Caleb Reichardt

Moral Superiority Is a Hell of a Drug

Caleb Reichardt — Sun, 19 Apr 2026 20:21:00 GMT

Moral superiority is a hell of a drug. This is why, for instance, you can find endless videos online of guys chasing pedophiles around with cameras and confronting them in public. Not to defend the pedophiles who are unquestionably indefensible, reprehensible, and deserving of the highest forms of punishment (up to and including capital punishment), but I’d be willing to bet that a large percentage of the guys chasing them are a moral mess themselves, yet they’ve latched on to this one vestige of virtue which in their mind supersedes the rest.

The formula goes something like this: Find the most socially unacceptable thing there is, oppose it vehemently, and therefore you are now virtuous. But it doesn’t work like that. That is not virtue. That is called virtue signaling, and virtue signaling is the prime symptom of this drug. It works on the flip side too: Find something acceptable in your social circle—whether that circle be political, religious, etc.—and support it with the same vigor, and boom, you are virtuous. But again, it doesn’t work like that.

This moral superiority, this virtue signaling, shows up not only in guys chasing pedophiles, but in the rainbow-colored corporate logos which desecrate our eyes every June, in the weak-willed men who “support a woman’s right to choose,” in the vaccine evangelists who lambast any dissenters from their rule of faith—the list goes on and on, and it goes on in you and me too, to one extent or another. Where do you feign morality? Perhaps it’s something as simple as hopping on the gossip train, participating in the pile-on of a person who’s done something stupid or shameful when in fact you have done the same thing yourself.

This drug of moral superiority can even possess people to go to extremes, to go so far as to assassinate in cold blood the likes of Charlie Kirk for his faith or former UnitedHealthcare CEO, Brian Thompson, for his business practices. They must show the world that they are taking matters into their own hands, to do what needs to be done—it’s pathetic and almost comical, for they’ve murdered their way to “virtue.” Again, such acts are merely a signaling of virtue, but to signal virtue is to signal a lack of it, as we tend to signal that which we do not have.

The only antidote to this deadly drug—and make no mistake, it will kill you eventually—is Christ. You solve your sense of moral superiority by coming to terms with your actual and utter moral deficiency. This is the way. He is the way. The only way. The only way to go from morally deficient to perfectly sufficient. And here you will not find a high, a fleeting self-satisfaction swamped in delusion; here you will find a true and lasting peace.

Turn off the Radio

Caleb Reichardt — Sun, 01 Sep 2024 17:28:51 GMT

I recently came across this letter from C. S. Lewis in which he attempted to give some general writing advice to an American schoolgirl, and as a writer myself, it resonated instantly, so much so that I felt compelled to offer my own two cents on it, point by point:

1. “Turn off the radio.”

The first point wastes no time getting to the point. “Turn off the radio”—that is to say, turn off the noise. We live in a day and age with an abundance—an over-abundance—of noise. Radio was just the beginning. Now, and since then, it’s TV, podcasts, social media, and the list goes on. Ears listening, eyes watching, fingers twitching—it’s a never-ending loop for many people. None of these things are inherently bad, but if you want to be a serious writer, you must be aware of the noise in your life. Noise is not just what enters our ears but what occupies our minds. And an occupied mind fixed on consumption is strangled of its ability for creation. Ironically, an ever-increasing abundance of noise can essentially occupy us into a state of hearing nothing, seeing nothing, and ultimately doing nothing. Turn off the radio, yes, but for today’s writers: Turn off the phone.

2. “Read all the good books you can, and avoid nearly all magazines.”

Speaking of consumption, in order for a glass to be poured out, it must first be filled up. So consumption, again, is not inherently bad in and of itself; in fact, it’s a necessity because good writing is downstream of good reading—but the key word here is “good.” Just like it’s okay to have a piece of cake from time to time, it’s okay to read a tabloid in the waiting room of the doctor’s office every once in a while. It becomes a problem when you’re consuming that sort of mental junk food on a regular basis; your mind will suffer from it and, in turn, your writing too. Therefore, read all the good books you can, old or new, yet with a bias towards the old, for such books have stood the test of time for reasons worth discovering. Slowly but surely you will be filling up your mental well as it quietly waits to be drawn from for when your mind thirsts for something new.

3. “Always write (and read) with the ear, not the eye. You should hear every sentence you write as if it was being read aloud or spoken. If it does not sound nice, try again.”

You should, in my opinion, not just hear every sentence you write as if it was being read aloud but by actually being read aloud. For our minds are often able to glide over bumps which our lips cannot so easily manage, and you cannot smooth out what you cannot hear. Not to mention that words find their natural end and original power in speech, for God did not write “light” into existence—He spoke it, and there it was. So, formulate your words in your head, put them down on paper, but then test them out in the open air where they are most alive to make sure they have retained their vital nature.

4. “Write about what really interests you, whether it is real things or imaginary things, and nothing else. (Notice this means that if you are interested only in writing you will never be a writer, because you will have nothing to write about...)”

I’ve said before that the writer seeks only to be writing while the author wrote merely to have written. For the true writer, writing is not an end in itself but a means to an end greater than itself. For the true writer, writing is not a noun but a verb. And in order to write, to truly write, you have to have something to write about, and that something needs to grab you; otherwise, it will lose you before you’ve even had time to put pen to paper.

5. “Take great pains to be clear. Remember that though you start by knowing what you mean, the reader doesn't, and a single ill-chosen word may lead him to a total misunderstanding. In a story it is terribly easy just to forget that you have not told the reader something that he wants to know—the whole picture is so clear in your own mind that you forget that it isn't the same in his.”

“A single ill-chosen word”—a single ill-chosen punctuation mark even, I would add, may lead your reader to a total misunderstanding. Clarity is king, and it is achieved by being intentional down to the smallest of strokes. Brevity or verbosity, commas or colons—neither such things are good or bad, right or wrong—each have their place. For there is but one rule in grammar: Don’t confuse your reader. Anything beyond this is pedantry.

6. “When you give up a bit of work don't (unless it is hopelessly bad) throw it away. Put it in a drawer. It may come in useful later. Much of my best work, or what I think my best, is the rewriting of things begun and abandoned years earlier.”

