Learn to Embrace the Wait

I’ve said it before, but it’s worth repeating.

When we bring the desires of our hearts before God, His answer often seems to come in one of three forms: Go. No. Or slow.

“Go” is obviously my favorite.

Over the years, I’ve even learned to accept a clear “no.”

But “slow”?

That one is still hard for me.

Patience has never exactly been my spiritual superpower.

I’m more of a ready, shoot, aim kind of guy.

When I see the wave, I want to paddle.

When I see the door, I want to run through it.

But sometimes God is preparing a place for us.

Sometimes He is preparing us for a place.

And sometimes He is doing both.

South Africa has been both for me.

As I start writing this, I’m on a plane headed toward Turkey, and from there, Cape Town.

I can hardly believe I just typed those words.

It only took 37 years.

A dream older than Christafari

Long before Christafari ever toured the world, South Africa occupied a huge place in my heart.

Look at the cover of our first officially manufactured Christafari cassette, Tribal Warning, and you’ll see African imagery that reflected that fascination.

As a teenager, I was captivated by African culture.

Shaka Zulu was one of my favorite warriors.

I made African-inspired jewelry, collected artifacts and artwork, loved listening to Ladysmith Black Mambazo, and even tried learning the click sounds used by the !Kung people of Southern Africa.

But there was something much deeper happening too.

I was becoming increasingly aware of apartheid.

Growing up in upper-class Palos Verdes, California, I was geographically and culturally a world away from South Africa.

Yet something inside me could not accept the idea that the color of someone’s skin should determine where they could live, where they could go, or how they would be treated.

Looking back, I believe that compassion was Christ working in me.

The one time I remember ditching school during my senior year was not to go surfing or hang out with friends.

I marched on the South African Embassy to protest apartheid and call for Nelson Mandela’s freedom.

Around that same time, I worked at a tiny mom-and-pop video store that was slowly being put out of business by Blockbuster Video.

Business was so slow that I spent countless hours watching movies.

And what did I watch?

Over and over again, films and documentaries about South Africa and the struggle against apartheid.

Reggae only poured gasoline on that fire.

It seemed like every artist at the time had at least one song calling to “abolish apartheid” and “free Mandela!”

One of my favorite reggae artists on earth was South Africa’s own Lucky Dube.

I had the privilege of sharing the stage with him at Reggae on the River and, over the years, giving him Bibles backstage at his concerts.

In an incredible connection, our former sound engineer and tour manager later went on to manage Lucky, one of the world’s best-selling reggae artists, before he was tragically killed during an attempted carjacking in Johannesburg in 2007.

South Africa seemed to keep circling my life.

But I never got there.

Year after year.

Tour after tour.

Nation after nation.

No South Africa.

27 Years

Perhaps that is one reason Nelson Mandela’s story hits me differently today.

Mandela became one of the leading figures in the fight against South Africa’s apartheid system of legalized racial segregation and white-minority rule.

Arrested in 1962 and later convicted of sabotage, he spent more than 27 years in prison, including 18 on Robben Island.

Released in 1990, he became South Africa’s first democratically elected president four years later.

Think about that transformation.

Prisoner to president.

More than 27 years of waiting.

I waited 37 years to finally set foot in South Africa, but I was free the entire time.

Mandela waited behind prison walls.

During this trip, I hope we can visit Robben Island.

As a homeschooling father, I especially want Ziza to see it and learn the history for herself.

But maybe the lesson I most want her to remember cannot be learned from a textbook:

A long wait does not mean the story is over.

Sometimes the chapter that feels like the end is only preparation for what comes next.

What is God preparing?

Scripture says:

“He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver.”

Malachi 3:3

There’s an old Christian illustration about that verse:

A silversmith carefully watches the silver as it is heated and purified, knowing it is free from impurities only when he can finally see his reflection in it.

Isn’t that a beautiful picture?

Maybe that is what some of our waiting is about.

We keep praying, “Lord, when?”

And perhaps He is saying, “I’m still working.”

Maybe He is changing the circumstances around us.

Maybe He is removing something from us.

Maybe He is putting something into us.

Perhaps He is preparing the place.

Surely He is preparing us.

Could it be that He is waiting until more of His reflection can be seen in us?

Waiting for the wave

Surfing has taught me something similar.

You cannot manufacture a wave.

You can paddle harder.

You can position yourself better.

You can study the ocean.

You can prepare your board.

But eventually, you have to wait.

And a surfer who spends the whole session angry that the next wave hasn’t arrived will miss the beauty of sitting in the very ocean he came there to enjoy.

I’m learning what I would call peaceful expectancy.

It is not passive.

It is not giving up.

It is preparing faithfully while trusting God with the timing.

Paddle when it’s time to paddle.

Stand when it’s time to stand.

But don’t try to create the wave.

The hardest kind of waiting

Some waiting is exciting.

Other waiting is heartbreaking.

My dear friend Brian recently lost his wife, Sherilyn, of 41 years in a tragic car accident.

There are no clever words that can make the pain of that separation hurt any less.

For those who trust in Christ, however, death does not get the final word.

There is a reunion coming.

That is the ultimate Christian hope.

We are all waiting for something infinitely greater than a tour, a dream, a breakthrough, or even a lifetime here on earth.

We are waiting for Christ.

We are waiting for resurrection.

We are waiting for the day when sorrow and death are finally gone.

And Scripture says:

“But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.”

Romans 8:25

37 years later...

Christafari recently celebrated our 37th anniversary.

After roughly 91 nations, South Africa was still missing from our story.

Until now.

As you read this, we have finally arrived in Cape Town, a little jetlagged but incredibly grateful to be here.

We will be ministering in several places and sharing Christ at a massive festival over three nights.

Our first South African mission.

Hopefully the first of many.

I still don’t know why God allowed this particular dream to take 37 years.

Maybe the team wasn’t ready.

Maybe I wasn’t ready.

Maybe the opportunities weren’t ready.

Maybe all of the above.

But I know this:

God’s “not now” is not necessarily God’s “not ever.”

So if you are waiting right now, don’t waste the wait.

Let God work.

Let Him refine you.

Keep paddling into position.

Keep praying.

Keep preparing.

Keep trusting.

Because sometimes the very thing you thought God had forgotten is something He has been preparing all along.

Thirty-seven years ago, South Africa was a dream.

Today, I’m finally here.

“Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD.”

Psalm 27:14

Whatever you are waiting for today, remember:

Go. No. Or slow.

And when His answer is slow…

Learn to embrace the wait in peaceful anticipation.

Until all have heard,