Put Family First?
In the book Practicing Hospitality, three reasons are given for putting the needs of your own family before the needs of others. “We are called to establish the ministry of hospitality within our family” and then “broaden our hospitality to include extended family members, friends, strangers, the needy, and the poor.” Here are the three reasons why this is encouraged:
1. For the sake of integrity. “Neglecting to extend hospitality to our family can result in violating our God-given priorities-loving our husbands and children. Scripture calls us to have a devoted affection for them. If we do not love our family as God has instructed, we can bring dishonor to God’s Word (Titus 2:3-5)”
2. For the sake of our children. “Neglecting to include our children in hospitality opportunities might create resentment in them. If our children feel unloved, abandoned, or ignored while we diligently extend hospitality to friends and strangers, we have opened the door for developing bitterness and animosity toward hospitality in the hearts of our children. This is the opposite of what we desire to model for them when we practice hospitality.”
3. For the sake of the gospel. “Neglecting to extend hospitality to our family can discredit our witness. The testimony of a wife and mom who loves and serves her family is a powerful witness to a watching world; it is also something that separates a believing woman from the world. The manner in which we serve and love our family should reflect the transforming power of the gospel in our own life (2 Corinthians 5:17-21)”
Reader Feedback:
It is easy to get busy doing “good deeds” and suddenly realize that you have been neglecting your family. I would like for our reader feedback question this week to center around this idea. Please share your thoughts, suggestions, or personal experience in the comments. I will be sharing some of the most helpful comments in Thursday’s post! Consider these questions:
How do you practically make sure that you are not neglecting your family when you seek to show hospitality to others?
How do you show hospitality to your husband and children in an effort to love them as the Bible commands you to?
Do you ever find that you struggle with the opposite problem of focusing too much on your own family to the neglect of the outside world? If so, how are you working to overcome this challenge?
I look forward to interacting with your comments!
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I dont struggle to serve my family, but I do struggle with how to balance serving in the home and serving, and fellowshipping with anyone outside the home. When I do, I feel like the whole balance at home gets well, imbalanced, to say the least. But God wants us to be serving outside the home too. How do you find balance?
I am hoping you get some good responses to this, because I definitely struggle with the same thing. However, I feel that when I plan and prioritize well, things run smoother. It is when I get over my head and am running behind that things seem to get out of control.
Also, I find that when I offer hospitality within the realm of my homemaking, rather than doing things outside the home it makes for a happier experience. For instance, inviting ladies over for coffee, lunch, or families over for dinner. This seems to only add to the normal daily load work, rather than out of the ordinary (sometimes stressful) work. Baked goods that you produce in your kitchen to send out into the world one day a week is also a simple way to balance your home life and extending hospitality. Perhaps by doubling a baking recipe you were already going to make and taking it to the neighbors or to your husband’s work, etc… (Just some thoughts… things I am tossing around in my mind).
Marybeth,
I also get that “imbalanced” feeling when trying to prepare for guests, and the children are antsy, too! At a certain point in my homemaking journey I felt that the Lord was telling me to give up any notion of having everything “perfect” in my home and just relax and let the guests come. Also if the guests ask “what can I bring?”, you can ask them to bring the side dishes and you can concentrate on the main meal. Or if it’s too much at the time to have them to your house, you could invite some friends to an outside spot, like a park for a picnic or an outing at the bowling alley, etc. That could count as hospitality, too, and help take some of the stress off!
What I find most often among people I’ve known is that they use the idea of serving their own family as an excuse not to entertain others. If we are careful to always show hospitality and love to our own family day in and day out, then they should be able to occasionally extend themselves to others as an act of grace. I find that opening our home is also a training lesson for my children to teach them to serve others and not to be selfish. My children are quite accustomed now to having people over, and I would like to say that they rather enjoy it. Every fellowship doesn’t always go perfectly, and sometimes the house is a wreck afterwards, but it is humble gift to allow others enter our homes and allow them to see us in our “natural habitat.”
Wonderful thoughts Andrea! Thank you for sharing. I particularly like the way you encourage filling up your own family so that they can spill out hospitality on others.
My tendency when I am having dinner guests is to become a stressed out maniac, running a thousand miles a minute to have every last dish done, every nook and cranny spotless, and a beautiful meal laid out just on time. I have found that the best way to serve my family is to just relax. Things don’t need to be perfect, and who cares if every guest thought it was but my husband is upset or frustrated because I snapped at him in my preparation frenzy? I would rather be kind and calm, so that my family is able to enjoy both me and our company. When preparing for guests I try to get a big head start so that I have plenty of time (eliminating stress as the countdown ensues), and the closer I get to the event I just remind myself to take deep breaths and watch my tongue. A happy family is to be treasured over a perfect house
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I love this Rachel. I completely understand what this is like. Thank you for sharing your practical experience and encouragement. I too find that starting as early as I can helps to alleviate such horrible stress (and sometimes destructive tongue).
In the ten years of being a pastor’s wife and raising five boys, I’ve given this topic much thought. I really appreciate the thoughts you’ve written here, Jessalyn. My boys grew up with company for dinner several times a week. I’m continually learning to find the balance between family time, and sharing my family with others time. Either way, we are showing hospitality as a family, kids included. If hospitality show others’ the Gospel in a tangible way, I desire to look first to the mission field within my own home first. Thanks for this post!
Thanks for sharing Ruth!
I’ll never forget when I was eleven years old and our family of six had just moved 600 miles so that my dad could attend seminary. We visited a large church our first Sunday morning in the new town, and my parents “happened” to be sitting next to a sweet couple in Sunday school who had seven children. After the church service they turned to my parents and invited our whole family over for lunch. They weren’t worried about the state of their house, an extravagant menu, or if they’d planned correctly. We stopped by a grocery store on the way home, and the mom ran in and picked up a few extra food items. I barely remember what we ate that day or how their house looked. I do remember that their home was filled with love, friendship, and acceptance – a God send to our tired family nervous about change. We spent the entire afternoon at their home and later joined that very church. Huge amounts of spiritual growth happened in our family from attending that church, and our families are still still friends to this day. I’m grateful for this example of selfless hospitality!
That is such a sweet story Monica! Thank you for sharing. Isn’t is so true that we very rarely care about the state of the house or what we are eating when we are the ones invited over? It is when we are the ones issuing the invitation that we get all stressed out and over think things. How much better is it to just allow people into our lives and families without worrying about how they will judge us. Thanks for sharing!
I’ve learned to be content to be practicing hospitality at home with my family and choosing a couple smaller ways to serve others at church during this crazy season of lots of littles at home. I have four (soon to be five any hour now) children age six and under. I volunteer regularly in the nursery when I don’t have nurslings who would call me out of the room. Also, I sort clothes pretty regularly at our church’s clothes closet on Wed nights. I used to regularly make meals for new moms, but now I only choose to make them for moms who live closest to me since we moved farther from most church members. I offer to watch others’ children in our home for doctors’ appointments etc. We’re trying to teach our children to care for others by serving our neighbors. We asked our son to return our neighbor’s garbage can when he began cancer treatments last summer, and this week he told me he returned the garbage can for the neighbor on our other side too, just because he wanted to help them too. I’m hoping to have more opportunities later to offer hospitality to others in our home as our children grow older and are better able to help prepare the house for guests.
Great advice Laura! Thank you for sharing!