This is important, because I’ve found that I rarely forget what I want to say but rather how I want to say it. Having a vague thought or a faint notion is an everyday thing for everyday people, but the job of a writer is to put into words what people have been thinking all along but could never quite articulate themselves. So when you’ve managed to have a moment of especial clarity, your job is to capture it and keep it. Put it in a drawer or put it in a note on your phone, either way, just put it down somewhere. It may still need to be rewritten, but the real meat of it will be there to work with. And this is also a reminder that good writing can take time, even years of time. But when you’re creating something intended to last, you can afford to take your time.

7. “Don't use a typewriter. The noise will destroy your sense of rhythm, which still needs years of training.”

I don’t actually know what typing on a typewriter is like, so I can’t speak to this one too much (and I’ve no issue with typing on the computer), but what I will say is that there is something about writing by hand that makes me think every writer should incorporate it into their writing in at least some small and regular way.

8. “Be sure you know the meaning (or meanings) of every word you use.”

Writers have been called “wordsmiths,” and my advice is to start acting like one. Words are your metal, the raw material of your craft. And a skilled craftsman must be intimately familiar with the material in his hands in order that he does not mangle his creation. Therefore, make the dictionary your friend and the thesaurus your companion—multiple dictionaries, multiple thesauruses. If, after referencing multiple dictionaries, you still don’t quite understand a word or if, after referencing multiple thesauruses, you still can’t quite choose between two similar words, study the etymology. For etymology takes you from merely knowing the meaning (or meanings) of a word to truly understanding it, and understanding will always provide a better footing for the writing at hand.

Thanks for reading till the end. Interested in reading more from me? If so, you can check out my book, The End of Wisdom, below:

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This Thing Too

Caleb Reichardt — Thu, 18 Jan 2024 12:01:13 GMT

Few words have been more near and dear to my heart over the years than these words from the apostle Paul to the Roman church, in which he says, “For those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.”1 The striking thing about this truth is not that God works things for good, for that is precisely what you would expect a good God to do. The striking thing about this truth is that God works all things for good—not just this thing or that thing, not just big things or small things, not just happy things or sad things, not just former things or future things, but all things. Again: For those who love God—all things—work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose. It’s a striking truth, yet a truth, I fear, that we often take far too lightly, not allowing the weight of it to really hit us.

It’s always easy to apply God’s promises to every unfortunate circumstance but the one we ourselves are currently in. “Yes, God is faithful to all His promises,” we say throughout our lives like good Christians, but the moment the winds start to pick up and the house starts to shake, we often begin to say in our hearts, “Actually, I just don’t know.” The word of God, which was at once an immovable stone, quickly becomes to us a feather tossed by the wind, and we, in turn, are tossed along with it.

There came a point in my life when I became convinced that God says what He means and means what He says, when I decided that I was going to simply take God at His word. I decided that my default hermeneutic would be that of a child’s before that of a scholar’s. If a young boy, for instance, is teetering at the edge of the pool and the boy’s father says, “Jump, I’ll catch you,” you ought to have a compelling reason before telling that boy that his father means otherwise. So when I, a child of God, hear the words of Paul—“all things work together for good”—I take that leap of faith and say to my Father in Heaven who speaks to me through His apostle: “Father, I believe you.” If He says "all things” then He really does mean “all things.” You can be sure that our God has not primarily given us a pile of riddles but a treasure trove of truths, to which we need only say like a foolish yet wise child: “I believe.”

For some time, I took this very truth to heart and sought to put it into practice in my daily life. But it wasn’t until my wife came along that I was able to really capture the sentiment of this daily practice. At some point, with this truth on our minds and with one seemingly unfortunate circumstance in front of us, my wife simply said: “This thing too.”

“But how can this be? How can God actually work all things together for good?” you ask. “How can God work this thing for good?” as you bring to mind your own current state of messy affairs. It’s possible because our God is not a God who merely resides in this corner or that, who merely shows up from time to time; no, it’s possible because of the very fact that our God is a God of “all things.” For with God, “all things are possible.”2 For in God, “all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.”3 For from God, “all things come.”4 For God is “the maker of all things”5 and “the builder of all things.”6 “I know that You can do all things,” said a repentant Job who had been filled with the same kinds of doubts as you and me, “and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.”7

You see, our God, King of the universe, has laid claim over all things in eternity and is exhaustively sovereign over it all still today. So when He says that He works all things together for good, we can say with confidence to anything and everything that comes our way: “This thing too.” Flat tire on the road? This thing too. Loss of employment? This thing too. Harsh word from a stranger? This thing too. Death in the family? This thing too. Whether to battle scars or self-inflicted wounds even, we can say: “This thing too.” And to say any circumstance is too trivial for His promises is to trivialize God Himself, for His sovereignty is not just exhaustive but inexhaustible. Nothing is too grand for Him and nothing too insignificant—He lets nothing go to waste for the good of His children.

Hey, thanks for reading till the end. If you enjoyed it, you may enjoy my new book, The End of Wisdom. Give it a look by tapping the button below:

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All Scripture quotations taken from the Legacy Standard Bible.

Romans 8:28

Matthew 19:26

Colossians 1:16–17

1 Chronicles 29:14

Isaiah 44:24

Hebrews 3:4

Job 42:2

A Fool's Wisdom: III

Caleb Reichardt — Tue, 01 Aug 2023 18:20:27 GMT

The following collection of aphorisms is the third installment. The previous installment can be found here.

Preface

In the spirit of what follows, I’ll try to keep this short. I’ve compiled here a hundred aphorisms of mine in no specific order. For those who don’t know, aphorisms, most simply, are words which convey concisely. To put it another way, it is to take a big idea and place it in a small package, and the big idea fits in the small package because it has been carefully condensed. Let me illustrate this further. Say you have a package about the width of your palm and along with it you have two objects which you hope to place in it: a ball of lead which is also about palm-width and a ball of yarn which is about the size of your head. Which one of these objects will fit in the package? Well the ball of lead, of course, as it is much smaller and able to just fit. But even though the ball of lead is much smaller in appearance, it carries more weight. So it is with aphorisms—they are dense by design. As the writer Mike Bull once put it, their power is their ability “to pack gravity into a grain of sand.”1

Perhaps the best and most well-known example of a proper aphorism is in the Proverbs of Solomon. But aphorisms ultimately are not relegated to the Holy Scriptures, they crop up in all kinds of people who, in a moment of especial clarity, express it with their words. You don’t have to be a Marcus Aurelius or a William Shakespeare to drop a few truth bombs; your grandparents, no doubt, have dropped a few themselves, whether or not they (or you) knew it.

