1/2/11

Hospitality Is Not My Gift, part 3

BUT I CAN’T INVITE PEOPLE TO MY HOUSE                 
1 Samuel 25

    Remember Abigail? “Intelligent and beautiful, but her husband [Nabal] was surly and mean in his dealings.”
    When David’s men came to him and asked for provisions, Nabal was insulting, stingy and just plain rude.
    “One of the servants told Abigail: “David sent messengers from the desert to give our master his greetings, but he hurled insults at them. Yet these men were good to us…the whole time we were out in the fields near them…they were a [protective] wall around us all the time we were herding our sheep.” Abigail lost no time. She took [food and drink] and loaded them on donkeys.” Then she went to meet David herself.
    There’s a lot more to the story than this, but the point is that sometimes you have to show hospitality away from your own home. There may be some circumstance in your family that doesn’t allow you to have others come in, but you can always reach out. It can be as easy as sharing a table with other shoppers at the Costco cafeteria or helping a little kid reach the drinking fountain.

    Even if you don’t end up being the king’s next wife, God will honor your efforts at hospitality and bless you greatly.

1 comment:

Wendy's Wanderland said...

Good point :) Hospitality is sharing, and serving within your "realm of influence", I had not thought about it in the kind ways you listed