Hospitality

As a former restaurant manager, I am very familiar with hospitality. As a born and raised southerner, I grew up living hospitality. As a born-again Christian, I am re-learning the meaning of hospitality ... as God would have us share it. (written 22 July 07)

Are you familiar with the cynical definition of hospitality? If you've not heard it before, I would almost be willing to bet that you've at least felt it ... you know what I mean ... in that context, hospitality is defined as "making people feel like they are at home, especially when you wish they were." What if hospitality as God would have us share were ingrained in us instead?

1 Peter 4:9-10 tells us "Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms." Note that nowhere does it say that we have to entertain elaborately, nor above our means. It does not say that we have to be or do something that we are not! It states whatever gift he has received. What is your skill? Your talent? How can you best use that to serve others in a way that would administer God's grace?

It does not even state that you have to entertain in your home. Administer God's grace, it does not say where. It may mean sharing your next burger from McDonald's ... or the next cookout in the backyard. Give from your heart .... in everything. That, to me, is the true meaning of hospitality.

"Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it." ~Hebrews 13:2 NIV