Admittedly, I’m no expert on hospitality.  But, even being the novice that I am, I’ve gleaned some insights over the years that may be helpful for some.

Plus, if hospitality is something you’ve neglected, the holiday season is a great time to dive in and make practicing hospitality a regular occurrence in every season.

And, if nothing else, they’re helpful for me to remind myself.  Sometimes I don’t do what I know I ought.  Motives become convoluted and priorities get misplaced.

So, here are some tips [note: I claim no originality.  I'm certain everything I'm about to write has been said before by people who follow through on them better than I do.]

1) Have people over to your house.  Novel, I know.  But, it’s where it all starts.  If you don’t have people in your home regularly, you may be the most organized, hospitable person in the world and it will all be for naught.

2) Have people over frequently and on short notice.  (I’m not too good at the short notice part).  But, I do force myself to say yes as often as I can to a “short notice” opportunity.  This is incredibly liberating.  It will teach you that you can enjoy someone’s company even when there are dishes in the sink and dust on the mantle.

3) Don’t turn hospitality into “entertaining.”  Entertaining is a code-word for showing-off.  Perfectly clean house, perfectly prepared food, perfectly arranged decor becomes primary.

And at the center of it all is you, the entertainer.  ”Look at all that I did and how wonderfully I did it.  Admire my home, my food, my effort,” is the heart of the entertainer, as opposed to the one offering hospitality, who humbly shares all they have out of love for others and God.

4) Don’t let your home be so messy or dirty that it’s a distraction.  This can be just as detrimental as the “entertainer” problem.  As much as people may say it doesn’t matter, having a reasonably-ordered home does matter.  It is uncomfortable to be in a pig sty.

5) Include your guests as part of your family.  Invite them to participate in everything.  If it’s your custom to sing and pray before dinner, fold them into that activity.

6) Let your guests give you a hand.  If your guests ask if they can help with something, let your usual answer be, “Yes!”  There are two reasons to do this: firstly, you probably could use the help, and, secondly, most people feel more comfortable when they’re useful.

7) Have saints and strangers over.  The Bible is explicit that it’s very important to show hospitality to saints (Romans 12:13, 1 Peter 4:9), meaning fellow Christians, and to strangers (Hebrews 13:2).  (Again, I’m bad at the stranger part.  We’ve lived at our home for 4 years and only had strangers over a handful of times).  This takes intentionality and effort.

8) Have large and intimate gatherings.  Have 30 people over, then have 1.

9) Treat all your guests the same when it comes to the work you put into it.  Don’t make everything extra nice for people with status that you admire or rich people and let things go for others.  Do not show favoritism.  Sometimes we do this without realizing it.

10) Be conversational!  Talk!  Share!  Share more than just your food and home, share your very self.  Offer your opinions and ask for other people’s.  Give people a peek at your history and ask about theirs.

11) Invite unlikely and likely people over: the person who is alone or lonely; the person who has a special diet (I need to work on this..); the big family who feels like they put people at an imposition; loud people and quiet people; the person who seems to abound with friends and busy-ness (sometimes these people get overlooked because of these facts); the person who is always having people over to their house (they would probably be blessed by the offer).

12) Don’t be “hospitable” for worldly gain.  If you’re having people over to sell them things or earn free gifts or garner status and connections with someone, it’s not hospitality.  It’s not necessarily wrong to do, it’s just not hospitality.

There are many benefits to being hospitable: meeting neat people, making friends, deepening existing friendships.  The list could go on.  But even these benefits should not be our primary reason for being hospitable.  We are hospitable because of duty (God commands it) and delight (his commands produce godliness and joy in us).  We are hospitable because we genuinely care about others.

Finally, I’ll give this piece of advice, which isn’t about being hospitable, but rather about learning to be a good receiver: accept invitations to other people’s homes when offered and allow them to practice hospitality with you.

I know I missed a million things that should be added to the list.  Anyone want to fill it out for me with a tip or two?

It’s not an easy topic for me.

But it is what I’m living with day after day.  And in my naivete I thought it would be easier.

Not that being pregnant now isn’t a blessing.  Not that it isn’t exciting and wonderful and anticipatory.  It is.  And I thank God for it.

But it’s also scarier.  Like the shine has come off of the penny.  And it’s more real– less myopic, if that makes any sense.

Strangely enough the easiest person to talk to about the new baby is my 5-year-old daughter Eliza.  Probably because every single time we talk about the new baby in mommy’s tummy, when we end, she always finishes up by saying, “if this one doesn’t die.”

All our plans and hopes and speculation may happen, “if this baby doesn’t die.”  She couldn’t be more right.  She acknowledges and actually speaks out loud what I am thinking most of the time and don’t have the guts to say.

Plus, by saying, “if this baby lives,” she is remembering the baby who didn’t live.  Not many people do that.  I’m sure it would be a hard thing to do, if you’re a friend.  But, I’ll speak for myself when I say, remembering matters.  It’s validating, albeit sad, to fill out a form at the doctor that lists this pregnancy as my 5th, even though, if/when this baby is born it will be my 4th child to bring home.  It’s validating, because, at least in some small clinical way, it’s remembering.

Remembering with words matters.  Speaking things out loud matters.

What a gift to me that Eliza gets it.  And what a gift that she isn’t taking this new one for granted.  She doesn’t pray for it to be a girl or a boy.  She just prays that he or she will live (although, without realizing it she’s started to refer to the baby as “her”).

I pray the same thing as Eliza.  And I spend a lot of time praying that God would make me treasure Him so much, that somehow, if I lost another, I would grab hold of Him in the darkness, and be willing to trust that He is good.  Again.

Tomorrow is my 16 week checkup.  This baby is more than twice as old as the last one lived to be.  What an impact those short weeks of life and subsequent death had on me.  They have made me more thankful and less entitled about the past 16 weeks of new life.