In terms of what to expect here, I’ll say this: Some may not make sense to you—and that’s sometimes the point. This is partly because aphorisms trade nuance for conciseness, and just like any trade, there’s value on both sides. Aphorisms are valuable in that they can not only provide you with a nugget of wisdom, but more so with an exercise in thought. Some are shorter while others are longer. Some are more prosaic while others are more poetic. Some are more straightforward while others are more cryptic. And some are more light-hearted in their subject matter while others are much more deep. Also, it is not my intention to preach to you in any way, but only to share with you that which I have preached to myself.

Finally, a note on how to generally approach aphorisms. Just as I would not recommend reading the Proverbs of Solomon in a single sitting, I would not recommend the same here. Matthew Henry, in his famous commentary on the whole Bible, once said that the Proverbs are like “a chest of gold rings, not a chain of gold links.”2 So reading straight through a lengthy narrative of Moses in Scripture, for instance, is an easier and more sensical thing than reading through a large number of Solomon’s proverbs all at once because, in the narrative, each thought follows the next—like a linked chain—whereas the proverbs (for the most part) are designed to stand alone—like individual gold rings. Aphorisms are designed not only to stand alone, but often to stand alone while being veiled in ambiguity. That is to say, they’re designed to give you pause and to make you think. So I recommend that you choose, either in order or at random, a single aphorism to carefully consider for a moment before moving on to the next.

I hope you enjoy, and I hope there is some wisdom to be gleaned from the words of another fool like me.

Aphorisms

The numbering is purely for navigational means and does not reflect a specific order or any kind of ranking.

A forgiven man ought to be a forgiving man.

Children are not to be thought of as costly expenditures but as priceless blessings.

A king of the world has nothing on a slave of Christ.

To be a Christian is to perform for an audience of one.

Only when you understand the holiness of God will you then understand the sinfulness of man.

A witness in a court gets up on the stand and swears by God to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; but God is the judge of every court who swears by Himself because He is the truth.

We are ready to be exalted when we are content in being nothing.

Loving your enemies is a lovely idea until you have enemies to love.

The humble have nowhere to go but up. The prideful, while they can yet climb, only increase the height of their eventual fall.

Our default hermeneutic should be that of a child’s before that of a scholar’s.

A proverb a day keeps the folly away.

A respectable writer becomes a disreputable performer when the thesaurus becomes a tool not to find the most precise word but the most impressive word.

Weakness is never welcome, but weakness makes us humble, and humility is our greatest strength.

Christian unity is not about being indifferent to the importance of sound doctrine but, quite the contrary, is about being attentive to the important doctrine of Christian unity.

To live off praise is to die from criticism.

People will judge you for trying to do the right thing in what they perceive as the wrong way of doing it but will never judge themselves for not trying at all. Imperfect action will always beat perfect inaction.

No matter who you are, with the Bible in your hand, humility on your heart, and prayer on your lips, you can be wiser than the wisest of worldly men.

You won’t find fulfillment in entertainment, but you can find distraction from your lack of fulfillment, and sadly for most people, that’s good enough.

It’s okay to vote like a partisan so long as you don’t begin to think like a partisan.

God is relational within Himself—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—and thus it is no wonder that we, being made in His image, crave relationship.

Word and prayer, word and prayer, word and prayer—let this be the rhythm of your life; be in constant conversation with your God.

The Bible is not as much a book to read as much as it is a foundation to stand upon.

The wisest men, contrary to what one might think, are perhaps the ones who simply realize how sinful and stupid they really are.

Terminal “onlineness” is the illness of the age.

Judaism is perhaps the most heartbreaking of all the religions as it will be forever waiting for a messiah who has already come; it is a religion which can be summed up in just five words: so close, yet so far.

The Bible becomes more clear and life more simple when we, as Tozer says, “read our Bibles with the thought that God means exactly what He says.” The Bible has great depth, but such depth has no hope of making sense until we first accept its surface-level truths.

People not only tend to underestimate how much evil is in the world but, so too, how much evil is in themselves. The former is a dire lack of awareness and the latter a dire lack of humility.

It shouldn’t surprise us that Adam lived over 900 years when he was created with a body which was made to live forever.

To say you get to heaven by being a good person is technically correct, but the rub exists in how you become a good person and that it has nothing to do with you.

People need to realize: The government offering you free stuff is not an example of their benevolence with their own resources but is almost always an example of their irresponsibility with yours.

The best children’s stories are always beloved by adults alike.

Many are willing to profess that Jesus is Lord of the land but far fewer are willing to profess that Jesus is Lord of their life, for such a reign is much closer to home, much closer to the sins they cherish.

Some people try to detach our bodies from our minds and our minds from our souls. But we are not one-dimensional beings; we do not exist on a single plane. For our bodies are to be raised, our minds are to be renewed, and our souls are to be redeemed.

I post like I invest: Set it and forget it.

Pride is both the beginning and the end of all sin. Pride is responsible for sin’s small beginnings where it is hardly detectable and for sin’s puffed-up ends where it has warped a man beyond recognition. Think of the sin of greed, for instance. Greed starts by saying, “I deserve more,” and then greed, once it’s had its fill, says: “I am more.” Pride is and always has been the cardinal sin. Pride is found from the garden of Eden all the way to the gates of hell.

Being angry at God will never be a winning strategy. It’s a self-righteous war you can never win. Swallow your pride, take the loss, and watch and wait for healing to come to your soul.

When it comes to the Bible, an ounce of obedience far outweighs a mountain of study.

Blind trust in the “authorities” is of course foolish, but blind distrust is just as foolish.

Just because you don’t understand something doesn’t mean it’s not true. In fact, you can’t disprove something until you understand it enough to dismantle it.

In the long run, a good product can overcome bad marketing, but even the best of marketing cannot overcome a bad product.

The first step in preventing yourself from committing a grave sin is to stop believing that you could never commit such a thing.

“@grok is this true?” is becoming the new discernment of the masses. Concern for truth is good, but continually confiding in that which does not (and cannot) know Truth is the reason one needs the ability to discern on their own in the first place.

