The book “Don’t Waste your Life” by John Piper was very influential in my life.
It encouraged me to cultivate a deeper pursuit of the Lord.
However, as I have grown older, there is one aspect of that book I don’t completely agree with, and that’s it’s idea of a wartime mentality.
Wartime mentality is the idea that during war, people are forced to optimize everyday life in pursuit of a single driving goal. The human life is stripped down to the pursuit of survival and ultimate victory.
Piper exhorts Christians to take on a similar mentality in their daily life and pursuit of Christ.
Within context, the idea of wartime mentality is good, but it is a counter-balancing idea.
Left by itself, the idea is imbalanced.
And wartime mentality is not simply a John Piper idea. Non-Christians employ it as well, often to far greater extremes.
I have seen wartime mentality abused, especially when mixed with millennialism.
The problem is the wartime analogy can only be stretched so far. Us citizens are not actually in the middle of a war right now.
We cannot live our lives as though we are in the middle of World War III.
I am living in a time and place consumed by comfort and convenience.
A wartime mentality is a healthy counter-balance to that.
However, there is a sublime and essential human value to Quality of Life.
A part of quality of life is personal, and a part of it is kindness to others.