Open Heart, Open Home

Recently, God has been instructing me to become more hospitable. It started with our visit to the wonderful Middle East. I was amazed, absolutely amazed, at how open and hospitable the people are. It is very much a part of their culture. If you read my posts about the Trip of a Lifetime, you'll remember that we were all (a rather large group of about fourteen at the time) invited to a local's house after randomly meeting him at the hot springs. The young man did not invite us over to his home to show off, but rather to get to know us better, to learn more about our culture and to show us more of his. As I look back on the event, I determined that the most beautiful part about the afternoon was that entertaining was not the focus for them; it was simply to be generous and warm people to outsiders and strangers.

When we left the country, I thought to myself, "Wow. Those people are so open and welcoming. Why isn't our country more like that? What a shame." But I didn't do anything to change my attitude toward the concept of hospitality either. What a shame, indeed.

Then Isaac purchased this book, Open Heart, Open Home and put it on the shelf since we were both currently reading numerous books, as usual. Then Isaac (do you see a pattern of Isaac?) and I were driving back from Sikeston a few weeks ago. If you know anything about my husband, you know he loves to listen to sermons and audio books while driving. He really wanted to listen to a message from Sojourn (a church in Louisville) about hospitality, and I obliged. It was a great sermon; he discussed different cultures and their hospitality and what is expected and required of us as believers in terms of hospitality. But one sentence knocked me upside the head:

Hospitality is NOT entertaining. Entertaining is, "Come over and admire all of my beautiful things." Hospitality is, "Here, let me share with you."

So when we got back home, I decided to start reading. This book contained great insight, as well as quite a few convicting passages. It is definitely not a how-to on planning fancy dinners and parties to impress the neighbors with your culinary and decorating skills. Rather, Mains addresses the heart issues behind hospitality. At the end of each chapter are short activities which help the reader to think more deeply and critically about their current approach to hospitality, as well as what they would like their philosophy of hospitality to look like.

As I mentioned before, there was quite a few convicting statements within this short read, and I am considering what the Lord would have me do about some of them. I believe Isaac is planning on reading this book soon, and I look forward to discussing the content with him. We're actually about to start reading through a different book about hospitality together as well. I'll let you know how that one is as well.

For now, I encourage you to consider hospitality and what it means to you. Imagine if we were all just a little bit more hospitable- not just to our friends and family- but to those people who have no friends and family, to those who are hurting, to those who have no place to go, to those who feel they don't deserve anything better because of their past...what would our world look like then?