I Was Protecting Myself and Calling It Discernment

For a long time I had a reason why the table was not bigger. The house was not ready. The timing was not right. I was in a season of being intentional about who I let in.

I called it wisdom. I called it discernment. I believed it, mostly.

Then one morning sitting with the Holy Spirit something became clear — I was not being discerning. I was being guarded. And there is a real difference between those two things. One is led by the Spirit. The other is led by self-protection dressed in spiritual language.

Trusting the Holy Spirit has allowed me to become less suspicious of people and more interested in how to love them well. That realization did not come all at once. It came slowly — through conversations I almost did not have, invitations I almost did not extend, and people I almost kept at a comfortable distance because something in me was not sure they were safe to let in. And if I am honest, that something was not discernment. It was suspicion.

The Real Barrier

We talk a lot about the barriers to hospitality. Not enough space. Not enough time. The house is not ready. The table is not big enough. While some of those things are real, I have come to believe that for most of us, they are not actually the barrier. Suspicion is — suspicion of people's motives, suspicion of what they will think when they see how we really live, suspicion of whether they will be safe with what we share or what they will do with access to our lives. Suspicion that vulnerability at a dinner table is a liability rather than a gift.

A small home has never stopped a willing heart from setting the table. But suspicion will have us standing in a spacious kitchen, staring at an empty chair we were too guarded to pull out for someone.

Suspicion keeps us at a distance. It positions every new person as a potential threat before they have been given the chance to be a blessing. It filters relationships through a lens of self-protection rather than love. And it is deeply at odds with the kind of hospitality Scripture calls us to.

"Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling." 1 Peter 4:9 NIV

There is no clause in that verse for when the house is ready. No exception for when the people feel safe enough. No footnote that says extend the invitation once you have assessed the risk. Without grumbling. Without condition. Without suspicion. That is a high standard. And I do not think most of us can meet it in our own strength. I certainly could not.

The Shift in Perspective

When I began to trust the Holy Spirit more — really trust Him, not just reference Him — something shifted in how I saw people. The guardedness I had carried started to loosen. Not because people suddenly became safer. But because I was no longer the one responsible for protecting myself from every possible outcome. He was. And when I released that responsibility, my hands became free to do something else entirely — to set the table, to extend the invitation, to pull up the chair.

I became less focused on what someone might do with access to my life and more curious about what God might do through access to theirs. Less interested in managing the risk of relationship and more interested in what it actually looks like to love people well.

Suspicion asks: what could this cost me? Love asks: what could this give them? Those are two very different questions. And the one you are asking determines whether the invitation gets extended or quietly withheld.

The Woman at the Well

When the woman at the well encountered Jesus, she came alone — at an hour when no one else would be drawing water. That was not coincidence. That was the behavior of someone who had learned to keep her distance. Someone who had been met with enough suspicion, enough judgment, enough exposure, that solitude felt safer than community.

And Jesus met her there. Not with suspicion. Not with a list of conditions she had to meet before He would engage. With living water. With kindness. With the kind of love that saw everything about her and invited her in anyway. She left that encounter so undone that she forgot her water jar. And she ran to tell a whole city.

That is what happens when suspicion is replaced by love. People do not just receive something — they cannot help but share it.

Opening Your Table

The table you are hesitating to open probably is not too small. The life you are waiting to feel settled enough to share probably is not the real reason the invitation has not gone out. Ask the Holy Spirit to show you where suspicion has quietly replaced love in how you see the people around you. Ask Him to shift your posture from self-protection to genuine curiosity about the people He keeps placing in your path.

And then extend the invitation. Not when the house is perfect. Not when you have fully assessed the risk. Not when you feel ready. Now. Because suspicion will always find a reason to wait. And love — the kind rooted in the Holy Spirit and not our own comfort — will always find a reason to open the door. Pull up the chair. There is always room at a table built on grace.

That is the Whole Loaf.

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With love and grace, Kay