Why you're still single...

+ Coffee Shop Contest, Intimate Detail From My Proposal, and More...

FREE COFFEE ANYONE?

If you haven’t heard, Royal Blue Grocery shut down on Sunday, June 27th. RIP. It was my favorite coffee shop that I went to almost every Saturday morning for two years and my friends and I are on a search for a new favorite. If you send me one that we end up selecting, I’ll venmo you for a free coffee on me!

While we’re on the subject of coffee shops, here are a few of my go-to’s in DTX that you can’t include in your suggestions:

• Merit Coffee (Oak Lawn or Deep Ellum)

• Civil Pour (Walnut Hill)

• Foxtrot Market (University Park)

• Native Coffee (Addison)

• Summermoon (Frisco, TX)

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An Intimate Detail From My Proposal I Didn’t Share On Instagram…

I know what you’re thinking…

How in the world is this guy going to bring us here to talk about singleness and then rub his proposal in our face.” And I just want to say. THAT AIN’T IT.

Part of my hope here is to give my subscribers a more intimate and raw look into my life that I haven’t shared with everyone else. And reality is, my engagement is a big part of my life right now.

So, if we know each other from Instagram, you know that I recently got engaged to Miss Jennah Brey. (Who just moved to Dallas from Northwest Arkansas) But what you might not know is part of my proposal was reading her a list titled,

“10 Things Her and I Must Be Before I Take A Knee”.

And I thought it could be fun to share them with all of you. So here they are:

She must be…

1. Able to start a family YouTube page one day to make crazy music videos for the rest of our lives. (Had to start off light to help with the nerves haha)

2. Willing to be right by my side running into the wild future adventures that God will call us into.

3. Someone my dad would be proud to call his daughter. And Jennah, I know my dad would’ve absolutely adored you. (This was a very emotional moment)

4. Excited to raise up the next generation of young men and women together to point them to Jesus for the rest of our lives.

5. Absolutely…Positively…Without a doubt…in love with God above all else.

I must be…

6. Able to protect, provide, and prioritize you for the rest of my life.

7. Willing to stay up and watch survivor with you… (She weirdly loves that show)

8. Someone you’re eager to follow into whatever God calls us to.

9. Excited to champion and make your wildest dreams come true.

10. Absolutely…Positively…Without a doubt… in love with God above all else…and in love with you. (This was the first time I told her I loved her)

Part of my hope in sharing this is to make sure that both men and women reading this never settle for “good”. Commit right now to finding what’s best. Not by your standards or the world’s, but the Lords.

Okay, moving on.

Now on to why we’re actually here…

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Why You’re Still Single

Disclaimer: Please read these as helpful thought-provoking tools, not absolute facts. Obviously, I don’t know why you’re still single because I don’t know you. Also, I don’t want this idea to come off as being single is a negative thing. But if you consider yourself someone who is in a healthy place to be dating, these are some blindspots I’ve noticed in young adults that I thought would be helpful to bring attention to.

So, here we go…

#1: You’re too picky.

Imma be real. I think standards are a good thing. I’ve seen so many people get hurt over and over again because they didn’t have high enough standards for the person they were with. However, our standards can never exceed the Lords and some of you have way too high of standards and what’s funny is, YOU DON’T EVEN HOLD YOURSELF TO THE LEVEL THAT YOU HOLD YOUR IMAGINATION SIGNIFICANT OTHER TO! So, honestly evaluate right now. Do you want your person to be a certain height? Six Pack? Personality type? Small Waist? Certain color hair? What happens when they get in a car wreck, can no longer work out, and gain 70 pounds? You still in? You still gonna love them the same? Now obviously this person needs to take care of themselves…but you have to make sure your “type” isn’t keeping you from God’s best. Here’s another thought regarding people who’s standards are too high and specific…How highly do you have to think of yourself to scan a room determining which person is hott enough for you to approach and want to get to know? You must think you’re pretty hott stuff. And if that’s true, that means your pride may be in the way of you ever finding love. It also shows you’re more concerned about what’s on the outside than the inside and that will eventually show itself. Don’t lower your standards, but reprioritize them. God’s best is what’s best. Not your idea of best.

#2: You’re not available.

This one’s pretty simple. Are you available? Are you out and about? Are you dressing and acting presentable to people of the opposite sex? Do you strike conversations? Do you create spaces and times for you to be around other singles? People can’t get to know you if you don’t give them a chance to. When we graduate college and are single it’s easy to build a lifestyle independently. Which isn’t crazy, you’ve gotta take care of yourself. But if you are waking up, work, work out, cook dinner, netflix, scroll social media, sleep, repeat…Then how is anyone ever going to be able to ask you out or get to know you? Also, when you do make yourself available, are you in the right places with the right people when you are present? If the only time you go out is girls brunch or downtown on Friday night… Probably not going to have the best chance of meeting someone worth marrying. I believe the best solution to this is going all in with your young adult ministry at your church (Specifically serving) Don’t have one near you? Want to be married? Move to Dallas. haha Availability brings possibility.

