The Wait: A Powerful Practice for Finding the Love of Your Life and the Life You Love

Introduction

It was the first time we held hands, and we’ll never forget it. It wasn’t romantic. We weren’t gazing longingly into each other’s eyes. We just grabbed each other as we shouldered through a Hollywood mob that blocked our way like the Red Sea. But it was a moment that we’ll both remember for the rest of our lives.

It was the spring of 2011 in Los Angeles, and it was our second date. Sort of. On our first date, at the Stone Rose Lounge at the Sofitel, we talked for hours about life, family, career, goals, and the Lord. It was nice, but when it was over it felt . . . platonic. We had known each other professionally for four years at that point, and although we felt attracted to each other, we weren’t sure that there was really anything going on. Then came the Prince concert at the House of Blues on the Sunset Strip. The place was so thick with fans, celebrities, media, and security that there was barely any room to breathe. We decided to make a mad dash through the throng to reach some people we knew, clasped hands so we wouldn’t get separated . . . and it hit us.

A physical-spiritual concussion, like a jolt of electricity to the heart. It was like something from a rom-com script so cliché-ridden that it gets sent to turnaround (the film industry term for a project that a film studio decides not to develop further). Our eyes met, and it was clear that we had both felt it. It was as though two souls that God had been guiding toward each other for years had navigated all the plot twists and jumped all the obstacles to come together at last. In fact, that’s exactly what happened.

After the concert, we stood outside and talked, oblivious to everyone and everything else.

MEAGAN: Some people had labeled me a wild party girl because of what they read on blogs or in the tabloids. But that night, DeVon told me that wasn’t the person he saw. He said he could see my heart. I was in tears. I felt like somebody other than my family was finally seeing me, not the person people were quick to judge me to be. Then he said, God doesn’t show your heart to everybody. He only shows it to people He can trust with it.

DEVON: That wasn’t planned; it was straight from the heart. It was like God had spoken those words to my spirit and they just flowed out of me. I remember over the years seeing Meagan in the media, and there was always something about her that I knew was more than meets the eye.

But even though the sparks were flying, we didn’t kiss. The timing wasn’t right. Why force it?

On our third date, we caught a movie at the Sherman Oaks Galleria. Afterward, we ended up sitting in Meagan’s car for an hour and a half talking about how young people needed positive influences from Hollywood. We watched funny YouTube videos and looked at old pictures. Then we got out of the car and talked for another hour, standing in the partially vacated parking lot. Then we hugged for what felt like an eternity. Finally, as we said good night for what must have been the tenth time, we had our first kiss. As our lips touched, we could feel the Spirit of God surround and embrace us. Instantly, we were both euphoric in the Spirit, miles high. It was like a confirmation that this was right.

You can talk about God being in your life, but there is nothing like actually feeling God’s hand moving in your life. This was God moving in our lives, and it was incredible.

WHY WE WAITED

However, even with all that electricity flying, we were cautious. We didn’t lose our heads. We didn’t dash off to Las Vegas for a ten-minute ceremony at a drive-through chapel. It wasn’t just about gushing to friends and family members that we’d finally found the One. And as millions of people know from our many post-wedding magazine interviews, radio and television appearances, and live talks, we waited until after we got married to have sex.

When we began talking publicly about our courtship and our celibacy, the questions from hosts and audience members naturally started off being mostly about sex. Giggling like teenagers in a locker room, people would ask the obvious: How did we stay strong? How did we resist temptation? Things like that. Both of us answered honestly and clearly from our experiences, and in time the questioning became deeper and more serious. There was a desire, a hunger, behind the inquiries. The unspoken message was: We want to have real love. Is it really possible? Your love appears to be so real. If it is, tell us how you got it, please.

