Red hearts...dark chocolate...diamond rings: Valentine's Day.

With so many getting engaged on February 14, I could hardly resist sharing the findings of a new report from Atlanta's Emory University.  Titled, A Diamond is Forever—and Other Fairy Tales, the report features a survey of 3,000 once or still-married American couples.

Maybe you've heard the “two-month's-salary rule” that jewelers love to foist on couples.  According to this “rule,” you are supposed to save up (or at least spend) two months of your salary for an engagement ring.

Turns out that little rule has worked well for jewelers.  Not so much for couples.

The Emory University report reveals that couples who spend $2,000 to $4,000 on an engagement ring were 1.3 times likelier to end up divorced than couples who spent $500 to $2,000.  These numbers are troubling, given the 2013 national average.  According to TheKnot.com, the average American couple drops $5,598 on a ring.

Apparently, spending big bucks on a wedding holds similarly disturbing results.  Couples who dropped more than 20 grand on a wedding ceremony face a divorce rate that is three and a half times as high as those who spend between $5,000 and $10,000.  By the way, the national average—according to TheKnot.com—is much higher: $29,858.

Big rings and big parties don't appear to guarantee anything more than big debt.

Rather...dis-HEART-ening, wouldn't you say?

As pricey ring is a thing of beauty.

But for beauty that lasts—and almost guarantees happiness—look for a heart.  Not the dark chocolate kind.  But the heart that Ephesians 4:2 describes when it says, “Be completely humble and gentle.  Be patient, bearing with one another in love.”

If you can find that kind of heart (and I have, in Diana), you've got yourself a real...gem!

I am about to ruffle some feathers. Forgive me.

Here’s the issue: I am personally uncomfortable with our commitment to comfort during church.  More to the point, I have a problem with the emerging assumption that drinking coffee or water during the church service is normal—almost a right.

If worship is what we are supposed to be about—the total investment of our energy in the magnifying of another—then where is there room for satiating our own thirst?  Understand, I’m preaching to myself, too, because I enjoy a bottle of water.

Recently I attended a Sunday morning service where communion was offered “self-service,” rather than the elements being passed out.  Different—but certainly not problematic in itself.  But while I was praying, I heard the unmistakable sound of a large candy box being shaken as two people in the row behind me discussed the weather.  

Our unwillingness to suspend creature comforts—like a cup of coffee, or a bottle of water, or a handful of candy for even one hour I find suspect. If we will not allow our worship to cost us the suspension of personal pleasures for an hour, what price will we pay?

I can hear the voices of some folks who disagree.  They’re saying, “Dude, chill out.  We don’t live in the Old Testament anymore.  This is the age of grace!”  True.

Yet 1 Timothy 6:16 speaks of our God as one “who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see.”

And I guarantee you that if God were to once again visit Mount Sinai as He did with Moses, you could count on there being smoke and thunder.

Given imagery like that, a cup of Starbucks or a sip of water from a BPA-free plastic bottle seems a bit out of place.

I see the casualness of man and the holiness of God on a collision course.

While we no longer live in the Old Testament, worship itself intrinsically requires a certain personal preparation.  I doubt that a double shot latte is what God had in mind.

It was foolish.  Not even a two-year old would have made the mistake. May I tell you about it?

Trekking along a pathway in the Sonoran Desert's Saguaro National Park, Charlie, Kathy, Diana and I were struck by the landscape.  No other place on the planet has as many Saguaro cacti . Nor was the Saguaro the only cactus around.  There were dozens of varieties.  Deserts, I am learning, offer a strange beauty—and I was determined to capture it all on my Nikon…or die trying.

Convinced I had framed up a pretty cool shot, I asked my wife to smile into the camera.  But peering through the viewfinder, I realized the angle was off.  I needed to move.  The path was too narrow, its range of view too constricting. So I carefully stepped off into the dense (thorny) vegetation.  I moved the camera slowly… and took the shot of my smiling wife.  That’s when I learned a lesson from the teddy bear cholla cactus.