Bitcoin’s finitude makes it valuable and its divisibility practical—paradoxically fixed on the one end and near infinite on the other, there’s a balance to it. Whereas gold has the finitude but not the divisibility, and the dollar has the divisibility but not the finitude.

We’re not to take Scripture literally but literarily (which will then of course at times necessitate taking it literally).

Sin is deadly serious because it is seriously deadly, for the wages of sin is death.

If Solomon was on X, posting his God-breathed proverbs, the relentless nitpickers would have a field day with him.

Adam was made to live, while Jesus was born to die—the image of God was made to live, while God Himself was born to die, born to die so that His image may again live and this time forevermore.

Great fiction is not non-fiction, but it’s true enough.

To write aphorisms is to be okay with being misunderstood because there is a greater purpose at play.

Better an hour less of quality sleep than an hour more of poor sleep.

Marriage is about two becoming one only to have one become many, for to unify is to multiply.

*…

*This collection is currently in-progress as it has not hit that hundred mark as of yet. More aphorisms will be added as I write them until it is complete. The early publishing of this can be thought of as a “soft opening” of sorts, similar to that of a store’s soft opening only to have the grand opening at a later date; not everything here is quite in order yet, but it seems to me better to open the doors early than to leave the people waiting (not that anyone’s actually waiting)—and, to be honest, I’d rather not wait myself to share my thoughts! The reason I feel more than comfortable in the early publishing of this is because while although the collection is incomplete as a whole, each individual aphorism here is already complete on its own. Also, while aphorisms may be relatively short in length and quick to write, I don’t really sit down to work on them in the same way as I do with my other writing, so compiling a hundred of them can take some time which is another reason why I’d rather just “open the doors” now rather than later. Because, ultimately, while I do write for the sake of writing, I write also for the sake of being read. And the fact is, they can’t be read hidden away nor can they do any good buried in the dirt. Putting them out there, hopefully, is putting them to work.

Bull, Michael. Birds of the Air. Page 6.

Henry, Matthew. Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible. Psalm 119.

A Fool's Wisdom: II

Caleb Reichardt — Wed, 28 Jun 2023 12:42:00 GMT

The following collection of aphorisms is the second installment. The previous installment can be found here; the next installment can be found here.

Preface

I hope you enjoy, and I hope there is some wisdom to be gleaned from the words of another fool like me.

Aphorisms

The numbering is purely for navigational means and does not reflect a specific order or any kind of ranking.

There’s this yearning to believe in something bigger than ourselves, or to believe in ourselves by making ourselves out to be bigger than we are.

When God becomes your greatest fear, He becomes your greatest sanctuary, for there’s nothing left to fear but the One who perfects your fear in His perfect love.

It is only a convicted heart which can convict hearts, for our hearts are often more potent in speaking and perceptive in listening than even our minds.

Humility is like a garden that must be continually tended but never admired.

Scripture ought to find its place first in your heart, then in your actions, and then on your lips. Hypocrisy is when you skip straight to the last, when Scripture knows no place but your lips.

Those who are most faithful to God are most foolish to the world.

Suffering either purges sin or intensifies it. The choice is yours. But just know that to double down on your sin is to double down on your suffering.

Insecurities begin to melt away in the presence of true love.

Live not in the shadow of death but in the light of eternity.

Anyone who unironically states their pronouns either has no regard for truth or just no concept of truth.

Be looking to achieve great things without looking to achieve greatness.

Comparison is the thief of joy when comparing to those who have more but can be the source of joy when comparing to those who have less.

Calisthenics tests proportional strength rather than outright strength, for if you aren’t even strong against yourself, are you truly strong?

God Almighty becomes Mother Nature. Divine creation becomes Darwinian evolution. Pro-murder becomes pro-choice. Men become women and women become men. They suppress the truth—professing to be wise, they become fools.

Faith in God is like a child willingly falling into their father’s arms. Though the child cannot prove that the father will catch them, the father has given the child every reason to believe that he will.

Virtue signalers: prideful people who, for the sake of their own ego, wish to proclaim their supposed moral superiority to the world while having a complete and total lack of self-awareness.

Sin erodes a man while righteousness builds a man.

Voluntary suffering is nothing compared to involuntary suffering. Failure to participate in the former will likely subject you to the latter.

Distractions merely put anxiety on hold, allow it to compound, and delay its onset. Action, not distraction, alleviates anxiety.

I’m not a Christian because I’m after meaning or purpose or community or structure or conformity or guidelines or serenity or anything else of the sort—such things can be found elsewhere. I’m a Christian because I’m after truth, and I’ve found no truer truth to bet my life on.

Live as if God is real and His words are true and you will discover what it means to truly live.

The totality of what you know is much closer to nothing than it is to something.

One of the great things about the internet is that it enables community, and one of the terrible things about the internet is that it destroys community.

Better yourself not for the sake of being better but to be better for the sake of others.

While all sins are equally sinful, not all sins are equally consequential.

Love your neighbor as yourself, and love God above all else.

There are many issues, when dealing with, which I am happy to preface with the words: “I might be wrong.” But when it comes to the exceedingly clear-cut issue of sex and gender, my only response to the liars and the deceived is: “You are wrong. I am right. And I will not apologize for the most basic of truths.”

Love does not comfort lies but confronts lies.

Ceaselessly grind the blade of your sword and you go from wielding a sharp and formidable weapon to a dull and worthless stub. Grind with care.

A book ought to serve as a guide that allows for unlimited detours.

The only case study you need on human nature is yourself—humility is when you open that book and take an honest look.

Life as a whole can be overwhelming, but today is always manageable.

You may say silence is violence, well I say conformity is cowardice.

You are a niche of your own—monopolize yourself by being yourself.

Be a pragmatist without being a pessimist.

Not the origin of species, the origin of existence—this is where your thoughts ought to be, for the former is meaningless without an answer to the latter.

Gay marriage, accurately termed, is gay mirage.

There’s nothing more powerful than prayer because there’s no one more powerful than God.

An underrated skill is throwing perfectly good junk food in the trash because it’s either going in the trash or the trash is going in you.

Christians are not as much called to master ourselves as much as we are called to be mastered; for the latter is, after all, the means to achieving the former.

The best quotes need only be accompanied by quotation marks.

Work with sweat to make your leisure sweet.

