home, your children will quickly be faced with the reality that they can’t always play with the toy that they want, or be in charge of the game that will be played. Toys will be broken. Differences of opinion will occur. And this is not only o.k., but this is good for your kids. They need to recognize that even at home, their job is to think of others as more important than themselves. Having a hospitable home should teach your kids to share more, to love others better, and to be generous with their time, their toys, and their attention. Don’t miss out on these lessons by not including your children in the process of opening up your home. They should know why you have people over, and hopefully, despite the sacrifices required on their part, grow to love it.

There’s No Perfect Time

Lastly, for those of you who are thinking, “I would love to be more hospitable, but…..” – let me help you out. There is no perfect time to have others into your home. You are never going to have things exactly how you want them, or be able to make all the dishes that you envision, or create just the right atmosphere. If you wait until things are perfect, you will always be waiting. The reality is that many of the things that you wish you could get “just right” won’t be noticed by your guests anyway. And even if you could get all those things together, having a picture-perfect experience is a performance and a facade, not a relationship-building endeavor – and it forgoes many of the benefits of hospitality that we just enumerated. Please – do not wait on this. The longer you wait, the less likely that it will ever happen. In future post(s), I will share some practical tips for how you can prepare so that you are ready to welcome people over. But don’t wait. Seize the opportunities. Because if you don’t, you are letting chances to show Christ’s love and to serve other people, pass you by.

Blessings Abound

It would paint a false picture for someone to read this and to think that hospitality now comes easily to me. It still requires that I am purposeful and intentional precisely because it doesn’t come naturally. But the more I have engaged in the practice of hospitality, the more I have seen it’s blessings. And because of that, I am more eager to continue opening up the doors of my home.

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Growth

Grieving With Grace

As I previously wrote about, recently one of my dear friends was welcomed into Heaven much sooner than any of us expected. I miss my friend immensely, and while I am not unaccustomed to grief, because his wife is also one of my closest friends, this particular experience is doubly piercing; I grieve my friend’s departure, and I weep over the great loss that his wife endures. And yet, even as I mourn with her, I am comforted by the fact that her faith has not been shaken. She recognizes that God was not surprised when her husband entered into eternity, and while we were not expecting this turn of events, God is good; God has a plan; and it is our continued job to follow Him. In the midst of her pain, she is not clinging to how she thought her life would be, but is holding fast to the One who will give her everything that she needs. In the throes of grief, she is gripping on to grace. And as she does so, she has taught me a lot about what it means to mourn in a way that honors God. When it comes our turn to contend with suffering and pain, here are four things we should seek to do to ensure that amidst our heartache, we glorify our King:

Look To Jesus

From the day her husband went home to be with Jesus, my friend has fixed her eyes on their Savior. While she recognizes that the road ahead will be filled with challenges and difficulties, she has confidence that God will see her through them. In the moments of sorrow, she has leaned on Him. In the moments of need, she has rested in Who He is. When the path seems uncertain, she has relied on His wisdom to get her through it. It is no surprise that one of her favorite hymns is “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus” because that is what she has consistently done. And this is what we should do. Whether in times of grief, or in times of goodness, our hearts and our minds should be fixated on our Savior and King. We need to look to Jesus to be all that we need, because, whether we have great need or great abundance, it is only in Him that we have everything.  We need to train ourselves to look to Jesus in the day-to-day so when the moments of trial come, it is our automatic response to turn our eyes upon Him.

Give Others Grace

Everyone I know who has experienced sudden loss can tell stories of the silly and seemingly thoughtless things that others have said and done. With good intentions, people will make comments that in the moment seem extremely insensitive. Time and time again, my friend has extended grace to others when they say or do things that make me cringe. She recognizes that they mean well, and that few people know how to artfully navigate this road. She knows that they do not intend to cause her further pain and she chooses to extend them forgiveness and love, even if they don’t realize that they need it.

Of course this is a lesson that goes beyond seasons of grief. We would all probably do well to extend others more grace – to view their actions with the best of intentions rather than with the worse. This is what we would want others to do for us. And choosing to overlook an offense, is one way that we can bring God glory even amidst our pain.

Point to Jesus

On the evening that her husband went Home to be with Jesus, my friend and I sat around her kitchen table chatting. As we did, she quickly recognized one of the ways that she had experienced God’s mercy that very day. As she walks the path of grief with her kids, she repeatedly directs their thoughts and their minds to Christ. Not only is she looking to Jesus, but through her words and her actions she is encouraging others to do the same. She is deflecting the focus off of her and onto the One who is her comfort and her strength.

While it may seem like it takes a “super-Christian” to do this, I have observed that pointing people to Christ is simply a matter of recognizing how He is providing and clearly articulating the goodness that we have experienced from His hands.  People pay attention to us when we are in pain and the last thing that a lost world expects us to do is to give Christ glory in the midst of our suffering. When we do so, when we purposefully catalog His daily mercies, we can prayerfully hope that this will encourage others to see His goodness in their own lives as well.

Lean on the Body of Christ

Sometimes when we are going through pain, we are tempted to become insular as we wrestle with our grief. However, if we are part of the body of Christ, this is the time that we should be leaning on our brothers and sisters in Christ. One of the reasons God called us to be a part of local body of believers is because He knew that we would need them to be His hands and feet in our moments of need. It can be humbling to lean on others, but this is the role of the body of Christ.

One of the things that I admire most about my friend is that she was quick to accept offers of help. Although normally she is  quite capable of doing all that needs to be done, she realized that not only did she need others’ love and support, but by accepting it, she was helping them as they grieve her husband’s passing. In other words, she was being a blessing to others by allowing them to bless her. This may seem counter-intuitive but I had a front row seat to watching it occur. While we may be prone to do things on our own and refuse offers of assistance, we would be wise to remember that this is not how God has called our brothers and sisters to respond to our needs. We should let our family in Christ help us because in doing so, they are being obedient to God’s command to serve others in love.  And when we are willing to accept the help of others, they are more likely to accept our help when they are in seasons of challenge and pain.

 

Graceful Strength

As my friend mourns her husband’s passing, many people have commented on her strength. She would be the first to tell you that the strength she exhibits is not her own. Instead, she is firmly reliant upon the goodness and the provision of Jesus Christ. And on any given day, if you ask her how she is doing, she will likely tell you that she is doing good – not because she doesn’t miss her husband, but because she knows the One who is the Giver of all good things and she trusts that she is still firmly in His grasp. She experienced God’s kindness when He redeemed her, and amidst this great pain, His kindness remains. And because she not only recognizes this, but is grateful for it, she is putting God’s grace on display even as she grieves.

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