How to practice hospitality
Dear Sisters,
"Share with God's people who are in need. Practice hospitality." Romans 12:13
Last week I wrote about practicing hospitality with children. Such a delight as they are so very forgiving and so very flexible. Today I would like to write about practicing hospitality with adults. I remember when I was first married how difficult it was for me to "practice hospitality." I was not a very good cook and felt terribly inept at putting on a meal and making someone comfortable in my home. Did that stop the LORD from bringing guests ( and many overnight guests) to my home? No. For the Bible says to "practice hospitality." So the LORD provided plenty of opportunities for practice! And many times when you begin to practice something, you are not very good at it. That was the exact description of me as a new wife seventeen years ago.
I remember it well. We were living in Germany as my husband was a private in the army as an MP. I was a teller in an international bank on base. We had no children yet as we had only been married a few months. The LORD sent us two overnight guests to our one room apartment. I tried so hard to make beef stroganoff. It was a culinary disaster. The noodles stood in a stiff clump on the plate while the salty stroganoff ran around the edges. Our bed was two of the seats around our card table so that you sank too low to eat comfortably at the higher table. The guests on the other side were in lawn chairs too far away from the table. Our poor guests couldn't finish their meal, but one of them smelled the brownies baking in the oven and said enthusiastically that he would "save room" for dessert. Well, the German oven was something I was not quite adept at operating. So the brownies were overdone on the edges and not done in the middle. The poor fellow said he'd eat the edges. (I think he was still so very hungry.) I was learning to "practice hospitality" and it was quite painful.
My idea of cooking a steak was to buy the biggest and cheapest steak I could find and sear it fast on both sides creating a kind of "steak bowl" as the edges always curled up on me. Then I would pour a cup of water into the pan with a beef boullion cube to cook the steak the rest of way in a little "gravy." Needless to say it was like sawing through a piece of rubber when my husband sat down to eat it. These two dishes were my total knowledge in cooking. The first meal my husband ate that I cooked in Germany he promptly threw up in the tub. So I was definitely starting out at ground zero.
But oh how I wanted to be hospitable. So the LORD kept sending people, and I kept practicing. I found children (as I wrote earlier) to be delightful to practice with. Slowly, slowly I began to learn more and more about making people comfortable in my home. I am still learning. How I ask the LORD to never stop teaching me.
Presently we have a long term guest. He will be with us four nights a week until July. His family is having a tough time financially, so he must work far away from them and stay with us. They have six wonderful children. His wife called me last night and told me how much his stay with us (it has been two weeks so far) has changed his countenance. He is hopeful once again. He is more at peace and more relaxed. They talk more as a couple, and he hugs and kisses his children more. She said that she believes this is from his stay with us. What a blessing. For that is the essence of hospitality. It is from the root word "hospice." It is welcoming someone into your home, taking care of them as best you can, making them as comfortable as best you can, and then seeing them go off with a lift in their step and a smile in their heart. You are "God's Hospital" to them.
Hospitality takes laying down your life that another might live. It is not always easy. But the more you practice it with the help of the LORD Who ordained that it be done in the Body, the more you realize just what strength it produces for the one being "hospitalitized" and for the one practicing it.
Now my cooking is a lot better. Our guest loves tea time and the treats that go along with it. He enjoys our leisurely evening meals with lots of delicious food. He is up early to enjoy our "coffee chats." For the LORD has been "practicing" with me for seventeen years, and I am so grateful that He continues to teach me. May I never stop learning and may I never stop practicing that others might live. Because hospitality encompasses a whole lot more than I could ever realize. It touches more lives than I could ever believe. It is God's essence of love among His Children. An essence that only gets sweeter and sweeter the more that you practice it.
I have learned that hospitality, as God intended it, really begins in the mind. It is a relinquishing of oneself to His Leading in His Timing with what He has given you; then loving Him and being loved by Him through the whole process. Even when you seemingly have nothing to offer anyone.
I read once where an elderly Christian woman in a communist country had a surprise visit from a young missionary passing through. Her home was very barren. She was shabbily dressed. All she had to offer the missionary was a teaspoon of some jam left in a small jar she had made that past summer. The missionary felt so sorry for her. He tried to tell her that he was not hungry, but she gently pressed the small spoonful of jam into his hand. His countenance soon changed as he watched the old woman's face light up in love while he gingerly tasted the delicious jam from the tiny spoon bit by bit until it was all gone. He left that home with a lift in his step and a song in his heart.
Hospitality. Incredible isn't it?