Romans 8:18

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed in us.”

I’ve now been blogging for over a year.

Wowser.  I started in mid-November last year and have blogged an average of three times per week.  That seems like a lot to me.  Of course, when I started I posted frequently– four or five times a week; now I’m doing well if I get two in.

I’ve enjoyed it and benefitted from it.  I’ve fought against the particular sins that blogging has made me prone to (or revealed in me) and come out better for it, although still always having to be on guard.

My goals have been twofold: primarily to refine and test my thoughts and opinions regularly according to godly, gospel standards.  And secondarily, to edify the body through that.  I think, by God’s grace, that has happened in some measure.

Still, I’m trying to decide where to go from here.  Do I keep blogging?  Do I take a break?  Do I quit altogether?  I think God could be glorified in any of those options.  So, I’m thinking about it, talking to Mr. TommyD, and leaning on the Holy Spirit to convict in the areas where conviction is needed and also feeling freedom in Him to make a decision.

So that’s that on a year of blogging.  And if I decide to take a break or quit, I won’t just drop off without notice.  I’ll give a heads up.  As of now, I’m going to keep writing as it’s beneficial for me.

Next up, healthcare reform.

My dad gave a talk about it a week ago and I thought I’d link to it because it was really good.  It looks at the history of medicine and provides a foundation for understanding the current debate according to godly, ethical standards.  It’s not short.  But brevity and understanding history rarely go hand in hand.  Sometimes it takes more than 22 words to get your point across.  I hope some of you will invest your time in reading it.

Paul says a lot of wonderful and nuanced things in Romans 7.

For instance, he says, “if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin.”  So the law is not sin-producing, but rather, sin-alerting.  And sin, being very sneaky and conniving, seizes “an opportunity through the commandment” to produce all kinds of sin in me.

Then the clarification, “Did that which is good, then, bring death to me?  By no means!  It was sin, producing death in me through what is good..” (7:13a)

I am in complete awe of that verse and how jam-packed it is with meaning that effects me everyday.

The law was good.  It is good.  It is holy and just and loving.  Yet, sin can take a good thing and turn it into an opportunity for sin to abound.  Not just for us to be sin-aware, but for sin to increase!  To be “sinful beyond measure.” (7:14b)

I can think of multiple ways this happens even with the good gifts God gives me on this side of the cross.  The law was given before the cross, and yes, sin seized the chance for sin to abound through the giving of the law.  But after Christ’s death and ressurection, it would seem to me that the gifts from God relating to His body and Christian life would be immune to such sin entanglement.  But I find it isn’t so.

Some of the best gifts given after Christ’s atoning sacrifice, like the fellowship of the body, spiritual gifts of discernment or teaching or service, and many more are all still vunerable to sin’s perversion.  Sin can take the good gift and produce death through what is good.

Now, for those of us in Christ, His righteousness covers us and ultimately death is not produced in us.  He also gives His Spirit to guide and help us in our weaknesses.  We have tools with which to fight the enticements of sin.  And I am so thankful for that.

Left to my sinful flesh, I begin to idolize the gift of fellowship over the Person without whom no fellowship could ever exist.  I start to value spiritual gifts over the subject of which the gifts should be about.  And what’s worse, an attitude of entitlement about the gifts creeps in.

So, I say with Paul, “Wretched [wo]man that I am!  Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (7:24)

And then Paul answers, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”  It’s Jesus who delivers us from this body of death.  And there is no condemnation for me.  I wage war on the sinful members of my body and in my inner being I rejoice in God’s loving commandments and His good gifts.  So God is God, good gifts are not.  But good gifts are free to be embraced as good when God is my Treasure and Sweet Reward.

Has sin ever taken a good thing in order to try and produce death through it in your life?

Isn’t it true?

I’m hard-pressed to think of a time when I’m not waiting for something.

Some things take a long time to wait for, other things are short waits.  And there are even things we wait for that never happen.  Sometimes we wait for things and we don’t know what they are.

We wait for vacation time, and we wait to come home.  We wait for the right person.  We wait for the big question and the wedding day.  We wait for pregnancy and we wait for the birth of a child.

We wait for a friend to call and we wait to call a friend.  We wait for the big game and for the snacks to be ready.  We wait for people to arrive and we wait for them to go home (hopefully not too often).

We wait for the flowers to bloom and we wait another day to cut the grass.  We wait for a better job or we wait for a raise or we wait to be fired.  We wait for payday.

We wait for Sunday to come around and we wait for the kids to get better.  We wait for test results and we wait for the evening when we can crash.  We wait for our kids to know Jesus as their Savior.

We wait for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  We wait for Good Friday and we especially wait for Easter Sunday.  We wait for the coming again of the Lord and we wait for the glory of God in heaven.

All this waiting got me thinking about the things we don’t have to wait for.  I don’t have to wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit.  He lives in me and counsels me.  I don’t have to wait for a Savior.  The Savior has come and salvation is mine through Jesus Christ.  I don’t have to wait for God to make Himself known.  He is known through His Word that I can read as often as I want.

I don’t have to wait to be comforted by the Comforter, or to be known by the all-knowing God.

The biggest matters of life, I do not have to wait for.  God has satisfied the waiting time with His Son and His Spirit.

Yet, on Earth, waiting for a million other things, some very important, remains.  And what an opportunity to trust God and to know that as we wait, we wait on Him.  I say with David:

“I waited patiently for the Lord;
he inclined to me and heard my cry.
2 He drew me up from the pit of destruction,
out of the miry bog,
and set my feet upon a rock,
making my steps secure.
3 He put a new song in my mouth,
a song of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear,
and put their trust in the Lord.”

What have you been waiting on lately?