Devon Franklin The Wait Quotes

Making sure that each of us ends up with the people we are meant to be with is important to the Lord, so He takes His time making sure that the circumstances are right.

Home is about the person more than the place. Our marriage is our home, and it fills us back up when the world drains us.

we wanted God’s very best for our lives, collectively and individually, and we wanted it in whatever way He intended. This required patience.

When we chase the high of instant gratification, we make choices that for many reasons are irresponsible and based on poor reasoning . . . or no reasoning at all. It takes time and self-control to take in information, let people reveal their true character, be consistent and disciplined, and give conflicts time to work themselves out. Delaying gratification means working at becoming more self-aware and humble enough to admit that our first impulses aren’t always smart ones. Let

Unconditional love means accepting someone for who they are now, not who you hope they will be one day. People

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.

Change is always difficult, which is why people so often retreat into the familiar even when the familiar is awful and depressing. That’s why we get back together with our exes even if things ended the last time in screaming and broken glass. It’s why we go out with the same friends even when we know they bring out the worst in us. We crave familiarity,

Waiting gives you better knowledge of your partner. When you’re not blinded by lust

a meaningful life’s purpose—becomes truly possible. You grow into someone of greater wisdom, discernment, self-awareness, compassion, and empathy, and it’s incredible how everything falls into place. It’s as though God was always just around the corner, waiting to bless you when you found your way onto the right path.

Waiting helps you think clearly. Sex clouds judgment and gives rise to self-delusions. One of the big reasons our relationship is so strong today is that when we were dating, we couldn’t fall back on sex when talking got tough. When you’re seeking God and you’re focused on whatever you’re supposed to be doing, you see yourself and the other person clearly. Our intimacy was about conversation, connection, friendship, and falling in love with each other without it having to be about sex.

Devon Franklin Oprah: One of the things that you say that really struck me is that if we look at our life as a movie and God as the director of our movie, then we use our faith to help propel us forward in trusting in the director, correct? Devon Franklin: Yes. Absolutely. Because what I realized is that sometimes we, in the most difficult times in our story, we begin to lose faith. Oprah: And start to think we’re in control of things. But all it takes is one wrong turn and we quickly remember that’s just not true. Here is what I love. You say: “The truth is, you and I are in control of only two things: how we prepare for what might happen, and how we respond to what just happened. The moment when things actually do happen belongs to God.” Devon: Amen. Oprah: Brilliant. Brilliant. Devon: It’s true. Because what happens is, the moments when things happen in our life, we don’t control. In a moment, life can change for the better or what in the moment may seem for the worse. So our job is to prepare. Oprah: Prepare for only two things. Devon: That’s right. Oprah: Prepare for what might happen. And then how we respond to what has happened. Devon: That’s right. Because so many times what keeps us in that valley of depression, what keeps us in that valley of frustration, is our response to a moment and not recognizing that it is exactly that. It’s a moment. It’s one scene of your movie. And what makes a great movie are scenes that are put together of great conflict. Oprah: Okay. You also say: “The key is remembering your story. The spiritual journey parallels the steps involved in bringing a movie from the initial idea to theatrical release.” Devon: Yes. Oprah: So you start with the kernel of an idea, a process known as development and production. And development begins when you have the first vision of what you can be, correct? Devon: Exactly. You can’t write a movie unless you know what the movie is supposed to be about. That’s what development is. Sometimes we get so frustrated in our lives, but we have to go back and say, “Wait a minute. Do I understand what the big idea of my life is supposed to be?” If my life is a story, then I have to know the point of my story. And sometimes what happens when we start developing a movie, the producers may have one vision of what the movie is supposed to be and the studio has another version and then the movie becomes nothing because there’s no clarity. So with our life, we have to have clarity of what we’re supposed to do. What do we believe we’re called to do in this life? And then that way it gives our whole development process more shape.

You grow into someone of greater wisdom, discernment, self-awareness, compassion, and empathy, and it’s incredible how everything falls into place. It’s as though God was always just around the corner, waiting to bless you when you found your way onto the right path.

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).

Programmed to be stubbornly self-reliant, men rebel against the notion that waiting will allow God to bring them what they want. Either that, or they don’t feel worthy of what God’s got in mind, so they go out and make their own “life.” Career, possessions, and sex will not bring peace. Love, purpose, connection, joy—those are things only God can bring us, and for him to do that, we’ve got to slow down long enough to see what’s in our path. Men crave motion; waiting requires being still and listening. If men can find a

way to quell that restlessness and weakness of faith long enough to stop and pay attention, they’ll see God work wonders in their lives.

The Wait is one of the most powerful tools you’ll ever have for getting what you really want out of life because it creates the path for you to become the best version of yourself. When this happens, getting what you want most out of life—the love of your life, a wonderful family, a prosperous career, and

Waiting honors God’s timing and methods. The way God brings you a person can be as important as the person. It’s important to have clarity of thought so you can see

how God does what He does.

or the counterfeit intimacy that can come with premarital sex, you can see the person you’re dating for who they are.

The self-esteem of western women is founded on physical being (body mass index, youth, beauty). This creates a tricky emphasis on image, but the internalized locus of self-worth saves lives. Western men are very different. In externalizing the source of their self-esteem, they surrender all emotional independence. (Conquest requires two parties, after all.) A man cannot feel like a man without a partner, corporation, team. Manhood is a game played on the terrain of opposites. It thus follows that male sense of self disintegrates when the Other is absent.