Ep. 115: Criticism and Chaos: They're Keeping You from Your Boaz

In this episode, Michelle talks about two patterns that keep Christian women stuck in dating: criticism and chaos. 

If you keep blaming men, dating apps, your church, your city, or God’s timing while showing up inconsistent, overwhelmed, and hard to pursue, you may be blocking the very love you’re praying for. 

Through the story of Ruth and Boaz, Michelle shows why wise counsel, humility, steadiness, and strategic movement matter for women who want to marry well. 

Michelle Joiner is a Christian dating strategist for discerning Christian women. 

She helps successful single women become unmistakable to the kind of godly, high-caliber man who is ready to choose a wife.

Her clients do not just get dates or attention. They become chosen, cherished, and married well.

To learn more, visit:

thechristiandatingcoach.com

Transcript

Whether the kind of man you want enters your story comes down to just one thing: whether he recognizes you as his when he finds you. I am Michelle Joiner, the Christian dating coach. This is a podcast for single Christian women ready to marry well. It's time 

Today's episode is going to be short, direct, and maybe a little bit spicy because I wanna talk about two things that very likely are keeping you from meeting, recognizing, being recognized, and building something real with the kind of man you've been praying for. Those two things are criticism and chaos.

I don't believe every man is wonderful. I don't believe [00:01:00] every dating app is easy. And I definitely don't believe every church has a thriving community of marriage-minded Christian men. Location matters sometimes. I believe that. These are very real obstacles in dating. But if you keep blaming, criticizing, creating negativity in your heart that the entire problem is on men and apps, your church, your city, your age, God's timing, God's love for you, you may miss the part of the story where God is asking you to become more honest, more intentional, better at relationships, more skilled in how you talk to people, more stable, more available for the thing you say you want So today we're gonna talk about criticism and chaos.

[00:02:00] Criticism is when you stand outside the process and judge everything that is wrong from the outside. Chaos is when you say you want love, but your life, the way you communicate, the way you schedule, your emotions and follow-through make you difficult to pursue. And I want to bring this back to Ruth and Boaz.

Ruth did not get a Boaz outcome with a passive, critical, chaotic process. And a lot of Christian women and men want the Ruth-Boaz outcome, but they do not want the Ruth-Boaz process. They wanna be found, but they are not in the field. They wanna be pursued, but they are not showing up in a way that makes pursuit easy.

So let's start with criticism. [00:03:00] Criticism sounds like there's no good men left. Dating apps don't work. My church just, it's just not a great church. There's nobody there that I'd wanna be with. All the men in my city are immature. This city is full of immature men. Christian men are passive. Men only want younger women.

At my age, there's just no options. The people on the apps are shallow. Are some of these complaints based on real experiences? Of course. I'm not asking you to pretend dating has never disappointed you, but there is a difference between discernment and criticism, between a discerning heart and a critical heart.

And I'll be honest, when I was single, I had a critical heart. Men weren't reading the Bible enough. Men weren't committed to serving in the church enough. And I had to look at my own heart [00:04:00] and realize that I needed more grace. Discernment says, "This man is not aligned, so I'm going to move on." But it doesn't judge him.

It doesn't make him wrong. It doesn't say, "See, this is why men are the problem." And discernment may say, "This app requires a better strategy from me, from myself. It's my responsibility to come up with a better strategy." As you can see, discernment moves, and criticism circles. And many women feel like they're discerning when actually they're circling, and they just keep replaying the same complaints, and nothing changes.

And the more evidence they gather, the less warm, the less hopeful, the less available, and the less approachable they become. And then they wonder why good men do not [00:05:00] feel drawn in. Here's the truth: a critical woman is difficult to approach. You can even see sometimes by looking at a woman's photo, you can see the critical spirit.

You can see it in the way that she's holding herself, and the way that she stands, and the way that her face looks. You can see a critical spirit, even if she's beautiful, even if she's successful, even if she loves Jesus, even if she says she wants marriage. Her energy will say, "Prove to me you're not like the rest of them."