Dating apps give hope only to crush hope.3

There’s a digital substitute for seemingly everything these days: sex, communication, ownership, community, and the list goes on and on. But the physical will always be more fulfilling.

The Christian with less money is no less secure than those with more and, perhaps, even more secure as they, unlike the other, are forced to cling to that which cannot be lost. You are not ready for worldly riches until you have taken hold of the greater riches of faith in the faithful One. To possess worldly riches before such faith is the treasure of your heart, will prove to be an affliction rather than a blessing.

Let your only fear be the fear of Yahweh.

Slow down the body to slow down the mind.

In my writing I seek to quote men, sparingly, and the Bible, always.

When catastrophe strikes, we often just want to get back to normal when perhaps its purpose is to help us to get forward to better.

The most beautiful Bible is the one where man’s fingerprints can be seen the least.

Mixed martial arts is a sport because it can be, not because it has to be. Football does not exist beyond the field; basketball does not exist beyond the court; hockey does not exist beyond the rink; golf does not exist beyond the course—but fighting knows no such bounds.

The writer seeks only to be writing while the author wrote merely to have written.

The gospel is, I think, by design so simple that a child can grasp it yet so deep and vast that it can keep theologians talking for millennia.

The true measure of a man is what he would have if he had everything taken from him and was left only with himself.

Our gods change while idolatry remains.

Abortion is a sacrifice to the god of self on the altar of conceit.

I think one reason Protestantism is more valid than Catholicism is for the simple fact that it comes from the bottom up rather than the top down. Just like the early Christians, no one told them to thrive, they just did, because they had truth on their side.

Any person can make their friends laugh, but a funny person can make even strangers laugh.

Praying the Scriptures is lacing your lowly prayers with heavenly truths.

Quit reading books about the Book and just read the Book.

Any workout is better than no workout—get moving.

The starving artist need only seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and the artist will be starving no more.

To say you can plagiarize the Bible is like saying you can plagiarize the words listed in a dictionary. The Bible, like a dictionary, is not a mere source you can pull from but an essential foundation you must stand upon. Just as you cannot speak without the words of a dictionary, you cannot exercise an ounce of reason without the truth of revelation under your feet. It is truth to be properly quoted, certainly; but more so it is truth to be infused in a way where Scripture simply becomes your vocabulary, where you know no other words to speak and no other thoughts to think.

Great writing is downstream of great reading.

While all are not children of God, all are creations of God, and every creation can become a new creation and thus can become children of God.

Thy will be done, not my own; let me embrace, by Your grace, whatever Thy will may be.

The most valuable people are simultaneously both the interviewer and the interviewee no matter which side of the desk they happen to be sitting on.

Very rarely will one’s life change drastically for the better in a single day—do not place your bets here. But very often will one’s life change drastically for the better by simply embracing life one day at a time—place your bets here. Therefore, do not bet your life on a single day, but also, bet your life on a single day.

There is but one rule in grammar: Don’t confuse your reader. Anything beyond this is pedantry.

Aphorisms trade nuance for conciseness, and just like any trade, there’s value on both sides.

It is the height of arrogance to think that you can be a great writer without being an even greater reader.

The placement of a single asterisk is what separates false advertising from sleazy advertising.

You can do all the right things and still have it all go wrong, but at least you can have the peace of mind knowing that you did all you could.

Brokenness is just one of many such uncomfortable yet effective treatments for this mortal disease called pride.

If living in the Information Age has taught me anything, it’s that ignorance really is bliss after all.

Godly obedience is to obey without delay.

Doing nothing is one of the most productive things one can do.

The irony—beauty, even—of the cross is that what was a great instrument of death was, simultaneously, the greatest means to life. And therein lies the majesty of our God who glories in paradox, in whom darkness is light, weakness is strength, and death—yes, even death—is life.

Think of your failures as lessons in humility and your successes as tests for pride.

I’m not looking to work a job; I’m looking to live my life and make a living while doing it.

One of the jobs of a writer is to put into words what you’ve been thinking all along but could never quite articulate yourself.

You were faithful then; You are faithful now; You will be faithful always.

Any man who claims to fully understand the trinity has most certainly lost his mind and found his pride.

To take every thought captive is to interrogate every thought with truth.

Do not ever treat the grand promises of God as “wishful thinking” when nothing has ever been more sure.

The timeless truths of God will never grow stale—no matter how many times they are read or said, no matter how many times they are sung on one’s tongue—they will never lose their power.

I’m a Christian nationalist just as I’m a Christian townsman and a Christian husband and a Christian friend and a Christian worker because to be a Christian is to have all of Christ for all of life, and to be secular in anything is to risk losing Christ in everything.

Cutting social media out of your life gives you one less thing to do and a million less things to think about.

A book should be as long as it needs to be and as short as it can be.

If Satan’s offer to give Jesus the world teaches us anything, it’s that the absolute most Satan can ever offer us is dust.

When you’re creating something that will last, you can afford to take your time.

I believe in local churches like I believe in local businesses because just as you lose the heart of a town without local businesses, without local churches you lose the heart of the church.

If the trinity has taught me anything, it’s that two things can be true at once.

Let us all be like Jesus in that we always cut straight to the heart of every issue, every person.

Cheap today is often expensive tomorrow.

Writing is just a means to a greater end called conversation.

A writer is an entrepreneur whose product just happens to be a book.

You can be sure that the Bible does not provide a man with the hubris of knowing everything but only with everything a man needs to know. The Bible does not tell us all there is to know, for such a task would give us a scroll which is entirely inaccessible for the very fact that it would just keep scrolling; but it does, like I said, tell us all we need to know. It gives us the black and white while providing us with the necessary principles to navigate the endless sea of gray. It doesn’t tell us everything, but it provides us with the foundation for everything.

Reading without critical thinking is simply programming.

100

Truth is the foundation for wisdom. For how can you expect to be wise when you are stooped in lies?

If you enjoy nuggets of wisdom like these, then you might enjoy my other Twitter account, @parrotedwords, where I seek to share quotes that will stir your mind and feed your soul. Feel free to check it out below and follow along if you like.

Parroted Words

Bull, Michael. Birds of the Air. Page 6.

Henry, Matthew. Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible. Psalm 119.

It is very ironic for me to write this given the fact that the spark which led to my marriage was ignited by none other than a dating app, yet I still believe this to be generally true nonetheless.

