Respondez S'il Vous Plait

I don’t know much about manners….well, at least not the “Emily Post” kind. You know, which fork to use and when to use it – or, do you use it? Growing up in a family of six active children we weren’t particularly interested in that sort of thing. But, my mother was. It was important to her that we show up at the dinner table with clean hands. And, it was important to my dad that there be no rough-housing while we ate….and we were to always ask to be excused from the table with no exceptions!


As hubby and I were raising our three children there were certain rules we asked them to abide by at the dinner table. We did our best to teach them to be considerate of other people. However, the rules weren’t always followed and sometimes there were consequences to pay for bad behavior. Some of our rules included: no food fights; keep your hands to yourself; no stabbing one another with knives and forks; no weird noises; and no one should ever talk about anything that might make ”Mom” wretch and gag at the dinner table! (I have a very weak stomach!) I suppose some rules are worthy of being broken, and to this day my dear children still attempt to break that last rule!

There has been much written about manners throughout the years with thousands of pages devoted to instruction on proper etiquette. For instance, do you know what R.S.V.P. means? It very simply means, “Respond if you please”. An invitation has been issued and ”please reply.” It is a French phrase, respondez s’il vous plait…..or, RSVP.

God’s Word is filled with invitations for each one of us and all of His invitations require a response. He invites us to receive His gift of eternal life through Christ (John 5:24); He invites us to discover the liberty of a clean heart and mind (Isaiah 1:18) and, He invites us to speak boldly for Him in His power (Acts 1:8). Exciting things happen when God’s people hear Him speaking and they respond in obedience, “Yes, Lord!”

What invitation have you received from God? His invitation comes with an RSVP. Use your manners. Please reply!

As I begin the start of this new weblog, I just want to mention a couple of things. I’m not new to blogging. I’ve had a page for several years over at xanga. I’ve also been convicted for a very long time that I need to pack up my accumulated stuff and move OUT. I have been using the free edition and the ads that appear on my site are very ungodly and provocative, which I absolutely detest. I’ve been a little lazy though and put it off – and put it off – until it can longer be put off! Should I put it off any longer, I know God will not tolerate it and perhaps withhold his blessings in my life. He has issued an invitation to live a holy life and I must reply!

The work involved in starting a new site and transferring old material to it have kind of overwhelmed me. But, I must begin. And, I must begin to invite my friends to travel with me to BlogSpot to read my stuff. I know, it’s so inconvenient to re-establish….and I don’t want to be on any search enginges, so hopefully I’ve set my privacy settings correctly. I don’t really know how to archive material….so for a time I will be posting some of the old stuff here for you to re-read. Pray that I figure it all out QUICK. I spend too much time on the computer as it is….

So thank you for being my friend. Thank you for reading my stuff. And, as usual I look forward to any and all comments and encouragement that you care to leave. I hope my posts will be a blessing to you and that you will feel compelled to “please reply”. Blessings to you.  Q.'