Luke’s Notebook

What a difference five years makes. Amazing!

This comes from a young, single male. I thought I would give you a small glimpse into the mind of a single 22-year-old guy, just in case you were ever wondering what to shoot for. I hope this is beneficial.

Dear Young, Single Female,

If you are wondering what it will take for me to like you…

Take care to look gorgeous — like very gorgeous. By all means, be in great physical shape. Use makeup to produce that beautiful, blemish-free face. Wear something that will really grab my attention, even if it’s a little suggestive. Do all you can to become picture-perfect. Be very friendly, and maybe even a little flirty towards me. It doesn’t hurt to advertise a little bit.

Follow these instructions, and there’s a real good chance that you’ll get me to like you.

If you are wondering what it will take for me to love you…

First, forget all about my first answer.

Make me respect you. Make me admire you. Strive to become a beautiful woman on the inside. Cling to God and let His love radiate through you. Although it’s important and certainly has its place, do not be too concerned about your physical appearance. First and foremost, strive to be a knockout on the inside.

Be humble. Be confident. Be genuine. Don’t compromise. Don’t worry about the latest fads, the latest trends. Stick to the truth, just because it’s the truth. Don’t try to be anything that you’re not. Don’t try to impress me. Just be who you are, as a young woman following God.

Have a servant’s heart. Forget about yourself and your wants, but just focus on others. Live as if their needs were more important than yours, and honestly believe that.

It’s still important to be physically fit and to be attractive, but these need to be secondary to your unwavering love for Jesus. I know the culture is screaming at you to pull out all the stops in making yourself as pleasing to the eye as possible. Please, please don’t buy into it. Don’t think you need to go tanning, bleach your teeth, or wear a ton of makeup. I want to love you for you, as imperfect as you may feel. Keep in mind that I’m human, too. I want to be amazed by you, not by your potential as a cover girl.

Also, remember your worth. Let me apologize on behalf of all modern-day men for the cheap way that the culture looks at women. It’s really awful, and I know it’s not true. Help break that lie. Don’t sell yourself short. Let me fight to reach your high standards. Make me pay the high price in order to win you. Dare to find out if it’s true that there really is somebody worth waiting for.

This will take a lot of patience, a lot of self-control, and a lot of courage. But understand that those are three of the qualities that will just make me all the more amazed by you.

Finally, don’t try too hard. Have faith that I’ll find you, and that you won’t have to manipulate anything. Trust God, that if you are faithfully living in obedience to Him, He will take care of the rest. Don’t worry about what kind of guy-catching power you’re going to have. As strange as it sounds, the less it looks like you are

trying to compete, the more appealing you’re going to be to me. Just focus on fulfilling your regular day-to-day responsibilities. God will orchestrate this if we let Him.

It is very true that a woman of this caliber is rare. But so are diamonds. Dare to turn yourself into this kind of a woman, and just see if I won’t give it all away for that one precious jewel.

Follow these instructions, and there is a real good chance that you’ll find me honestly wondering just how it is that God has blessed me with such an incredible young lady.I hope this helps.

Sincerely,

Luke Arndt

Thank You, God, for blessing me with such a wonderful mom.

It’s amazing how… lost our culture can be. So many people claim to believe in God, but yet so few act like it. So many people want to be tolerant of other religions, other beliefs, and don’t want to be judgmental by stating an absolute truth — i.e., defining right and wrong.

But what if there is truth? That would mean that somebody is right and somebody is wrong. But it seems people don’t bother to think about that. It doesn’t make sense, though. I mean, wouldn’t it be worth it to explore this, to test this, to find out if there really is one objective truth?

You’d think so. I mean, it makes sense, and it is especially important when you think about the claims of Christianity -’ namely, that we’re all sinners and destined for hell if not for the blood of Jesus. So, wouldn’t that be worth exploring?

But, no, that would be intolerant. It’s not nice to say Religion A is better than Religion B. Yet people are encouraged to have ’some religion’ or ’some spirituality.’ This is ridiculous, because you can bow down to a box of rocks and have people lauding you or respecting you for having your own personal belief system, even if you’re dead wrong.

It’s frustrating. What do you do? It’s amazing how open-minded our culture is, and it’s so clear how dangerous that is. We’re no longer allowed to have rights and wrongs ‘- to each his own! Of course, everyone agrees that certain things are absolutes, but other former absolutes are suddenly’ and conveniently’ a matter of personal conviction.

We are creating our own gods. No matter that they don’t actually exist, yet we’re able to come up with our own special religion that agrees with our lifestyle. Let’s modify Christianity to condone homosexuality. Or how about to condone abortion? It is incredibly arrogant, yet that’s what so many people do.

Are we no longer allowed to call a spade a spade? Can we not refer to an objective standard — say, the Bible -’ and draw our moral guidelines from that? It’s no different than seeing a ‘Wrong Way’ sign on a highway, yet nobody is allowed to point it out; nobody’s allowed to say that going the wrong way is wrong.

It’s crazy. One thing that puzzles me is when people are tolerant towards all ‘religions.’ They contradict each other! According to the Bible, it’s a sin — deserving of condemnation — to worship any other god. So Christianity is exclusive, as there are crystal-clear truths spelled out. Therefore, anything that disagrees with that is, by simple definition, untrue.

I love the truth. I do not intend to modify it to fit my preferences. Excuse me if I sound intolerant, but what if there really is one right answer? That would mean the rest, no matter how intriguing they may be, are wrong. It’s really that simple.

So even if somebody’s not a Christian or is not sure of what they believe, isn’t it worth it to find out? Anybody who thinks about it for two seconds will realize that these religions, these beliefs cannot coexist. They contradict each other all over the place.

So if one is right and thus negates all of the others, isn’t it worth it to find out the actual truth? When your eternal future is on the line, you’d sure think so.

Isn’t eyesight amazing? Just… imagine what it would be like to be born blind and then see for the first time. My goodness. How incredible that would be!

If you’re reading this, just stop and thank God that you have the ability to do so! I’ve had over 8,000 days where I have woken up and have opened my eyes. Sadly, probably just .01 percent of those days have I thanked God for this gift of eyesight.

What an amazing gift. Thank You, God, that I can see!

Huh. I haven’t been making many entries lately at all! That’s kind of odd for me, because I would average three or four or five entries a week.

I wonder what gives…