Milestones & Moments
Everything is going to be different today.
The locker room isn’t yours. The crowd is against you. The calls might go the other way. The environment is designed — intentionally or not — to make competing harder for you than for the home team.
That’s not a problem. It’s a specific kind of test. And it has its own kind of reward for the team that passes it.
Read this passage slowly.
Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.
Joshua 1:9 — NIVLet that sit for a second before you move.
Wherever you go. The presence that goes with Joshua isn’t limited to the home territory. It travels. Into the unfamiliar environment, the hostile crowd, the locker room that isn’t set up the way yours is. Wherever you go.
The road game is a specific test of competitive identity. The team that only competes well in its own environment — where the crowd is favorable, the surroundings are familiar, the officials might be slightly more generous — is a team that is dependent on circumstances it can’t always control. The team that competes the same way regardless of the environment has built something more durable.
What do you control on the road? Your preparation. Your focus. Your response to the crowd and the environment. The way you show up in the pregame, the way you communicate in the huddle, the way you respond to adverse calls. All of that is yours regardless of whose court or field you’re on.
The crowd isn’t yours today. The building isn’t yours. Bring your game into it anyway. Compete in an environment designed to make competing hard. That’s the test. Pass it.
The team that competes the same way regardless of the environment has built something more durable than the one that only performs at home.
What specifically is going to be harder today because we’re on the road? And what’s your personal plan for each of those things?
Specific and pre-committed. The more concrete the plan for the specific challenges, the better the preparation.
Wherever you go, the preparation and the character travel with you. Compete from those today.
This devotional is for the morning of a road game or the pre-game gathering away from home. It sets the frame for the specific challenges of competing away.