A Fool's Wisdom: I

Caleb Reichardt — Thu, 06 Oct 2022 13:01:05 GMT

The following collection of aphorisms is the first installment. The next installment can be found here.

Preface

Perhaps the best and most well-known example of a proper aphorism is in the Proverbs of Solomon. But aphorisms ultimately are not relegated to the Holy Scriptures, they crop up spontaneously in all kinds of people who, in a moment of especial clarity, express it with their words. You don’t have to be a Marcus Aurelius or a William Shakespeare to drop a few truth bombs; your grandparents, no doubt, have dropped a few themselves, whether or not they (or you) knew it.

I hope you enjoy, and I hope there is some wisdom to be gleaned from the words of another fool like me.

Aphorisms

The numbering is purely for navigational means and does not reflect a specific order or any kind of ranking.

A Christian’s worldly ambition is tethered by the realization that one need not build Babel when Zion awaits.

Reading allows you to tune out the world without tuning out yourself.

Instead of thinking about what you would tell your past self, think about what you could tell your future self. The former is just a wish; the latter can be achieved by picking up a pen.

Laws that can be changed by the next man in line for the reins of power have little bearing on my moral compass.

To understand the story of the gospel, you must first understand the story of the Bible. Once you understand the story of the Bible, you’ll realize that it was the story of the gospel all along.

Cultivate boredom in a world where entertainment grows on trees.

Great fiction bleeds truth.

Censorship is meant to either “protect” you or deceive you. They “protect” you when they fear for you; they deceive you when they fear of you. The former think they are doing it out of benevolence; the latter know they must do it out of necessity.

I’ve heard it said that humility is not thinking less of yourself but thinking of yourself less. It’s a nice thought, but I think the opposite is actually more true. I think humility is literally thinking less of yourself—only then can you even begin to think of others.

Ultimately, any decision is better than indecision, and indecision thrives where leadership dies.

It’s not hypocrisy when you denounce something that you have done yourself; it’s only hypocrisy when you denounce something that you yourself continue to do.

Facts in and of themselves are never biased. But when you start to pick and choose which facts to include and which to omit, that is when bias starts to creep in under the guise of “truth.”

Abortion is the death penalty imposed on innocent souls who are charged with the crime of inconvenience.

God gave the Israelites “the bread of adversity and the water of affliction.” Any good father does not always feed his children what they want but in his wisdom and love, feeds them what they need.

When I think of Kepler and Galileo, for instance, it’s a wonder how they managed to discover the things they did about the heavens above while being so far removed from them, but I suppose a telescope is not that much different than a microscope in that sense.

Do not confuse a slick tongue with a sound argument.

Humility is hard to cultivate because it is so contrary to our very nature. There’s a reason we’re told to love our neighbor as ourselves—it speaks to what we know—for loving ourselves comes more naturally than anything. Humility in practice is the redirection of that familiar self-love.

Sometimes you need to look up at the stars to realize how small you are, and sometimes you need to look up at the stars to realize how significant you are too.

To sacrifice oneself for the sake of another is noble; to sacrifice another for the sake of oneself is pure evil. The former has no greater love than this; the latter is abortion.

No theological education (or any education for that matter)—whether through elite schooling, renowned teachers, or best-selling books—will surpass the simple act of approaching God’s word each and every day with humility and prayer.

If you never contradict yourself, you’re either thinking too hard or not thinking hard enough.

Lies tend to chase the liar. And sooner or later, they tend to catch up.

Evolution robs man of his sense and God of His glory.

You can bet your life on His word because the Word gave His life for your soul.

The media loves to make something out of nothing and nothing out of something.

Great architecture strikes a balance between strength and beauty. Its strength keeps it standing while its beauty makes it worthy to stand.

The sad irony of Pride Month is not only pride in sin but also the celebration of the sin of pride.

Evolutionists often romanticize their theory as a beautiful process from which we all came, though I don’t know what’s beautiful about a process where death is both the means and the end.

Social media’s point of diminishing returns is when mindful scrolling becomes mindless scrolling.

There’s such a thing as a healthy distrust of authority but no such thing as a healthy disrespect.

Tolkien’s genius is his ability to conceal a treasure trove of wit and wisdom in a simply good story.

To flirt with sin is to dig your own grave.

Control what you can, embrace what you can't.

The concept of karma is just the unbeliever’s conscience seeking to satisfy its intrinsic, inescapable yearning for ultimate justice.

The great fallacy is that evolutionism is naturalism. There’s nothing natural about order arising from disorder, life arising from nonlife—this is the definition of supernatural. The only difference between evolutionism and any other religion is its god is simply left undefined.

Social media echo chambers are a problem, but the real problem is the echo chamber of social media itself.

True power is not defined by what someone is able to do to you. True power is defined by what someone is able to make you do to yourself.

An orphaned child can satisfy the pain of a barren woman, and a barren woman can satisfy the pain of an orphaned child. A pair of seemingly unfortunate circumstances can make for a most fortunate match.

Porn drains the body, poisons the mind, and damages the soul.

If you never play devil’s advocate against your ideas, you’ll be a terrible advocate for your ideas.

As a general rule, give people a little more leeway in their spoken words and a little less leeway in their written words.

Don’t be a philosopher with too soft a body or a warrior with too hard a mind.

The religions of men put the focus on men, whereas the religion of God puts the focus on God.

Enjoy the process, because getting what you want typically lasts a lot longer than having what you want.

As we step into eternity, we can say with confidence to our fellow believers: I'll see you soon, and then I'll see you forever.

If God did not even come down from His crucifix of pain to appease us then, should we any more expect Him now to descend from His heavenly throne to allay our doubts?

Take life seriously without taking yourself too seriously.

There is perhaps no drug more potent than porn: Always on hand, free of charge, endless supply, continually enhanced, limitless variety, hidden side-effects, socially accepted, culturally encouraged. This is a recipe for addiction and, more so, destruction. Beware.

Everyone has problems. You may have a unique set of problems, but having problems is not unique to you. For every problem you have, someone else has an equal or opposite problem which they are dealing with as well. While you struggle with eating too much, someone else struggles with eating too little. While you struggle with pain, someone else struggles with pleasure. While you struggle with your relationship, someone else struggles with their lack of relationship.

Religion may be the opiate of the masses, but it’s the stimulant of the faithful few.

