The Season Arc
Somewhere in the middle of every season, the list of things competing for your attention starts to grow.
Social media. Outside opinions. Individual stats. Off-court drama. The scores of other teams. Comparisons to last year. What people are saying. What people aren’t saying.
None of those things were on the list in week one. But by now they’ve accumulated, and some of them have started to take up space that belongs to something else.
Read this passage slowly.
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.
Hebrews 12:1–2 — NIVLet that sit for a second before you move.
The writer of Hebrews uses a track meet as the image. And the first instruction is: throw off everything that hinders.
Notice what it doesn’t say. It doesn’t say throw off everything that’s sinful. It says throw off everything that hinders. Some of the things weighing you down midseason aren’t bad things. They’re just things that don’t belong in the race. Extra weight. Noise that takes attention away from what matters.
The image is a runner who has accumulated stuff on the track. Not obstacles someone put there. Stuff they picked up themselves along the way, thinking it wouldn’t slow them down. And now they’re carrying it and wondering why the pace feels harder than it did at the start.
The second instruction is: fix your eyes on Jesus. Not on the competition. Not on the scoreboard. Not on what’s behind you. On the thing that’s in front of you and worth running toward.
What is the main thing for this team? Not in general. Specifically, right now, in this season. What is the thing that everything else is supposed to serve?
Get back to that. Strip the noise. Fix the eyes. Run the race that’s marked out for you — not someone else’s race, not last year’s race. Yours.
Some of the things weighing you down aren’t bad things. They’re just things that don’t belong in the race.
What’s one thing you’ve picked up in the last few weeks — a distraction, a comparison, an anxiety — that you need to throw off before you can run at full speed?
Give people a moment of silence before anyone answers. This question works better with reflection than with immediate response.
Throw it off. Fix your eyes. Run your race.
Best when you can see the team getting distracted by noise — external criticism, individual stat-chasing, social media, or comparison to other teams.
If you know what the specific distraction is for this team, you can name it after the discussion question rather than leaving it vague. The verse gives you permission.