Hospitality: The Cure for a Messy House

Slaughter Penn Farm VA

Nothing gets your house cleaner than expecting company.  It may be painful to admit, but it is totally true.  You can let many things slide when it is just your family who has to see the mess, but invite someone outside of the inner circle and it is on!  Laundry and piles of sports gear is flying.  Dishes are hastily loaded into the dishwasher and things are thrown down the basements steps to be dealt with later.  Panic sets in as you only have 30 more minutes before they arrive.  Maybe the house is in such a disarray that an hour out insights an attack of anxiety.

Imagine though a house that is perpetually ready for guests.  I am not talking about a house that is ready for a magazine spread, rather a home that for the most part is warm, inviting and relatively suitable for company.  Imagine with me the freedom of being able to call a friend and invite them over for coffee without the fear of your house.  Imagine a knock on the door that finds you confident to swing the door open wide.

Dinner with friends.  Start teaching hospitality now.

Now please don't think I am Joan Clever or anything like that.  Bear in mind I do have children.  If you have been a visitor to the blog before then you know I have four boys, little dirt loving, outside playing, toy weapons and cars everywhere, boys.  I could pile my laundry to the ceiling and my sink is always full of dishes.  The kitchen floor is a dirt magnet with a propensity to stay that way despite my best efforts.

With all of that said it is not impossible to maintain a somewhat clean and orderly home.  My secret weapon in this battle is HOSPITALITY.  There seems to always be company coming for one reason or another.  So for that reason and with that in mind we try and keep on top of it.  And when we've lapsed thankfully there is sure to be another round of company coming to hold us accountable.

   Hospitality is an action of love shown to those we love and those we do not love.  It is contagious and warms the hearts of those it touches. -Derek Hill

In Galatians chapter 5 it says, "For you were called to be free, brothers; only don't use this freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but serve one another through love."  Indeed we are free to make a lot of choices.  How will I spend my day?  Who will be apart of that day?  Whom will be honored and glorified in it?  We can either be the center of that or maybe even our own families OR as shown in Proverbs 31:20 we can, "reach out to the poor, and extend hands to the needy'' and "be hospitable to one another with out complaining." (1Peter 4:9) 

The guy who taught me how to love, write and entertain be hospitable.

Very often we feel uncomfortable having people over.  Either our busy schedules, are unkempt homes, lack of confidence in the kitchen or whatever probably very personal reason you have, these things prevent us from offering the kind of genuine closeness people need.  Not everyone needs a huge party thrown in their honor, but maybe a family in your neighborhood could really use a warm meal and a friendly faces to share it with.  Maybe the single mom in your church could use a break and some free babysitting.  Maybe you have room in your home for a foster child who needs a safe and nurturing place to heal.  Maybe instead of keeping an eye on the kids from the kitchen window you stand in your drive way to watch them play and notice a neighbor struggling to get a project done in his yard.  Now with eyes open wide you see an opportunity to help, encourage, support and care for or meet a need.  And maybe just maybe along the way you will see that it becomes a habit and a pattern of life that leads to way more than a clean house, that just happens to be a nice little by-product.

With love,