Brief Reflections on Christian Maturity

And Axis and Allies

Welcome to another edition of The Mueller Report!

Updates

I’ve been thinking about mortality, aging, and suffering lately. Several people in my life have requested prayer for suffering and challenges they face. I’ve also been helping an older person in our congregation quite a bit with rides, appointments, and other odds and ends. At a certain point, growing older begins to limit your capacity pretty rapidly (at least for most people). And dealing with chronic pain can also really shift a person’s priorities.

At the same time, I’m encouraged when I see people I know turn to the Lord in suffering and/or as they get older. I also see the tension Paul writes about when he says he desires to go and be with Christ, which is better by far, but for the sake of ministry and the kingdom he still has more time on Earth. Old age, especially when accompanied with a lot of pain and limitations, can be complicated to deal with emotionally for just this reason.

On the one hand, you want someone’s pain and suffering to end. And you want them to be with the Lord, which is better by far. But you also aren’t eager for them to die (and often they are not that eager for it either). And yet, at a certain point, it can seem like someone is just waiting to die. They don’t have much they look forward to on Earth. They are excited to see Jesus. And they are just tired. Bringing the children around, though, and providing a friendly face and voice can certainly help with the wait.

Business is picking up at The Abbey. Between a snowstorm last weekend that stranded people in the mountains, better snow for skiing this week, and a big festival (Ski Joring) next weekend – we’ve had a lot of people coming through! March tends to be the biggest month for skiing. With no snow in the forecast for another couple weeks, we’ll see whether that continues to be the case.

I’ve gotten more involved in local politics over the past month in terms of working with (i. e. rebuilding) the Republican party in Lake County and offering commentary on a seriously misguided city/county building project. While I wish these things would be taken care of by someone else competent, they clearly haven’t been and so I’m stepping in to fill the gap. I’m sure there will be more stories to share soon…

Writing

I had a couple pieces about DEI come out over the last week and a half. One discusses the importance of a “ground game” in continuing to root DEI out of our institutions. The other one talks about the States’ War on ESG and how the management of public money and fiduciary responsibility have been on a crash course with Blackrock and other large asset managers prioritizing environmental and social causes over maximizing returns.

I’ve basically finished my talk for a business school in Kansas next month. In it I praise business as an important mechanism for blessing people. I also talk at length about how participating in business, whether as an employee, manager, executive, or investor helps one develop character: courage, patience, prudence, justice, responsibility, and much more. Excellent business honors God and helps us live out the cultural mandate in Genesis 3.

I’ve also dusted off some pieces explaining how the Federal Reserve works. They need more polishing, but I hope to have 3-6 of them done sometime in March. I’ll be sure to share excerpts or links here when they are done.

Reflection

I was talking with some brothers last week about sin, repentance, and Christian maturity. We were wrestling with the question of how to think about recurring sin. Is it a sign of immaturity? Of backsliding? Should we question our walk with the Lord or our maturity in the faith when we struggle with sin?

Of course, the orientation of the heart is critical. The Bible speaks of the “deceitfulness” of sin and how sin “hardens” our hearts. Sinning is always dangerous – it clouds and confuses our thinking, it can bring guilt and shame, and it can harden us to the things of God. Yet, while we are in this life, we will never be completely free of our “old man,” our flesh. Perfection this side of heaven is not ultimately attainable.

Yet God has said that he will refine us and that we should walk in his ways. Jesus said “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” It’s a tall order, yet one that God calls us to and gives us His Spirit to accomplish. The question remains, though, how should we think about sin and spiritual maturity?

Because I love analogies, I immediately went to the idea of hiking up a mountain. God is at the top of the mountain (perfection) and that is where we need to go. The Spirit is our guide and our map up the mountain. We need to follow the path God has laid out before us. Christian maturity involves both getting higher up the mountain and discerning more quickly when we have left the trail.

If you have ever been hiking, you know that the longer you are off the trail, the more off-course and the more backtracking you must do. Better to realize you are off the trail within a minute or two rather than after an hour or two. It saves you a lot of effort, and helps you avoid walking through brambles, brush, and other unpleasantness.

So it is with sin as we grow in maturity. When we sin, we depart from God’s path. When we harden our hearts, we stubbornly press on in denial or with the misguided idea that eventually we’ll make it back to the path. Yet the longer we persist, the farther from the path we drift. So Christian maturity is a matter of recognizing sin in our hearts and lives more quickly and turning back to the straight and narrow path.

At the same time, we can take hope in progressing along God’s path. Being halfway up the mountain is very different from being at the bottom. Though you might still lose the trail at times, it doesn’t mean you are back at the bottom of the mountain again. You have made progress, by God’s grace, and when you return to the trail you are still up on the mountain with miles and miles of the hike behind you. So Christian maturity is also a matter of how far we have progressed on God’s path.

