When I was growing up, it was common for people to just drop in for a visit, especially on Sunday afternoons. I loved this as a child because you never knew who might show up or who you might drop in on.
As a young adult, I found this terrifying! For me having someone into my home required at least a little preparation and warning!
When we were first married and had young children our get-togethers revolved almost entirely around friends with small children or family. These didn’t require a lot of planning or preparation. We were all in the same boat…exhausted and running in all directions. There wasn’t Pinterest or any social media to tell us we were doing it wrong. We’d gather potluck style, use paper plates, play games and let the kids run wild! The only time I made a big effort was at our annual Christmas party where I really looked forward to trying new recipes out on my friends! I remember one year I made crab (artificial) quiche and I felt so fancy!
Once the kids were older and mostly out of the house something changed and I felt pressure to make things nicer, better….perfect. I would drive myself crazy making sure that every nook and cranny was spotless. The house needed to be decorated and every detail seen to. A menu was chosen that would be sure to impress. By the time my guests arrived I was too tired and worn out to really enjoy the evening and I usually needed a couple of days to recover!
Where did this pressure come from? Myself! I was the person driving the crazy train! It got to the point that we just stopped having people over. Oh sure, there were other reasons that also led to that happening, but I think mostly I was exhausted. I just couldn’t keep up.
After not having anyone in our home other than family for so long, the thought of inviting anyone in filled me with fear. Fear of rejection, of judgment, of not being or doing enough. But I was lonely and missed the sweet fellowship of people.
And the Lord was working on my heart. He started to impress on me the need to be faithful to steward the home He had given us. A place with plenty of room inside and out, a place people could hopefully come and feel welcome and loved. A place to share His love with others. I no longer wanted to “entertain”, I wanted to extend hospitality–to just minister, encourage, and love. To build and strengthen relationships with the people He placed in my life.
So, I put on my big girl panties and invited a group of ladies over for lunch. They were all co-workers of mine. I wasn’t sure they would accept the invitation when I extended it, but they did and we had a lovely time together! I made a simple lunch of chicken salad with croissants. Nothing fancy. Still, I fretted over the house and food before they got there. Was it good enough? The laughter and conversation we shared around the table told me that fretting was an unnecessary burden I placed on myself. But it was going to take baby steps for me to adapt.
As I continued to reach out to various friends and acquaintances it became easier and less scary. I began to loosen up…a BIT.
Two of my favorite memories are of having our dear friends, Marc, Lisa, Marina, Ed, Johnny, and Stacy over for PIZZA! Take and bake! Not even homemade, and I think we may even have used paper plates! BUT we had the best time!
Another time we hosted a chili feed with some friends from church, some neighbors, and my brother and sister-in-law. We had several pots/types of chili to sample and once again the laughter and conversation flowed! I was getting the hang of it! More fun get-togethers continued to happen, and then…COVID!
Oh, how I missed my friends and vowed to have them over ASAP! Like many of you, the pandemic changed a lot of my thinking, especially about things that are important and one thing that became ever clearer to me was that it was the fellowship that mattered, not the perfection of the house of food.
So with that in mind, when the time finally came to have friends in again the pressure was OFF. I let myself off the hook with having to feel like everything was just so and doing everything myself. One of ”my” rules had always been that the first time someone comes over to my house for dinner, they don’t bring anything. We provide it all, do it all, but not this last time! This time I asked almost everyone to bring something to share and it was wonderful! And you know what? I didn’t even mop my kitchen floor! And no one even pointed it out with shocked and judging eyes!
I still enjoy doing things well and trying to make my guests feel special. That hasn’t changed, but the internal pressure I placed on myself is no longer weighing me down….Oh, the freedom!
So here’s my new hospitality manifesto:
1) I Keep it simple. In summer BBQ is perfect. In the cooler months, I try to choose a one-dish recipe or a crock pot meal. Amy Hannon’s Roast Cobbler from her Love, Welcome, Serve cookbook is a favorite around here. And don’t forget there’s always pizza!
2) I let my guests share in the joy of providing part of the meal.
3) I focus on getting the main areas we will use clean (especially the bathrooms) and don’t sweat the rest.
4) Let the Lord lead in the inviting. He’s the master mixer!
5) Relax. Breathe. Enjoy
What about you, friend? Are you caught in the web of perfection, running yourself ragged, trying to impress instead of bless? We’d love to hear what’s on your heart and if you have any of your own tips to share! Leave us a comment!