True healthcare is preventative. Conventional healthcare is damage control.

The Bible is the book of books, in both senses of the phrase.

When you don’t know what to pray, simply pray as Jesus taught you.

If you allow temptation to linger, it’s not a matter of if but when.

Many so-called “skeptics” are just dogmatists in disguise.

The Bible is a book which can speak to peasants and kings alike because the Author knows what it’s like to be both.

Do more listening than speaking. Do more asking than telling.

Do you have ideas or do ideas have you?

Great shows become better as you go on because you become more emotionally invested while bad shows become worse as you go on because you become more time-invested.

There are lessons to be learned in fiction just as much as there are in non-fiction. After all, fiction is the product of real people who draw from real experience. There’s bound to be something of value there, whether on the surface or hidden beneath the tale.

There is no weapon more powerful and more harmless than words. This is why free speech is so important. It is the perfect weapon—powerful enough to resolve conflict, yet harmless enough to do so with peace, not violence. To restrict speech is to welcome violence, for violence is the final recourse at freedom’s end.

Long-term thinking tends to be overrated while short-term thinking tends to be underrated. Long-term results require short-term actions.

Entrepreneurship: zero barrier to entry, considerable barrier to success.

Cancel culture is a culture of hypocrisy.

How do you save finite men from eternal damnation? You sacrifice an eternal God in the form of finite men.

Your body is a temple, which means it is the means of worship, not the object of it.

All good things must come to an end, but the greatest good has yet to come, and when it does, it will never end.

The coward says nothing—the even greater coward says exactly what they want to hear.

I don’t know what my future holds, but I know Who holds it.

Your diet is won or lost at the store, not in the pantry.

The theist who rejects Christ is just as foolish as the atheist who rejects God.

Tomorrow is the thief of today.

Social media is like gossip: It’s not completely useless information, but it’s mostly useless information.

Pay close attention to that which you despise in others, and be sure not to repeat it in yourself. Pay close attention to that which you admire in others, and be sure to repeat it in yourself.

The standard to be a Christian is fairly low. But the standard to be a Christian is very, very high.

Brush off praise just as you would insult.

Reading an old book is like mining for gold. It’s hard, tedious work as you sift through its archaic words, but what rises to the surface tends to be worth it—anything that has stood the test of time usually is.

Our culture’s increasing insistence on stating one’s pronouns is not an early symptom of the gradual erosion of truth—for truth itself cannot be bent or broken—but rather an early symptom of the gradual erosion of the tolerance of truth. The closest you can come to destroying truth is by destroying the minds of those who regard it.

Do not hide your piety in shame, and do not exhibit your piety in pride. Only hide it so as not to exhibit it, and only exhibit it so as not to hide it.

Just because you were born into certain beliefs doesn’t mean they’re right, but it also doesn’t necessarily mean they’re wrong, either.

In low-stake matters, give the benefit of the doubt. In high-stake matters, trust, but verify.

I love all people. I hate all sin. Do not equate my hate for sin with hating the sinner.

Don’t let your own failings become a story of victimization. Call yourself a victim if you like, just admit that you’re the oppressor.

Time is the atheist’s best friend and worst enemy. With time they manage to explain away the existence of God and even explain the existence of everything. And yet time is the very thing which inches them closer to the end of everything as they know it.

War may bestow glory, but war itself is never glorious.

Ruthlessly minimize notifications. Be extremely selective with what you are willing to allow to divert your attention at any given moment.

That which is timeless will always be timely.

The only man without error in his theology is the man with no theology.

To overcome an addiction is not to abstain from it but to live life in the absence of it.

Empathize before you criticize.

If the choice is between one human being or another, it’s always a choice between the lesser of two evils.

Do not treat politics like sports. The stakes are too high to have winners and losers.

Animals miss out on the placebo effect but make up for it with the ignorance effect.

Imperfections serve as proofs of love.

Forgiveness doesn’t negate the seriousness of sin; forgiveness reinforces the seriousness of sin.

Eat like crap, feel like crap, live like crap.

Never sell your soul for a few extra bucks. You’ll always lose more than you gain, and it’s hard to recover such losses.

The greatest villains are insufferable without being cringeworthy—you can’t stand them, but you can’t get enough of them.

Instead of saying: We need more people like him or her. Say: I am going to be like him or her.

100

No large act of courage exists without a long history of small acts of courage.

Parroted Words

Bull, Michael. Birds of the Air. Page 6.

Henry, Matthew. Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible. Psalm 119.

Pride Is Nothing to Be Proud Of

Caleb Reichardt — Wed, 22 Jun 2022 16:32:20 GMT

“I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.” — God (Genesis 9:13)

Male and Female

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” — Genesis 1:27

“Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” — Genesis 2:24

“This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created.” — Genesis 5:1–2

“Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?” — Jesus Christ (Matthew 19:4–5)

Homosexuality

“You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.” — God (Leviticus 18:22)

“For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.” — Apostle Paul (Romans 1:26–27)

“Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.” — Apostle Paul (1 Corinthians 6:9–10)

“Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine, in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted.” — Apostle Paul (1 Timothy 1:8–11)

Pride

“When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with the humble is wisdom.” — King Solomon (Proverbs 11:2)

“Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” — King Solomon (Proverbs 16:18)

“One’s pride will bring him low, but he who is lowly in spirit will obtain honor.” — King Solomon (Proverbs 29:23)

Gospel

“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” — Apostle Paul (Romans 6:23)

“For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people.” — Apostle Paul (Titus 3:3–8)

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” — Jesus Christ (John 3:16–18)

“If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” — Apostle Paul (Romans 10:9)

*Scripture quotations taken from the English Standard Version

Easier to Tear Down than to Build Up

Caleb Reichardt — Tue, 21 Jun 2022 15:10:58 GMT

On my drive home today I drove past a patch of grass just off the side of the road. Just a patch of grass—that’s all it would seem to be to the occasional passerby but not to me. You see I’ve been driving down this road nearly every day since being able to drive and nearly every day before that even, when I couldn’t drive myself. Though it’s not so much the road but this particular stretch of the road, seven miles or so, that I know so well. I’ve sometimes wondered to myself how many times I’ve gone up and down it, trying to calculate a number, knowing it’s large but not knowing how large. Point is: I’m quite familiar with it. I know every twist and turn. I know how it drives whether light or dark, rain or shine. I know, also, its landmarks, from the spacious barns to the tilted mailboxes.