#3: You’re not taking care of yourself.

I want to be sensitive yet truthful on this one. We all need truth-tellers. People who care about us enough to tell us the truth. Even when it hurts and is hard…trusting that their ultimate goal is for our good and out of love. I think, for many different reasons, people have lost drive to take care of themselves. And part of a relationship is helping take care of another person. So, if someone is evaluating you as a potential S/O and you don’t seem to take care of yourself…they may be prone to think, “how can this person help me if they don’t care enough to help themselves?”. Now, I don’t mean being what culture defines as “taking care of yourself”, but rather God’s Word. We are the temple of God and the Holy Spirit dwells inside of us. Which means we have a responsibility as ambassadors to represent him to the lost world. We are also called to a great purpose and a mission to tell the world about Jesus. Therefore, our ultimate desire to be healthy, live healthy, and take care of ourselves both physically and spiritually is not motivated to win a spouse, but to win souls for the kingdom of God. When you begin to see your life with such purpose and mission, something happens to you. Joy exudes out of you. Your body thanks you. Your attitude changes. Energy rises. And suddenly you become someone that attracts people. People love confidence. People love security. People love someone who knows who they are and walks confidently in who God created them to be. So, my challenge to you is to evaluate your health physically, emotionally, and spiritually and do what it takes to become all God intended for you to be. For me, I’ve recently started intermittent fasting. I’ve also stopped watching Netflix and drinking alcohol for a season. All for different reasons, but also to make sure that I am doing everything I can to walk in my purpose and to take care of myself so I can take care of business for the Kingdom of God and take care of others.

#4: You’re looking in all the wrong places.

I’ll keep these next two short and sweet. The place determines the people. Want trash? Hang out by the dumpster. So many people want to find the right person, yet look for them in all the wrong places. You should filter all of your dating decisions through the Church. Are they a part of a Church? Are they plugged into a Church? Do they serve at their Church? Do they have community speaking into their life and decisions? Want a Christ-like person? Hang out where Christ-like people are. The Church. Don’t have any at your church? Move churches.

#5: You’re not letting the right people speak into your life.

Evaluate right now who you let speak into your dating life. Do they want you to be happy or do they want you to be Godly? We cannot let the pursuit of happiness override the pursuit of Godliness. Say it with me:

Godly > Happy.

If you want to make Godly decisions, then you need grounded Godly people speaking into them. Never date in private. (Proverbs 18:1) Happiness comes and goes, that’s why we don’t make it the goal. If the people currently speaking into your decisions are, “If that makes you happy, do it.” types of people…Change your people. Good friends want what God wants for you more than what you want for you. Sometimes, we can be our worst enemy, so we need to give Godly people a very loud voice into our lives and dating decisions.

#6: You’re obsessed with not being single.

Have you ever met someone controlling? Did you know most people who struggle with control are because they are obsessed with the thing they’re trying to control? This is why, usually, people don’t mean to be controlling…because in their mind, they just really really love a person and they want what’s best for them. But controlling a person is never what’s best for them. Why do I start there? When someone is obsessed with not being single, it shows itself through control. You manipulate situations, you come off thirsty in DM’s, you are blowing up texts, you are going out as much as you can to meet as many people as you can…And when you finally meet someone that agrees to date you, you’re so obsessed with staying out of singleness rather than staying with that person that you begin to control everything about that relationship to remain in it. At first your S/O is like, “wow! This person really cares about me this is awesome!” But eventually, you become overbearing, they feel trapped, and they move on. And then, your reputation becomes the person that hops from one relationship to the next. Why? Because you weren’t content in your singleness. If you don’t learn how to be content in singleness and in your relationship with God, you will never be content in the next season. You’ve gotta learn to stop obsessing over a relationship with a person, and obsess over your relationship with Jesus in this time of singleness.

#7: God’s not done with you.

As cliche as this sounds, I often times equate the season of singleness with the season of the Israelites traveling in the wilderness. The problem was not the wilderness, it was their perspective. God wanted to teach them something in the wilderness before he took them to the promise. Not a bunch of rules or hard things, but simply trust in his goodness and timing. You CAN thrive in the desert with God, just like you CAN thrive in singless…with GOD. For the Israelites, he wanted to show them how no matter how good life gets or what season of life was to come, they are in desperate need of him. And for Himself, He wanted to show them that if they would trust Him, He would always provide their every need. They didn’t need the promise land flowing of milk and honey, they needed him. Just like we don’t need marriage to be happy, we simply need Him. God wanted to produce something in them during the wilderness so he could do something through them in the promise land. But as the story goes, they didn’t choose to see the wilderness as an amazing opportunity to trust God, worship God, and be developed by God, therefore, when they got to the promise land…life eventually got worse. Don’t let this be your story. If you are single, see this season as an opportunity to let God teach you about yourself and Himself so you can one day be the best you can be for a potential future spouse (if that’s what God would have) and others.

That’s all I got! Helpful?

Make sure to share and send to your friends so they can be a part of the next release in August, “What makes an amazing friend?”

Love you guys!