There are a lot of messages we receive from culture today and it seems as though most of them are extremes, with a right vs wrong mentality. Right vs Left, Legalistic vs Freedom, Black vs White, Conservative vs Liberal, Sinner vs Saint, Chosen vs Not-chosen. Think my way? Two thumbs up for you. Think differently? You’re canceled.
One of the most popular extremes I’m seeing right now is the idea of “enough”. Society is waving a banner that screams “YOU are enough! Don’t change for anyone! God loves you just as you are!” And Christians are jumping on board with both feet. On the surface, it feels like a great place to land. What could be wrong with accepting ourselves and each other without judgment and condemnation? A few things, actually.
For one thing, there is no growth in the “I am enough” attitude. If you are enough as you are, right now, there is no need or desire to do or become better as human beings for yourself or the good of society as a whole. But secondly, the truth is we aren’t enough. And we can’t be. If we were, we would be sinless and Jesus wouldn’t have had to come to die on a cross to pay the penalty for our sin. It would be so simple for us to fix all the things wrong in the world if we were enough. But if no one needed growth or to do better would there even be things wrong in the world? The idea of a personal “enough” is a trick of Satan to keep us from facing sin head-on and growing in our faith.
And here is where the other extreme of “Enough” comes in. The pendulum swing to the opposite side. The voice that says, “You are not enough, you will never be enough, nothing you ever do will be enough, you are worthless.” This is where Satan keeps you mired down in a stagnant swamp of self-loathing and doubt, your thoughts held captive in a lie that prevents you from even trying to find hope and help because you believe you do not deserve it.
I don’t find either of these ideas in the bible without taking verses out of context. It’s been my experience that the answer to most hard questions rarely lies at one end of a pendulum. Most often, in my opinion, we find our answer, Jesus, right in the middle of all the mess.
When I bought into the idea that I was enough, it was a double-edged sword. One edge left me exhausted; cut, and bleeding in an attempt to prove I WAS, in fact, enough. Prove I didn’t need help from anyone, that I could do all the things on my own. When I couldn’t do all the things I just kept thinking I only needed a better system; surely it was a time-management thing. Or I just needed to understand my personality better. Maybe it was that I just needed a better weight loss program. I lived swirling around in the idea that if I could just change this or that, things would finally be under control. But no matter how hard I tried, no matter what things I tweaked, I just couldn’t do it.
The other edge of the “I am enough” sword was dull and it lazed about in the idea of being accepted just as I was, and if there was fault found in something I did or said it had more to do with an issue in you than with any issue with me. Excuses abounded and any change needed, in action or attitude, was all the burden of the other person. My pride was excused as a moral high-ground. My laziness was rebranded as the time-off I deserved. My selfishness was disguised as self-care. My harsh words were called “just speaking truth”. I needed no self-improvement and people could take me or leave me, it mattered little. This thinking left me spiritually out of shape and bruised by life and in this place, my faith and character saw little to no growth.
I’ve wrestled and fought with all the aspects of “enough” and no matter which lie I was stuck in I ended up ashamed and depressed, feeling like a failure in every aspect of my life. Until a friend reminded me of Matthew 11:28-30 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Rest is what I longed for, what my soul craved. I needed a rest from the world–all its demands, all its lies, and all its extremes. But how does one find the “sweet spot” of resting well and enough? I don’t have it mastered yet, but I’ve found the sweet spot of Godly rest lies somewhere in the middle of enough and not enough. Knowing I am not enough, bringing it to Jesus anyway, resting in Him to help me, and seeing first-hand that He IS enough.
Jesus tells us in Matthew to ”come to {Him}”. That’s where we start. Not with us. With Him. “I’m enough” is true when it’s the idea that I don’t have to “get myself together” before I can come to God. He already knows that we are weary and burdened. I don’t have to bring my best all shined up pretty for Him to love and accept me. I get to come to Him in all my weakness, all my ugly, all my sin. He asks us to bring all to Him and then He will give us the rest we so desperately desire. “I am enough” is true, but it’s also incomplete.
When we come to Him we exchange our yoke and our burden for His. A yoke rests on one’s shoulders and one takes direction from it. And a burden is still something we have to carry. This is not a work-free zone. I’m not free to let someone else carry my burden, but remember, He promises His yoke is easy and His burden light. Our rest comes because where we are weak He is strong. Where we fall short, He fills in the rest. He shines up our rusty places and presents them as perfect and new. Where “I am enough” fails, Jesus does not; He is always enough.