So we started looking at the choices that had taken us from being two coworkers in the entertainment business to being a blissfully happy husband and wife, sitting in front of audiences talking about how we’d made it work. As we did, a pattern revealed itself. Again and again, faced with the choice between instant gratification and delaying our own satisfaction to pursue something better, we chose the latter. When we weren’t even together but were coming out of unhappy relationships, we each chose not to be intimate (intimacy isn’t just about sex; it’s also about sharing emotionally) with anyone for a time. When we grew closer but were unsure whether we were really right for each other, we waited for clarity from God. When we felt those incredible second- and third-date connections, we didn’t go crazy, get engaged, or even jump into a relationship the next day. We waited and got to know each other. As our physical attraction grew stronger, we resolved to wait until after marriage. Faced with choice after choice, when it would have been easy and fun to throw caution and good sense to the wind, we waited.

But why? Why did we consciously delay the gratification—not just sexual but emotional and spiritual—that would have come with diving headfirst into a passionate relationship? The answer is simple: we wanted God’s very best for our lives, collectively and individually, and we wanted it in whatever way He intended. This required patience.

In the past, we’d both been burned in unpleasant relationships because we acted impulsively, leaped before we looked, or let our emotions overwhelm our judgment. We got tired of doing things the same way but expecting a different result (this is the classic definition of insanity). Maybe there was a way God wanted us to date that would bring us peace and what we wanted most: authentic love.

The signs that He was guiding us toward each other were unmistakable, but He didn’t want us to come together before we were ready. So we were still. We examined who we were, what we needed, and the mistakes we’d made in past relationships. We began the process of letting go of some heavy baggage and some preconceptions about the kind of person who might make a perfect partner. In short, we quit trying to make things happen for our short-term pleasure and let God take the wheel.

When we finally got together and talked about the experiences leading up to our relationship, we understood that we had discovered something profound and powerful. By consciously not giving in to the desire for a quick hit of satisfaction—the intoxicating rush of a new romance, the flush of sexual attraction, the pleasure of having someone to show off to friends and family—we laid the groundwork for what has become the love of our lives.

Because we waited, we exchanged immediate gratification for what we really wanted and who we really wanted to be. Because we waited, God was able to reveal things that we would have missed if we had been blinded by the white-hot light of lust, desperate to fulfill our own desires. Because we waited, we were eventually ready.

That was the beginning of The Wait.

YES, THE WAIT IS (SORT OF) ABOUT SEX

The Wait is not just about sex, but it begins with sex. How could it not? We live in a time when books like the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy have sold more than 100 million copies and the corresponding movie has grossed over half a billion dollars at the worldwide box office. Almost every popular magazine on the newsstands has some headline dealing with sex. I Like High-End Sex Parties and I’m Not a Weirdo was an actual headline from one of the biggest magazines in the world. Well, how about We Waited to Have Sex and We’re Not Weirdos Either?

Human beings love sex. We think about it, talk about it, read about it, watch it on the Internet, and spend a great deal of our time, energy, and money trying to get it. Because of this, sex makes us do some truly stupid things. Ironically, as much as we like to wag our fingers at one another about the potential harm our hypersexual culture can cause, talking about not having sex is what raises people’s ire. The moment the two of us announced we were working on this book, a prominent blog published a post titled Meagan Good, DeVon Franklin & the Danger of Promoting ‘The Wait.’ We had no idea that talking about our story and trying to provide a positive, healthy dialogue about relationships and sex would be deemed dangerous!

We actually think it’s dangerous not to talk about sex and advocate the idea that it’s okay to wait. How can you learn to date in a way that promotes physical, spiritual, and mental health if you don’t talk about the emotional, spiritual, and physical risks of sex? Is it really okay for the majority of songs on the radio—and the melodies streaming through Spotify and thousands of HD music videos on Vevo—to market an oversexualized way of life to the masses but not okay for us to talk about an alternative way of thinking that might actually help someone become a healthier person and lead a better life?

We’re also not the only ones talking about this. Russell Wilson, Super Bowl–winning Seattle Seahawks quarterback and an outspoken Christian, shocked fans when, during a Q&A at a church in San Diego last summer, he announced that he and his girlfriend, singer and dancer Ciara Harris, had decided to abstain from sex—or as Russell described it, doing it Jesus’s way. The media went crazy. As news website The Root put it in a headline, Russell Wilson and Ciara Aren’t Having Sex and It’s Everybody’s Business. Like it or not, waiting for sex is in the conversation and a lot more people are recognizing that it’s an idea that’s at least worth talking about.