Some people run, some people walk, some people may be at a crawl (hopefully only for a season). Although there is no “right” speed, God calls us to give it our all. Paul writes about “pressing on” and running in such a way as to win the race. Faster is better than slower – but being on the path with the Lord is what matters most. And better to be on that path, even if slow, than to spring ahead but take a wrong turn and stubbornly press on in the wrong direction.

Bookshelf

I’ve finished the relevant selections (minus one chapter) from the books about eldership. They were solid explications and exhortations about being an elder. I can’t say I learned too much from them, but I appreciate several of the themes they focused on: friendship, mentoring, and authority.

The most recent chapter I read talked about how important it is to enjoy your fellow elders. This is right and echoes my experience. Serving as an elder at Maranatha was a great experience for me spiritually. I met with the other elders every week for over a year and a half to pray for members and to discuss the business and well-being of the church. We had to work through a lot of disagreement over Covid policies for our church. But I trusted the other men, respected them, and we had a great deal of fellowship through the craziness of 2020 and 2021.

I’ve written about friendship in this newsletter before. I described it as being like trees. I’ve talked about C. S. Lewis’ helpful ideas from The Four Loves. And one of my most popular posts, I’ve written about friendship in connection with hospitality.

Friendship tends to be unappreciated and mysterious to many people. What they call friendship usually amounts to acquaintances or companionship. Deep, trusting, edifying friendship tends to be rare and it requires a great deal from us – you have to be a good friend yourself to have a good friendship with someone else. Friendship is worth prioritizing, praying about, and focusing on.

The books also touched on the importance of elders mentoring or discipling younger men. This really resonated with me and is exactly how I see eldership playing out. Everyone should be growing up in the faith and every man (and boy) should grow in maturity so that they can eventually serve as a deacon, if not as an elder. Maybe not every man should aim to be an elder if they seriously lack teaching ability. But besides that, they should aspire to be elder-qualified in their character, their faith, their love, and their pattern of life.

I hope that our church elders will provide important avenues for deepening and expanding the men’s ministry and discipleship at FBCL.

Game

I just pulled out Axis and Allies with my boys today. We may not have a chance to finish this game before it has to be put away (usually you need 4-8 hours to complete it), but we have it set up so it can be set aside as needed (like now while I write this newsletter!)

For those who don’t know, Axis and Allies is a classic war game of World War II (though they have various expansions for different theaters of war and other expansions, like a G. I. Joe-themed war game in the artic). As anyone who has played it will tell you, it’s complicated and takes a significant investment of time and attention.

The game is set up with the Axis (Germany and Japan) versus the Allies (Russia, UK, and the U. S.). So you can play with two players (one Axis, the other Allies) or some combination of players up to five.

You begin the game mid-war (1943?) with pieces all over the map of the world. You have naval unites (submarines, destroyers, transports, and battleships), air units (fighters and bombers), and ground units (infantry, tanks, and artillery). Territories are worth a certain amount of production points (IPC) that you receive at the end of your turn. You use the IPC to purchase units for the next round.

I won’t walk through the specifics, but there are rules about how far units can move, what their attack and defense strength is, etc. On your turn you have a combat move (moving your units to initiate combat), non-combat move, and placing of your units. Lots of dice are involved in the conflicts. This lends an element of unpredictability, and sometimes deep frustration, to the game.

One of the strengths of Axis and Allies is how quickly and unexpectedly things can change. Because there are so many fronts of conflict, you can go from feeling like you are doing great, to feeling like you are about to lose, to feeling like you are about to win. Usually you do well on one front, and then you do badly on a different front.

As Germany, do you try to hammer Russia into submission as quickly as possible? Or do you try to take out Britain in a lightening blow? Or do you try to build up your strength in Africa while keeping the Brits and the Russians at bay in Europe?

As the Brits, how much do you focus on fighting the Japanese in the southern Pacific? How many resources do you throw at North Africa? Should you prepare for a D-day style invasion of western Europe or should you focus on getting a foothold in the Nordic countries?

The U. S is the most difficult country to play, in a sense, because it is position to fight in both the Pacific and the Atlantic. They start with the most industrial capacity, but they are also far from the fighting and have to navigate getting units across the ocean. At the same time, they’ve got problems in Russia as the Germans advance and problems in the Pacific as Japan expands into southeast Asia and across islands towards the U. S.

Obviously this only scratches the surface, but maybe it will whet your appetite. If you like strategy war games (risk, Smallworld, Stratego, etc.) you should make sure you play this game at least once. Just know it’s a big investment – so make sure you’re prepared and have other players who are equally committed!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!