Resting doesn’t mean not changing, not growing though, and growth isn’t always easy or painless. In rest, there can be discomfort sometimes, but there is also healing. When I receive the gift of a massage, I am prepared to enjoy quiet and rest all the while knowing my therapist is going to find each painful knot in my back and poke and prod until they become soft and relaxed under her fingertips. The momentary discomfort gives way to increased movement and blood flow later.
When I sit in the salon chair to receive a refreshing pedicure, sometimes the nail technician has to cut out a bit of tender, ingrown nail that has made it painful to walk. I grip the armrests as they dig and cut, my toe smarting from their tools, but knowing later I will enjoy the benefit of not only lovely toes but more importantly, walking with ease.
So, where do we get our ideas about resting, enough, yokes, and burdens? We “learn from {Him}” and “{He} is humble and gentle in heart”. To learn from Him, we have to study Him, and we do that by spending time in the Bible, God’s holy Word.
When I was in high school, I had a Sunday School teacher who often talked about the theory of “garbage in, garbage out”, meaning what we consume will be what spills out of us later. We can fill up our minds and bellies with the “truth” we find on social media and the news; we can carry their burden of enough and take our directions in life from them, or we can spend time with Jesus and get our truth and direction from what He tells us in the Bible.
I was talking with my youngest daughter one day after having recently spent the weekend with my sister who lives on the other side of the states. Whatever comment I made was accompanied by a facial expression and my daughter’s eyes got wide, and she laughingly said, “That was Aunt Shannon, right there!” What a great compliment to me!
Do I act and sound like my sister because I’ve lost myself? Is it because she demands I do? Of course not. It happens naturally because I love her and whenever the opportunity arises, I spend time with her. I’ve known her for a while now, and because I’ve spent so much time with her, I have unconsciously picked up some (ok, many!) of her mannerisms–so much so it spills out even when we are apart.
The same thing happens when we spend time in God’s word. We grow to love Christ more. We want to spend more time with Him and slowly, we begin to look and act more like Him. The things that matter to Him matter to us and the things that grieve Him grieve us. We begin to see the fruits of the spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, self-control, grow in our lives. Not out of compulsion, because we have to, but because we just can’t help it! We have filled ourselves up with His wisdom and truth, learned His attributes, resulting in His wisdom, truth, and attributes later spilling out of us–no matter what the world bumps into us with.
Much like being with my sister brings rest to my heart, spending time with Jesus brings rest to my soul. I know my sister loves me and wants the best for me, so she gets to speak the hard truths to me. And because I know God loves me and has the best plans for me, I can trust when He begins pruning away at things that are unnecessary and not beneficial for me. I allow His word to speak hard truths into my life and know it is for my good. I can rest in His care.
We come to God and He works to TRANSFORM our lives and our desires. He does the heart-changing. Resting doesn’t mean striving in our own strength and on our own works for what only God can do. Our rest rests in His strength and what He has already accomplished through the finished work of the cross. Come to Him, learn from Him, and He will give us rest.
When we sleep at night, our body is busy repairing itself from the efforts of the day–it’s our body’s own little “sabbath” if you will. And when everything is in-tune and we have rested well, we awake alert and strong, ready to face the day.
I’m learning, when my face is turned toward God, He won’t abandon me to get fat and lazy, neither will He work me unmercifully. Little by little I’m learning to rest well, by resting only in HIM. In His word. In His truth. In His power and might. I’m hanging on while He cuts and prunes at my tender spots, knowing the resulting fruit will be sweet and plentiful. I endure the growing pains as my roots grow deeper and my footing steady and sure, even when things around me blow wildly out of control.
So, when I feel like the things I’ve picked up in my day to day life are too heavy to bear or like I can’t go a step farther, I remember that His yoke is easy and His burden is light. When I start to slip back into the patterns of “I am enough” I begin asking myself questions.
When was the last time I spent time with Jesus?
Am I carrying His burden and wearing His yoke or one I picked up elsewhere?
Have I come to Jesus for help or am I trying to bear them on my own?
Am I spilling out God’s truth or the truth I find on social media?
Am I being honest with myself?
Will the choice I’m making right now help me serve others better?
Will this help grow my faith and dependence on Jesus?
Is what I’m consuming nutrient-dense or is it an empty calorie dessert?
How is my daily diet balanced?
I don’t have any of this mastered, but If I answer these questions truthfully, I can usually figure out what burden or yoke I need to bring back to Jesus to exchange.
Friend, if you are weary and in need of rest, bring your burdens to Jesus and trust that He cares for you. You are not alone. You have a friend like no other who loves you enough to give you life-changing rest.
When is our enough, enough? When it’s found in Jesus.
