Mini-Series
Last week we named what faith is. This week I want to talk about what it actually produces — in an athletic life, in a competitive context, in the specific pressures of this kind of environment.
Because if faith is real, it should produce something. Not just a feeling — actual outputs. Things that are different because the faith is present.
Read this passage slowly.
Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts.
Romans 5:3–5 — NIVLet that sit for a second before you move.
The chain: suffering produces perseverance, perseverance produces character, character produces hope. And the whole chain is held by the assurance of something beyond the circumstances. That’s a description of what functioning faith produces in the specific conditions of difficulty — and athletic life provides those conditions consistently.
What does faith actually produce in an athlete’s life? Three things that are genuinely different because the faith is present.
First: a foundation for identity that the scoreboard can’t reach. The athlete whose worth is secured in something larger than performance has access to a freedom in competition that the one without that foundation cannot access.
Second: a framework for adversity that produces growth rather than just pain. The athlete who can make meaning of difficulty — who can locate a purpose in the hard thing rather than experiencing it as random suffering — emerges from difficulty differently.
Third: a source of strength that is not contingent on circumstances. The “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” of Philippians 4 is not a promise of results. It’s a promise of capacity — the ability to function, to compete, to remain present, even when the circumstances are against you.
Faith produces a foundation for identity, a framework for adversity, and a source of strength not contingent on circumstances. Those are real outputs.
Which of the three outputs — identity foundation, adversity framework, or circumstance-independent strength — do you most need right now? Is your faith providing it?
Self-assessment of where faith is and isn’t functioning. Honest answers are more valuable than expected ones.
A living faith produces real things. Look for the outputs. If they’re not there, that’s honest information.
This session applies the framework from session one to the practical question of what faith produces. It requires the diagnostic from session one.