R.S.V.P. - What a friend we have in Jesus

February is the shortest month of the year and this includes even when February is celebrating her leap year experience. If I could have scheduled or picked the day I was born on, my first choice would have been on February 29th. My thoughts are that with such a unique day occurring only once every seven years I would be sure to have a big birthday celebration. After all you would think your friends would be up for the event especially since it happens so rarely, right? To me, I believe this type of long range planning makes perfect sense. However I am sure some friends would not want to schedule their attendance and participation so far in advance given the hopes of something better coming along. Planning this way seems to be a practice of many, even if it is not defined as such. 'Holding Out' until the last minute to survey your options sounds in theory like a great practice. Timing is always important in so many decisions and opportunities too. When everything seems so right the only question to ask is how or why can things go so wrong with our choices. There are a lot of reasons how this happens, for example lets take my idea birthday date. In the mountains folks don't really take so seriously the favor of a reply in an invitation. Not sure why this is, I can only assume it has something to do with 'Holding Out'. R.S.V.P. represents a French phrase, "répondez, s'il vous plaît," which means "please reply." If we want to keep good healthy friendships, communicating in a responsible and requesting type fashion sounds like a great practice too. If you agree then maybe you are someone that has had the experience of planning for an event and then folks not showing up, or folks showing up and you then go into scramble mode to accommodate them, even though they didn't reply. It would be appropriate to have someone greet quest at a planned event, check folks in as they arrive to verify they had properly replied to your invitation. For those who had properly responded how neat would it be to escort then inside and to provide a formal introduction to the event attendees. All the while, for those who had decided to not R.S.V.P., they could have a comfortable seat to allow those guest who followed proper protocol to proceed. Now you and I know if we did this we would make folks mad. Some of our friends would be insulted that they had to wait while others were being escorted in, but then again, why they would be upset really doesn't make an sense. Oh the balance of things is delicate indeed. To miss out on something that was planned for your participation hurts if you have ever been turned away. Most of the time event planners feel guilty if they turn folks away, especially when your participation was wanted and requested to begin with. The guilt is misplaced without a doubt but that is the way many of 'we humans' operate. We'd rather accommodate, re-arrange and plan to pay for more place settings then to hold are friends responsible. How we treat each other seems rather important when you consider the event situation I am writing about in this column. Yet, at the forefront, the importance and favor of a reply doesn't seem so significant but in reality it actually is. A person could say to themselves I don't like to reply because I am not sure what is going to happen, and we tell ourselves something at work might happen, and it might. We tell ourselves someone could be sick, they could be in the hospital, and this might happen too. We even tell ourselves that we are so busy we need a little bit of time, so when we have forgotten we can share it slipped our mind and believe our excuse should be pardon. All things we might say to ourselves instead of just making a decision and making the best of every opportunity or situation. I venture to say that 'we humans', your friends would understand clearly when things come up, but there is nothing like the favor of a reply, and the call to cancel with regrets that builds and strengthens a friendship either. Not sure about your R.S.V.P.'s but what a friend we have in Jesus! Until then