I’ll go ahead and preface… I’m not engaged. I’m not about to be engaged, nor am I dating anyone. Quite the contrary, actually, I signed a no-dating contract with The World Race. But, I DID have a conversation about engagement rings that has rocked my last 2 months.
I was walking home from ministry with some of my squamates in Swaziland. We were heading to the vegetable stand to get ingredients to make dinner when some of the guys started sharing some news from home. These two guys on my team told us that their older brothers back home were proposing to their girlfriends. Not only that, they were proposing on the exact same day! The conversation then somehow steered to how much we thought the average engagement ring should cost.
Here were some of the responses:
Boy #1: $600
Boy #2: $1,000 or a little more
Boy #3: $300
Boy #3 also went to say he thought the best place to buy engagement rings was Jared… because “they have the best commercials. Duh…”
I died laughing. I thought, ‘there’s no way they can be serious!’ An engagement ring should AT LEAST be 3 months salary. I mean, that’s what American culture has fed me to believe. Then, I thought about my family… and picturing my hypothetical future-fiance asking my father for MY hand in marriage with a $1,000 ring. That would be an absolute joke. No… that couldn’t happen…I’m certain that a guy wouldn’t even be accepted into my family unless a ring was appraised at a minimal 15k. Good thing I’m not interested in these type of “men.”
That evening, I went to go get dinner and I saw these 3 guys in line. My heart immediately hurt. What was wrong with me? The men from my squad are on FIRE for The Lord. Any woman of God would be blessed to marry the guys on my squad, regardless of their idea of karat or price of a ring. It wasn’t that their view of engagement rings was “ridiculous”… it was my heart.
There are two things God has taught me from this: materialism and trust.
I’ve been doing Beth Moore’s Bible Study over James and she recently said something that was written directly for me. “There’s a difference between extra and evil excess.” At home, I live in surplus. Not only do I have the basic needs for any human to survive, I have an excess amount. You name it: my car, all my Tory Burch shoes, my collection of 50+ Lilly Pulitzer dresses, Kendra Scott jewelry to match every outfit, thousands of dollars in designer handbags. “Every area of my life bloats with surplus but God is helping me strip off the sickening excess.” Well maybe that’s what The World Race is doing for me. God insists on making more room in my life so that He can bless me with things that will truly satisfy me.
It’s easy to say yes to a life of abandonment on the race. I mean, not at first… giving up your entire closet, make up, name-brand cosmetics and bath products, preference and quantity of food, freedom to do what you want to do, unlimited data for communication and entertainment, a steady monthly income, and your mere comforts and luxuries at home is tough. So what I mean to say is… it was easy to give it all up for 11 months… because I know it’s all waiting for me back at home.
But what if these things weren’t waiting for me back home? What if life on the race became every day life… forever? Would that change the way I needed God? To be completely honest with you, that thought scares the freaking crap out of me.
I want to share a story with you from Luke 9:57-62 and The Cost of Following Jesus:
“As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” He said to another man, “Follow me.” But he replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.” Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”
Not just as a missionary, the Cost of Following Jesus means I’m willing to: 1. Forfeit Comfort, 2. Forfeit any future security, and lastly 3. Forfeit any contingency plans. All of these boil down to having one thing… trust in God.
I know some people reading this may be offended. From the absolute bottom of my heart, I hope you know that’s not what I intended when writing this blog. I’m not saying that having nice things or an expensive taste in engagement rings make you anything less than Godly. This is just my story with God. For myself… they’re comforts in my life that allow me to feel like I don’t need Him. My “sickening surplus” was giving me a false sense of comfort on the race and Satan is using this idol to prevent me from going deeper with My Father. I might as well be saying, “God… give me just enough so that I don’t really need you in these areas of my life.
I only have 3 more months on the race before I head back home, so I have some choices to make. I can choose to spend my days lusting over things that will FINALLY be at my fingertips once I enter the United States… or I can choose to be grateful for what God has given me these past 8 months. Life of abandonment will be a daily choice and I pray that God begins to radically change my heart from any skewed materialistic entitlements. As a missionary, this is the small sacrifice I can make, because Jesus is worth it.