So to someone just passing by, that patch of grass just off the side of the road would be just that—nothing more, nothing less. And I totally get that. Because up until recently, what used to mark that grassy plot of land was an old farmhouse, and to me, it was just an old farmhouse—nothing more, nothing less. Always in my periphery but never in focus. Ironically, that old farmhouse never really caught my attention until it was reduced to nothing but a patch of grass. But what caught my attention was not so much what I saw then or what I see now but more so what I hadn’t seen—both the before and the in-between. The before being its building up, and the in-between being its tearing down.

I can only imagine how that old farmhouse came about, how a nugget of an idea became a tangible reality. It was not large, nor was it grand. But that doesn’t make it any less impressive. It really is something to build something from the ground up, to go from essentially nothing to a house made with walls and beams, with the amazing potential to become a home with love and dreams.1 I can only imagine the planning which took place (and the bickering, no doubt, from start to finish). How long, how wide, how tall would it be? Such things must be carefully thought out before breaking ground. And a question of equal importance is: What ground to break? “Well why not that patch of grass there!” I imagine them saying, though I bet they never imagined their meticulous plans would eventually amount to the very thing that was before their eyes at that moment just a few generations later. I can only imagine what funds were required. And what materials, what tools, what labor allowed it to slowly but surely take shape? Was it the farmer’s own hands which nailed every board or the hands of another? Either way it was the hands of some soul nonetheless. Small and modest though it was, I can only imagine the blood, sweat, and tears that went into building that old farmhouse.

And while much more time could be spent thinking about how it came about, I need not imagine its tearing down. For decades it stood, yet one day it was there and the next it wasn’t—simple as that. It was as if it never existed in the first place. It’s not difficult to guess how it all went down. Demolition of this sort hardly requires any skill or precision. There’s no beauty in such a process of destruction. What took perhaps months to construct came down in a relative instant. What necessitated perhaps detailed drawings and sketches at the outset needed then only the green light on where and when to swing the hammer. What required perhaps the life savings of a prudent family or at least a substantial amount of sweat equity was reduced to the dirt for a mere fraction of the cost.

So why should you or I or anyone else care about this old farmhouse? Because what really caught my attention on my drive home was the subtle, timeless lesson its absence taught me. It not only taught me how incredibly hard it is to build something up, but more than that, it taught me how ridiculously and frighteningly easy it is to tear that same thing down.

This all reminds me of something Thomas Sowell once said:

The beauty of doing nothing is that you can do it perfectly. Only when you do something is it almost impossible to do it without mistakes. Therefore people who are contributing nothing to society, except their constant criticisms, can feel both intellectually and morally superior.

The beauty of tearing down the world is that you can do it perfectly too. Anyone can wield a sledgehammer. But to effectively employ a chisel or a trowel is quite a different story. And those who tear down the world are far worse than those who do nothing. At least those who merely sneer do so from a distance. They enjoy a feeling of superiority, as Sowell puts it, but hurt only themselves in the process, whereas those who tear down the world take the world down with them.

It’s easy to want to tear down our culture, our institutions, our traditions, or our morals without much thought, not realizing how much thought went into them and what it took to build them (and what it would take to rebuild them). Perhaps we ought to honor that which came before us—what’s been built and those who built it—not necessarily regarding all such things as being absolutely flawless or unblemished but at least giving them the due respect of regarding them at all, as such things may have stood the test of time for reasons worth discovering.

Just like it was easier to tear down than to build up that old farmhouse, it’s easier to tear down than to build up the world. And just like it’s easier to tear down than to build up the world, it’s easier to tear down than to build up your neighbor. Simply tearing things down is easy—but easy is rarely right and scarcely best. You know what’s not easy? Shaping a culture, establishing institutions, upholding traditions, and preserving morals. That’s hard. You know what else isn't easy? Loving your neighbor as yourself. That’s hard too. But that which is hard is for those who have any self-regard.

So was the farmer’s son or grandson or whoever wrong for tearing down that old farmhouse? Who knows. Perhaps it was time to build a new farmhouse. Or perhaps it was just becoming an eye sore. Who cares. Because we’re not here to adjudicate the matter, we’re here for the lesson it teaches us. We’re here for the principle it demonstrates, the principle of how hard it is to build up and how easy it is to tear down; and for the stark contrast it illustrates, the stark contrast between the beautiful, noble nature of the former and the brutish, graceless nature of the latter.

But what was the point of it all, you might think, if in the end that old farmhouse only met its beginning, going from a patch of grass to a patch of grass? What’s the point of building up anything if the hands of another or simply time will only tear it all down in the end? I would say that something’s eventual demise does not rob it of its present meaning. Because when you build a house, it just might become a home—and I’d say that’s meaning enough to quit tearing down everything and everyone, to do the hard thing, and to get building.

Hat tip to Emerson for the elegant rhyme

A Play Does Not Start Halfway

Caleb Reichardt — Thu, 09 Jun 2022 18:43:41 GMT

“…the clouds are the dust of His feet.”

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

A play does not start halfway.

It does not just come into being with no one overseeing.

It needs a playwright with a writer’s might.

It requires a hand to set in motion that arc of emotion.

So the universe demands a beginning.

Who hung the stars and sent them spinning?

If we suppose greatness was necessary to create the likes of Hamlet by Shakespeare’s pen,

How much greater must one be to create that endless cosmic dance on that boundless heavenly stage?

Who, do we suppose then?

Tomorrow May Be Too Late

Caleb Reichardt — Wed, 25 May 2022 15:27:00 GMT

“It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart.” — The Preacher (Ecclesiastes 7:2)

When in the “house of feasting” so to speak, our minds are on the things of this world. When in the “house of mourning” so to speak, our minds are on the things of eternity. This is because mourning is brought about by death, and death (whether we realize it or not) is the gateway to eternity. Nothing stirs one’s soul more than to realize that death “is the end of all mankind.” Death is inevitable, and death is near. When we realize that eternity is at our doorstep, the trivial things of this world begin to pale in comparison. Therefore we must “lay [this realization] to heart,” and stop living for the fleeting pleasures of this life and start living for the eternal God who grants an eternal life of unmatched pleasure through faith in Christ. Therefore, let death humble you, today, so that it does not condemn you, forever.