I Have Never Once Had People Over

You have written it about forty times.

Not the same message. Different versions, over about two years, in your head mostly and once or twice actually typed out and then deleted before anybody saw the three dots.

Come over. Come for something to eat. I was going to make something on Saturday if you are free.

And none of them has ever gone.

You go to other people's houses. You are asked, and you go, and you take something, and you have a nice time and say thank you and mean it, and then there is the small moment in the car afterward where you think about the fact that it has never once gone the other way.

Two years, and you have never had anybody over. Not once.

And the strange part is that you would like to. This is not a person avoiding company. It is a person who wants the thing and has a list of conditions attached to it that have never all been true on the same day.

So let me say the first thing plainly, before anything practical.

Nothing here is going to raise the bar by a single inch.

Nobody is going to suggest something nice to make, or a small thing that would lift it, or anything at all that would make the evening better than the most ordinary version of itself. The meal in this article is deliberately the thing you can already do without thinking.

Use hospitality one to another without grudging

There is a line in First Peter about hospitality, and the qualifier on the end of it is the whole thing.

Use hospitality one to another without grudging. (1 Peter 4:9, King James Version)

Without grudging.

That is the only standard attached anywhere in that sentence. Not without a proper table. Not without apologizing. The single quality required is that the host is not resenting it.

And the word means exactly what it sounds like: without muttering, without the internal complaint, without the sense of being put upon.

You are being given one standard rather than a list, and an evening you actually want has never once been in danger of failing the only test attached to it. First Peter 4:9 asks for the absence of grudging and nothing else at all, and the Holy Spirit is the one present with a woman who has written a message forty times.

And notice the phrase one to another.

It is mutual and it is ordinary. It describes a traffic that goes both ways between people who know each other, and there is nothing in it about occasions, and nothing about anybody being the sort of person who hosts.

It is a description of what happens in an ordinary week between friends, and you have been on one side of that traffic for two years.

You have been on one side of something that was always meant to go both ways, and going to people's houses has never once been the whole of what one to another means. The Spirit of God is the one with somebody who thinks about it in the car on the way home, and First Peter 4:9 describes a mutual traffic rather than a talent some people have.

The list of conditions

Here is the practical half, and it is one observation about why this has taken two years.

There is a list. It is not written down, but it exists, and every item on it is reasonable: the house in a particular state, a free weekend, the right stretch of days, feeling well, something worth making.

And the list has never once been entirely true on the same day. That is not bad luck. Lists of five reasonable conditions are almost never all true at once, and the longer the list the closer to never it gets.

So what looks like two years of it not being the right time is actually a structural certainty.

You were waiting for a list to complete rather than for a day to arrive, and five conditions that must all be true at once has never once been a schedule. First Peter 4:9 attaches one condition and it is about the heart rather than the house, and the Holy Spirit is the one with a woman who has been waiting for an alignment.

And here is the second half, which is the useful part, and it is about who you ask. Ask the person whose house is the least impressive.

Not the friend with the good dining room. The one whose place is a bit chaotic, where dinner once came out of the pan it was cooked in, who would not notice anything and would not remember the food.

Every single one of your conditions exists because of an imagined guest who is paying attention. Change the guest and most of the list falls away by itself, without anybody having to talk you out of anything.

You have a guest available who cancels most of that list, and one relaxed person at a table has never once required the conditions a strict one would. The Spirit of God is the one with somebody choosing which friend to ask, and First Peter 4:9 sets the standard inside the host rather than inside the house.

What this month is, with one person

So here is the assignment. Invite one person for one simple meal this month and cook the thing you can already make.

Send the message today. One of the forty, whichever version is shortest, with a day in it, to the friend whose house is the least impressive. Do not rewrite it. The forty versions were all fine and the writing was never the problem.

And cook the thing you already make, and name it in the message, so that nothing about the food is left open for the two weeks in between.

You are sending one of the forty rather than writing a forty first, and a message that already existed has never once needed to be improved before it could go. First Peter 4:9 asks only for hospitality without grudging, and the Holy Spirit is the one with a woman pressing send this afternoon.

Then the part that does the work, and it is one instruction: do not apologize for anything. Not the house, not the food, not the fact that this is the first time. In particular do not say the sentence about never having anybody over, which will be sitting right at the front of your mouth when they walk in.

That sentence makes the evening about the two years. Let the evening be about Saturday.

You are letting it be an ordinary evening rather than a first one, and two years nobody mentioned has never once been in the room. The Spirit of God is the one at that table with two friends and something plain, and First Peter 4:9 describes a mutual ordinary traffic between people.