Named for its fuzzy appearance, the teddy bear—or “jumping cholla”—looks like a soft teddy bear, complete with cute little arms.   But take it from me, this is no plush toy.  The thing is covered with slivery spines (not thorns).  Get just close enough and those spines seem to jump off and embed themselves in your skin.

The pain in my leg was intense.  But worse yet was the discovery that each spine had a barbed tip.  So ripping them out was an extra delight.  Having cleared my leg of the evil teddy bear’s spines, I sensed a mild case of the chills.  All this…because I stepped off the path.  

Yet how often have you and I done the same thing, spiritually?  A temptation comes along and it looks as harmless as a teddy bear.  It charmingly bids us take just a step or two off the path of our commitment to Christ—and enjoy a better deal.

Then comes the sting…the barbed tip…the reality that we have sinned—and sinned foolishly.  Proverbs 12:28 assures us, “In the way of righteousness there is life; along that path is immortality.”

I’m learning—sometimes the hard way—it really is best to stay on the path.

Six degrees Fahrenheit.   Walk a mile and a half in that kind of weather and you discover an alternate meaning to the expression, “chill out.”   Though our day began in the windy city of Chicago, it ended in the warmth of Arizona.

Our friends, Charlie and Kathy, were kind enough to host our visit and drive us down to Tucson's Saguaro National Park.  What a contrast to the snow and ice we'd left behind.   Midwesterner that I am, it took a while for me to process that we were driving through an honest-to-goodness desert.   Red rock formations, gray dust and the stereotypical roadside tumbleweed or cactus painted an iconic portrait of southwestern desert life.

All of this I had expected.  But here's what I didn't expect: beauty.   Winding along the Valley View trail (with a wary eye for any of the six species of rattle snakes that slither through the park), we were treated now and then to the most gorgeous flowers.  Atop a random cactus sat a ring of yellow blooms, an unlikely crown for the prickly guard lining the side of the trail.

Deprived of regular rain or shade, these plants dared to bloom in a climate hostile to growth or beauty.   I am learning there are some flowers that can only be grown in the desert.

Perhaps you are trekking through a desert of your own at this very moment.  An emotional desert.  Maybe a spiritual desert.  The truth is, we're all either in the middle of a desert, or soon will be.  Two words of encouragement:

First, we do not walk alone.  I love the reminder of Hebrews 13:5: “For He Himself has said, 'Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you.'” 

Second, it might not feel like it right now, but it's possible—entirely possible—spectacular beauty will soon crown your life.  I don't know how.  I don't know in what form.  I can only tell you that I've seen it before.

So stick to the trail.

Keep on walking.

And dare to bloom.

It was cancer, they said.

Didn't have long to live, they said.

So we began praying for George (not his real name) from my wife's side of the family.   George, age 59, had lived his entire life apart from God.  Some drinks.  Some divorces.  He was irreligious, irreverent and fully cognizant he was in his last weeks of life.

A family member suggested my wife send him a Christmas card.  So she found one that presented the essence of the salvation message, and included our little family newsletter, which also pointed to Christ.

At night—every night—Diana and I prayed urgently for George, that he would have his eyes opened, spiritually, and that he would receive Christ in his last days. It would be a lie to say that I had great faith.  Some faith, sure, but not the kind of faith I should have.

When the call came that George had died, along with it came details for the funeral. A two hour drive into rural Illinois brought us to the funeral home, where a minister made the claim that George was in heaven (“Liberal pastor for sure!” I grumbled to myself, oddly comfortable with my cynicism).

Yet the pastor went on to relate how he had visited George in his home, clearly explained the gospel message, and that both George AND his wife boldly stated their desire to receive Christ.  They prayed together!

Here was a man dangled close enough over Hell, his feet could have smelled of brimstone.  And yet....and yet....God snatched him away. His mercy and goodness and kindness and gentle call pursued this man to the literal midnight hour.

I am dumbfounded.

Forgive my lack of faith, Lord.

Me--who claims to believe--forgive my unbelief.

Amazing grace.

How sweet the sound

That saved a wretch like George...

                                                    ...And me.