Hospitality

The dictionary defines hospitality like this: "The act of being kind and generous in manner toward guests, affording or expressing welcome and generosity toward guests. To be receptive in mind."

What is hospitality to you? The Bible says in Romans 12:13 to "Practice hospitality." Does that mean that you should clean your bathroom before your guest arrives and offer them a cup of coffee when they do arrive? Maybe. What if hospitality demands more, though? How far would you go to be a good host? Is your house really your friend's house?

I ask this because we have our hospitality stretched and redefined and challenged over and over. As a farm, people want to experience here what they cannot experience at their own home. They can experience a clean bathroom and a cup of coffee anywhere (well, almost anywhere), but can they explore and experiment everywhere? Not really. Is your home somewhere that they can?

Allow me to tell you a story:

One day, a friend who lives in the city asked me if that day would be a good one to bring his son to visit and play. I hesitated, knowing I was busy that day, but decided to allow them to come because life is short and my tasks would wait, and we never know what we are forgoing when we put tasks above the importance of people. So, they asked what they could do to have fun here, and I gave the standard response of bottle-feeding a baby goat, giving treats to the horses, etc. Then I mentioned that I had a goat to butcher, and my respective guest asked if he could help. Again, I hesitated, but decided to acquiesce further and offer that he could shoot it. He was delighted and immediately loaded his family into the car, along with his shotgun and drove to my house.
Upon arrival, I brought him to the barn and roped a basically wild goat for butchering. I dragged him, leaping and flailing, out of the barn and tied him to the trailer hitch so he couldn't be a running target. My guest loaded his gun and took aim. His wife stood next to me, half-shielding her face and sticking her fingers in her ears. *BAM*! The first shot was off-target and put a hole in the goat's jaw. My guest grimaced and his wife yelled,"The poor thing! Just kill it!" He reloaded his gun and quickly lined up another shot. *BAM*! Unfortunately, he just made the hole in the jaw larger and the goat was bawling with his tongue and chin hanging limply open. I pulled my guest over behind the goat and pointed with my finger precisely where he needed to shoot to kill the goat immediately. He rummaged in his pocket for another shotgun shell, but found he was out. He ran to the car to get another bullet while his wife and I simply watched the goat bleed and bawl. On his way back, my son stopped him and asked,"Do you like putting holes in goats?" As if he didn't feel bad enough! He loaded his shotgun one more time and successfully dispatched of the goat.
Here now, my work began. I had to string the goat up on the gambrel hook, pelt it, gut it, wash it, and process it into roasts and ground before it spoiled because the weather was warm. He was too traumatized by his failure to quickly dispatch of the goat to join in on the rest of the labor. His wife helped take the pelt off a little bit, but both of them needed to shake the experience from their minds a little, so they distanced themselves from the task. When my husband came home, he helped clean up the mess and finish processing the carcass.

How far would you go for hospitality?

"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." 1 Peter 4:10

To be blameless before the Lord, we must be willing to not withhold any good thing from those we claim we love. Are you willing to be stinky, dirty, tired, bloody, etc so that others may be glad they came to your home?

These particular guests are remembering their visit to my farm to this day. I hope they consider me a friend who prefers them above myself. My life is not my own, my home is not my own, my time is not my own. All I do must be to the glory of God....even if the picture of this resembles a goat with a detached jaw.