Mini-Series
Three weeks ago we named the pressure and what causes it.
Two weeks ago we started building the foundation that changes it.
Today, there’s a game. And today is the first real test of whether what we’ve been building has any effect on how you compete.
Read this passage slowly.
I can do all this through him who gives me strength.
Philippians 4:13 — NIVLet that sit for a second before you move.
I can do all this. In context, Paul is talking about contentment in all circumstances — the settled state that doesn’t depend on the circumstances being favorable. And the all this includes the competition you’re about to enter, with the pressure it carries and the result it will produce.
Competing free doesn’t mean competing without caring. It means competing without your identity in the stakes. The result matters. You will feel the pressure of the moment. And your personhood is not being decided in the next two hours.
What you’ve been building over these three weeks is the foundation that makes that possible. The clarity about who you are apart from the performance. The practice of locating yourself there before competition. The understanding that the pressure comes from identity and the freedom comes from having the identity secured somewhere the scoreboard can’t reach.
Go compete today from that foundation. Not from the anxiety that what happens will determine who you are. From the settled knowledge that who you are goes with you into the competition and comes back with you unchanged regardless of the result.
Compete free. That’s what the three weeks were for.
Competing free means competing without your identity in the stakes. The result matters. Your personhood is not being decided today.
One word or one sentence: what is the foundation you’re going into today’s competition from? Name it out loud.
Go around the room. One statement each. Grounds the team in the foundation before they compete.
Compete from the foundation. Free. That’s what the three weeks were for.
Best when session 3 falls in the week of a significant competition. The series lands most powerfully when it ends immediately before the first real test of what was built.