But does it matter what the two of us—or Russell and Ciara—say? From a spiritual standpoint, what does the Bible say on this matter? Here are two key scriptures we find to be extremely compelling:

God’s will is for you to be holy, so stay away from all sexual sin.

(1 THESSALONIANS 4:3, NLT)

You know the old saying, First you eat to live, and then you live to eat? Well, it may be true that the body is only a temporary thing, but that’s no excuse for stuffing your body with food, or indulging it with sex. Since the Master honors you with a body, honor him with your body!

God honored the Master’s body by raising it from the grave. He’ll treat yours with the same kind of power. Until that time, remember that your body was created with the same dignity as the Master’s body. You wouldn’t take the Master’s body off to a whorehouse, would you? I should hope not.

There’s more to sex than mere skin on skin. Sex is as much spiritual mystery as physical fact. As written in Scripture, The two become one. Since we want to become spiritually one with the Master, we must not pursue the kind of sex that avoids commitment and intimacy, leaving us more lonely than ever—the kind of sex that can never help us become one. Sexual sins are different from all others. In sexual sin we violate the sacredness of our own bodies, these bodies that were made for God-given and God-modeled love—for becoming one with another. Or didn’t you realize that your body is a sacred place, the place of the Holy Spirit? Don’t you see that you can’t live however you please, squandering what God paid such a high price for? The physical part of you is not some piece of property belonging to the spiritual part of you. God owns the whole works. So let people see God in and through your body.

(1 CORINTHIANS 6:13–20, MSG)

However, despite what Scripture says, people (Christian or not) are going to have sex. We find our reasons and justifications. The faith-minded might rationalize that waiting doesn’t apply if you’re dating the one you believe you’re going to marry. Physically, we need and want sex, and it’s just hard to resist those hormones. Socially, even the mention of going without sex is met with snickers and stares.

There’s nothing wrong with sex or sexuality. God created both for the enjoyment of married couples. But for too long, there’s been an ugly stigma associated with sex, the church, and where it all fits in the reality of the world we live in. Our hope is that we can finally open up a healthy dialogue that resonates with you and everyone who reads it. We would like this book to become a positive cultural conversation starter as we all strive to live our God-given destiny with emotional, spiritual, and physical health. We’re not sex experts and this isn’t a book about religious reasons not to have sex. It’s our story, and we want to share what has worked for us.

When we took sex off the table, our minds were clearer, our access to God was crisper, and we were able to make better decisions in other important areas of our relationship that weren’t related to sex at all. Once we did that, we saw that applying The Wait to other aspects of relationships could really be beneficial, too. The Wait is about getting control of your life, reducing the dating drama, and avoiding desperate relationship choices so that you can make better decisions about your future.

ANSWERS TO THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS

We know many people who have struggled with finding not only lasting happiness in their relationships but also peace within themselves. The two are of a piece: until you know and love yourself, it’s hard to find anyone else to love you the way you deserve. The practice of waiting—choosing to wait for sex and denying instant gratification so that you can see clearly, make better decisions, and position yourself for blessings—is the key to finding not just happiness but spirit-deep fulfillment.

We live in a culture addicted to the quick hookup, the miracle cure, and the overnight sensation. The Wait is the remedy for that addiction.

With all its ups and downs, our love story is a bit like a rom-com movie of its own. We’re going to share them with you: first meetings, shocking surprises, tantalizing signs, embarrassing twists, and a stirring resolution. To know that God had us in mind for each other all along and was waiting patiently for us to listen to him is thrilling and humbling at the same time.

The process of waiting was the key to our storybook beginning. The Wait isn’t just a matter of stopping, sitting on the couch, and saying, Okay, Lord, bless me. There’s a lot more to it. Waiting has nothing to do with lying back and hoping that good things find you. It’s about putting aside distractions, using your gifts, and becoming someone God can trust to bless with great opportunities and wonderful people.

Discovering this powerful process has brought us the kind of authentic, deep joy that comes with knowing we are truly meant to be