For years in Uganda, I worked with refugees, and sometimes brought my children. Something inside felt tickled pink when the purple-black, marionette-like form of a Sudanese immigrant enveloped one of my blue-eyed, blonde kids. 

I lived far away for some of my teaching years; none of my students ever came to my house. But I remember walking by one of them on the road, when a large Northern Sudanese man insisted on purchasing me a watermelon to lug home. I learned hospitality can happen even completely apart from a house, and can have remarkably little to do with folded napkins and centerpieces. 

I believe there’s a “hospitality of personality”—the gift or practice of making people feel they could kick their shoes off and belly laugh, even if you’re just chatting on the street. 

I witness hospitality in the story of the Good Samaritan, for example, or maybe even the Good Shepherd. At its core, hospitality mimics the God who comes in to eat with us (Revelation 3:20), welcomes us to his own table, receiving sinners and eating with them (Luke 15). It’s the God who beckons to Zacchaeus before he ever shows signs of repenting. Our God moved into the neighborhood, splitting a loaf of bread, bumping into people at the market, sharing a good sweat and drink of water in a field. 

In a way, I feel like hospitality is about helping people feel God’s smile. 

Our God draws us to repentance with unrelenting kindness (Romans 2:4, Jeremiah 31:3). He knows that like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, when we get together and talk about what’s real—even if it’s totally apart from a Bible study—He may show up among us, breaking bread with us and making our hearts burn in us. 

Maybe like me, when you think about hosting, you suddenly see all the dirt smudges on the wall, and think about the planning that has to happen in case the power would go off precisely at 4:45 PM. 

But what if more importantly (and more doable), people sensed our hospitality in the warmth of God surging through us—rather than our ability to manage our image?

This week, lean into open doors of hospitality, even if they’re standing at a market, receiving someone’s story, or squatting down to talk with someone sitting by the road. Let them sense God’s rest.