And she's not creating the atmosphere where a good man can easily move toward her. I think the reality is that sometimes we think we're testing men for character, but really, we're judging new men by the sins of old men, and that's, that's pain. That's [00:06:00] pain that we need to heal Now let's talk about chaos because some women are, are critical, but some of them are not only critical, they are chaotic.

And I don't mean that they're not successful and, uh, don't have full lives. I work with successful women. A full calendar is not the problem. The problem is when your life is so reactive, overextended, or disordered that you do not actually have room to date well. Your life can be full, but you have to make room to date well.

You say you want marriage, but you don't have time to reply to a text or a dating app message. You say you want intentional dating, but you cancel your dates. You say you want a godly man, but you are not consistent That matters. That matters a [00:07:00] lot to a high-caliber godly man because dating is not just about being attractive.

It's about demonstrating what it would feel like to be in a relationship with you. If a man experiences you as chaotic in the beginning, he may not think, "Wow, this woman just needs support." He may think instead, "This woman is not available for a stable relationship." And high-caliber men do not want to pull instability into their lives.

That doesn't mean you are unworthy. It doesn't mean that your life has to be perfect, but it does mean you need to stop pretending that chaos has no cost. Chaos has a cost. Being undependable has a cost. If someone can't trust you to follow [00:08:00] through, if you can't make time for someone, it will cost you momentum, and good men are looking for a partnership, not another adult they have to manage or be written into their appointment calendar.

I know that might sting, but think about the kind of man you say you want. You want him to be stable. You want him to show up consistently and be intentional. You want him to make time for you and communicate clearly and follow through. That's beautiful. Now, the question is, does your life signal that you are ready to partner with that kind of man, or does your life signal that you are still living in emergency mode?

Boaz was not just a nice man. Boaz was a man of substance. He had properties. He had workers. He had leadership. [00:09:00] He had reputation. He had steadiness. And he noticed Ruth Ruth was not chaotic. Even though she was grieving, even though she was vulnerable, poor, an outsider, she was not chaotic. She was guided and diligent, responsive.

She positioned herself clearly. She wasn't scattered, and she showed up willing to do the next right thing. That is very different. And this is where some women get offended because they hear this and think, "So now I have to be perfect to get married." No, you don't have to be perfect, but you do have to become honest.

Honest about what criticism is costing you, honest about what chaos is communicating [00:10:00] Honest about whether you are truly available for the marriage you keep asking God for. Because we have a responsibility here. We have a responsibility to make this a priority and spend some hard time preparing ourselves to call in the type of man that we wanna spend the rest of our lives with.

You can be extraordinary and still not be positioned for that to be seen clearly. You can be beautiful,

but inaccessible because you're critical. You can want marriage and still not be moving like a woman who is available to be found. And that's the part I want you to see. Many women do not need more time. They need more direction. More time with the same critical spirit will not get you married. [00:11:00] More time allowing the same chaos will not get you married.

More time on the apps with the same photos or the same types of photos, same types of prompts, same energy, same complaints, same inconsistent follow-through will probably give you the same result. And I wanna say, as much as we can get frustrated with the apps, the reality is, is that most people just don't know how to use them.

So you may be calling your extended singleness just God's timing, but maybe it's not God's timing. Maybe it's your process, your posture, your positioning. Maybe it's a thing you're refusing to see. This is good news, by the way . Because if the whole problem is men, you are powerless. Your city, if that was the whole problem, you would be powerless.

If the whole problem was the dating apps are against me, then you would be powerless. But you [00:12:00] can do something about this. You can stop criticizing, interrupt the chaos, become more intentional, get counsel, and move differently. That is when you'll become easier to recognize, easier to pursue, easier to trust, easier to build with.

That is not weakness. That is wisdom. A high-caliber woman is not a woman with no problems. A high-caliber woman is a woman who can look at her patterns and tell the truth. She can say, "I've been blaming others. I've been calling myself busy But I'm ready to change That woman can move. That woman can marry well.

And when you're ready to stop circling and start moving with counsel, strategy, and direction, come closer through my work at The Christian Dating Coach. I help single, [00:13:00] successful Christian women marry well. I'll see you next time You don't want to keep waiting. You're ready for something real. I'm Michelle Joiner. Let's get you married well.