Spiritual Troubleshooting
By Anthony Casperson
9-21-24

A friend of mine recently told me about his playthrough of Baldur’s Gate 3. His enjoyment of the game was a little too contagious for me, so I started replaying it as well. And, over the past couple of weeks we’ve been texting back and forth about where we are in the game. (And I’ve been trying really hard to not spoil the game for him.)

On Thursday night, he said he was having difficulty with a particular enemy boss. And since he was playing it on Tactician Mode—that is, Hard Mode—the fight was even more brutal than I’d experienced in previous playthroughs on the normal Balanced Mode.

I sent him a thought about defeating the first part of this two-stage boss, which would skip much of that section. However, he informed me that he’d found another way to skip that part of the fight. It was the second stage that was kicking his butt.

Since I knew that a few of the abilities and resistances of various enemies were different between the difficulty modes, I went to the game’s wiki to see if they had the Tactician Mode stats listed, which they did. And I noticed that the boss was resistant to slashing and piercing damage—he’d take only half damage from those types of weapons.

Having heard what party members my friend had with him, I knew that his two big damage dealers were armed with slashing and piercing weapons. Therefore, I let him know about the enemy’s resistances, and suggested that he switch to bludgeoning weapons. They would do full damage.

He thanked me for the insight. Then told me that he usually checks the enemy details, but had just forgotten to do so for this enemy. And he was going to give it another go.

When I put the phone down from that conversation, a thought struck me. This type of troubleshooting isn’t that dissimilar from what we followers of Jesus should do with one another when we’re dealing with spiritual problems.

In the midst of living life together, we encourage one another in our united faith. Then, when one of us has a problem, we talk about it with our brother/sister in Christ. And after we narrow down where the problem is exactly, we seek a solution that aligns with the person’s situation and the helpful brother/sister’s spiritual giftedness. Even going to a resource—the bible, in the spiritual case—for greater direction.

Quite often, we’ll find that the problem comes up because the person dealing with it just needed another perspective. Or needed reminding of what they already knew how to do. And thus, they face the problem once again with this greater understanding of the fight.

It feels kinda simple in the action. Like we didn’t do much to help them. But it still leads to victory, or at least growth toward victory in the long run.

We followers of Jesus just assume that growing in our spiritual lives, or helping others in their spiritual growth, takes this huge effort. We think that it takes spiritual superstars to help. Act like that sort of spiritual troubleshooting is just for the preachers/church leaders/ theological experts. But honestly, the greatest leaps and bounds in the life of a follower of Jesus comes when we live life together and just naturally let our experience and spiritual giftedness flow freely to help one another.

That’s part of the reason we have each other in the body of Christ.

Let me use a bible passage to give us a better understanding. Romans 12 begins with Paul’s call for us to present our bodies as living sacrifices. This is our call to the spiritual worship of God. And Paul continues in verse 2, saying do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our minds.

That all sounds like a tall order. “Sure, Paul, I’ll get right on that. Let me just climb up on that altar even though every fiber of my sinful self is screaming at me to not do it. That’s so easy.” (Or am I the only one whose fleshly self sarcastically argues with commands to holiness that I should actually listen to?)

We look at those first verses of Romans 12 and assume that they’re for the super-Christians. We’ll never get there, because it’s an impossibly high calling.

But Paul breaks it down to a more practical level in verses 3-8. We’re not alone in this calling of spiritual worship. The body of Christ is meant to help us in it. That’s why each one of us has been given our own unique blend of spiritual giftedness. To use them in the body to help others glorify God and grow spiritually in him.

And we should each use our spiritual gifts in a natural manner. “Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness” (Romans 12:6-8, ESV)

If our gift is in serving others, then find a place to serve. And if it’s teaching, well, there are plenty of people who are ignorant of the basic tenets of our faith, or could use some deeper truth. We don’t need to make this more difficult than it is. We each have strengths and spiritual gifts that easily fit into others’ weaknesses and spiritual trials, so use what you got to help people in need.

One of the things that I’m naturally (spiritually?) good at is research. Before he died, my mentor in preaching loved to ask my opinion about passages he was going to preach from. He used my research like another commentary—even giving me credit just like he would a commentator.

And think about my introductory illustration. What was it I did as soon as my personal experience failed to help my friend? I went into research mode, looking at the wiki. And an answer came about because of it. I used what I had and found a way to help him with it.

What is it that you’re wired to do, whether naturally or spiritually? Use it to help others. Not everyone is meant to preach or teach. Not everyone is an up-front kind of person. But I guarantee that there are several of our fellow brothers and sisters who need what you have. People whose weaknesses and lackings desperately need what you can offer. If you’re willing to look for them.

And if Paul’s breakdown of “use what you got” isn’t practical enough for you, look at the rest of Romans 12. Most of verses 9-21 are made up of short and simple commands. Sure, some might seem less simple than others, like “be patient in tribulation” and “bless those who persecute you,” but you have to admit that they are quite practical. And callings to “rejoice with those who rejoice” and “weep with those who weep” are both practical and possible for most of us to do.

That’s to say nothing of the idea of “outdo one another in showing honor” and “let love be genuine.”

All of these callings from Paul are practical steps in how we offer ourselves as living sacrifices in spiritual worship. They’re how we uplift our brothers and sisters in faith to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. How we stop being conformed to the world. How we stop being like those who seek only their own good and refuse to look to others’ needs.

It’s how we spiritually troubleshoot the problems of our brothers and sisters.

We don’t need to be spiritual superstars. We don’t need to have a visible halo over our head to prove our pure holiness before being able to help others grow in their faith. All we need are eyes open to others’ needs and a willingness to use what we got to help them. Growth will happen for both them and us.

And God will be glorified as his body grows closer to him and his holiness.

Spiritual troubleshooting isn’t as difficult as we make it out to be. So, let’s keep our eyes open to the needs of our brothers and sisters. Which also means that we have to exist in some sort of community together, but that’s a blog idea for another day.

For now, look for places to spiritually troubleshoot. And use what you got.

It’s that simple.

The boss in question