Sport-Specific Contexts
Some of the pressure you feel about this sport is coming from home.
Not the pressure to compete hard or do your best — that’s normal and fine. The other kind. The pressure to get the scholarship, to be the reason the family shows up, to perform in a way that validates something your parents have invested in you that goes beyond just loving you. Some of you know exactly what I’m describing.
Read this passage slowly.
Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.
Ephesians 6:4 — NIVLet that sit for a second before you move.
Do not exasperate your children. Paul’s instruction to parents is relevant here because the parental pressure that crosses into exasperation is real, is documented, and is one of the primary reasons athletes burn out or lose their love for the sport. The parent who has transferred their athletic dreams onto the child, who processes their own unresolved feelings about sport through the child’s performance, who is present at competitions in a way that adds weight rather than removing it — that parent is not obeying this instruction, even when the motivation is genuine love.
And the athlete navigating that pressure is in a genuinely difficult position. You love your parents. You want to do well partly for them. And the love and the pressure have become hard to separate. Which means competing has started to carry a weight that the sport itself never asked for.
Here is something worth knowing: you are allowed to play this sport for yourself. The scholarship, if it comes, will be yours. The effort you put in every day is yours. The love of the game that brought you here in the first place is yours. Your parents’ investment in your development does not give them ownership of your performance or your relationship with the sport. You can honor them and still compete for yourself. Those are not in conflict.
You are allowed to play this sport for yourself. Your parents’ investment in your development does not give them ownership of your performance or your relationship with the sport.
What would change about how you compete if you were playing entirely for yourself — for the love of the game and your own development — with no weight from anyone else’s expectations?
This question is liberating for most athletes who hear it. Let the answer breathe. Follow up individually if significant distress is present.
Honor your parents. Compete for yourself. Those are not in conflict.
This devotional may surface situations that require individual pastoral care or, in serious cases, parental involvement from the coaching staff. Know your program’s protocols before delivering it.