Love,
Laine
"Share with God's people who are in need. Practice hospitality." Romans 12:13
Last week I wrote about practicing hospitality with children. Such a delight as they are so very forgiving and so very flexible. Today I would like to write about practicing hospitality with adults. I remember when I was first married how difficult it was for me to "practice hospitality." I was not a very good cook and felt terribly inept at putting on a meal and making someone comfortable in my home. Did that stop the LORD from bringing guests ( and many overnight guests) to my home? No. For the Bible says to "practice hospitality." So the LORD provided plenty of opportunities for practice! And many times when you begin to practice something, you are not very good at it. That was the exact description of me as a new wife seventeen years ago.
I remember it well. We were living in Germany as my husband was a private in the army as an MP. I was a teller in an international bank on base. We had no children yet as we had only been married a few months. The LORD sent us two overnight guests to our one room apartment. I tried so hard to make beef stroganoff. It was a culinary disaster. The noodles stood in a stiff clump on the plate while the salty stroganoff ran around the edges. Our bed was two of the seats around our card table so that you sank too low to eat comfortably at the higher table. The guests on the other side were in lawn chairs too far away from the table. Our poor guests couldn't finish their meal, but one of them smelled the brownies baking in the oven and said enthusiastically that he would "save room" for dessert. Well, the German oven was something I was not quite adept at operating. So the brownies were overdone on the edges and not done in the middle. The poor fellow said he'd eat the edges. (I think he was still so very hungry.) I was learning to "practice hospitality" and it was quite painful.
My idea of cooking a steak was to buy the biggest and cheapest steak I could find and sear it fast on both sides creating a kind of "steak bowl" as the edges always curled up on me. Then I would pour a cup of water into the pan with a beef boullion cube to cook the steak the rest of way in a little "gravy." Needless to say it was like sawing through a piece of rubber when my husband sat down to eat it. These two dishes were my total knowledge in cooking. The first meal my husband ate that I cooked in Germany he promptly threw up in the tub. So I was definitely starting out at ground zero.
But oh how I wanted to be hospitable. So the LORD kept sending people, and I kept practicing. I found children (as I wrote earlier) to be delightful to practice with. Slowly, slowly I began to learn more and more about making people comfortable in my home. I am still learning. How I ask the LORD to never stop teaching me.
Presently we have a long term guest. He will be with us four nights a week until July. His family is having a tough time financially, so he must work far away from them and stay with us. They have six wonderful children. His wife called me last night and told me how much his stay with us (it has been two weeks so far) has changed his countenance. He is hopeful once again. He is more at peace and more relaxed. They talk more as a couple, and he hugs and kisses his children more. She said that she believes this is from his stay with us. What a blessing. For that is the essence of hospitality. It is from the root word "hospice." It is welcoming someone into your home, taking care of them as best you can, making them as comfortable as best you can, and then seeing them go off with a lift in their step and a smile in their heart. You are "God's Hospital" to them.
Hospitality takes laying down your life that another might live. It is not always easy. But the more you practice it with the help of the LORD Who ordained that it be done in the Body, the more you realize just what strength it produces for the one being "hospitalitized" and for the one practicing it.
Now my cooking is a lot better. Our guest loves tea time and the treats that go along with it. He enjoys our leisurely evening meals with lots of delicious food. He is up early to enjoy our "coffee chats." For the LORD has been "practicing" with me for seventeen years, and I am so grateful that He continues to teach me. May I never stop learning and may I never stop practicing that others might live. Because hospitality encompasses a whole lot more than I could ever realize. It touches more lives than I could ever believe. It is God's essence of love among His Children. An essence that only gets sweeter and sweeter the more that you practice it.
I have learned that hospitality, as God intended it, really begins in the mind. It is a relinquishing of oneself to His Leading in His Timing with what He has given you; then loving Him and being loved by Him through the whole process. Even when you seemingly have nothing to offer anyone.
I read once where an elderly Christian woman in a communist country had a surprise visit from a young missionary passing through. Her home was very barren. She was shabbily dressed. All she had to offer the missionary was a teaspoon of some jam left in a small jar she had made that past summer. The missionary felt so sorry for her. He tried to tell her that he was not hungry, but she gently pressed the small spoonful of jam into his hand. His countenance soon changed as he watched the old woman's face light up in love while he gingerly tasted the delicious jam from the tiny spoon bit by bit until it was all gone. He left that home with a lift in his step and a song in his heart.
Hospitality. Incredible isn't it?
Love,
Laine
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