While hospitality can seem such a gift to guests, I believe it’s actually just as great a gift to you. Opening your home means a lot of work. It may mean keeping a cleaner home than you’d prefer. Certainly your food budget has to grow. White couches may not stay white. And your time for browsing Netflix gets severely cut down. But let’s think about what hospitality does for the person practicing the gift of hospitality!
Five Ways Showing Hospitality Helps You
1. Your focus gets changed from yourself to others, which makes you a happier person.
As a teenager, I struggled a lot with depression. God rescued me from that depression over ten years ago now, and I learned that much of my depression stemmed from looking inward. Life was all about me, and I wasn’t the perfect person I wanted to be. My mom called it “navel-gazing,” and, while I wouldn’t recommend that term for counseling purposes, she definitely got my attention with it. When your focus changes from yourself to God and His work in people’s lives, you find joy and meaning in life.
2. You learn to use your time more wisely.
When people frequently come to your home, you may find that you actually get more done! Because we often have guests, I have the needed motivation to put down my book (I know, I’m a nerd) and clean the guest bathroom. Yes, I have a needy toddler–but he loves to help as I get ready for guests. (For example, he helps me carry used pillowcases from the guest bed to the washing machine so we always have fresh sheets on the bed.) Meal planning matters when we need to make sure there’s enough chicken thawing to feed everyone. I still often have last-minute flurries and worries–God’s working on that! But I do find that frequent hospitality means more gets done, not less.
3. Your family grows!
No, I’m not talking about reproducing. Recently, we’ve had several opportunities to host people we had only met once. (In one case, my husband had never met the people before they showed up at our house.) And what a gift to us it was to spend time with people who have very different lives from our own and yet such beautiful things to share with us.
Rosaria Butterfield has some great things to say about true hospitality being a gift meant for strangers. (Here’s a link to an interview with her on the topic.) I agree wholeheartedly with her statement that, “Hospitality is about meeting the stranger and welcoming that stranger to become a neighbor—and then knowing that neighbor well enough that, if by God’s power he allows for this, that neighbor becomes part of the family of God through repentance and belief. It has absolutely nothing to do with entertainment.”
4. Loneliness gets replaced by love.
Too often, people in First World countries live very separate lives. We don’t want to bother each other with our problems; we feel a strange need to have show homes before we “entertain” people. Honestly, we often prefer to watch reality TV rather than having an inside view on our own neighbor’s lives. Why has this happened? Why are we playing video games with strangers whose voices we’ve only heard via headphones instead of playing board games with the elderly couple next door? Let’s refuse to stay lonely ourselves or let people be lonely right next to us. (I’m speaking to myself as much as anyone; I’m so often easily discouraged when neighbors turn down invitations or friends don’t like the food I cook. These are small issues that should be covered by love!)
5. God sees.
Hebrews 13:2 says, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” (ESV)
Jesus said, “And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.” (Matthew 10:42, ESV)
How precious it will be to hear the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” at the end of your time on earth. Use your years, your months, your hours wisely. May they be spent in service and love. On your deathbed, you won’t regret never having seen that blockbuster movie on the big screen. You will regret having been too afraid to open your doors wide to the lonely, the lost, and the loving. Show hospitality and enjoy the great gift it is both to you and your guests!