Middle School Spiritual Emphasis Week was already 2 months ago, and I still have one of the talks rolling around in my head. It started with Robbie Sweet, our speaker, saying “Watch this Gold Medal run from 2010.” The video opened on the view of halfpipe snowboarding, and with a brother who idolized snowboarder Shawn White, I wasn’t surprised in the least to see who it was. With looks of awe, we watched the video in which White executed his flips and jumps with near perfection, even inventing a new move, and earning a record-breaking 48.4 points (out of 50). I wanted to clap; it was such a thing of beauty - and that’s coming from a skier!
It’s become a popular axiom in recent years to say “Stop ‘shoulding’ all over yourself” when Christians go on and on about how they should be more patient and should forgive their siblings and should be more like Christ. All true things, but we know that merely telling ourselves we “should” rarely works. I’ve been trying something new with the girls in my small group. Whenever we get to the application part of what we’ve learned or discussed together, I try to avoid saying “Based on this truth what should we do this week?” to instead asking “How can we live out this reality in the coming week?” I know the shift is subtle, but it’s already been instrumental in my own heart to think of my sanctification process as more of a life-matching-what’s-already-true rather than a be-better-at-being-more-like-Jesus effort. I’m exposing holes where my heart doesn’t actually believe the reality of something Scripture teaches as true, and I’m much more secure in my position as God’s child because the reality of who I am is a small step removed from what I do. And it’s been motivating. I want what I do to match who I am.
Throughout the whole week he was here, one of Robbie’s recurring themes was the idea that because we’ve been given freedom, we are free to choose good things. Choosing bad things is actually an expression of captivity. “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery” (Gal 5:1).
What he didn’t share with us until the very end about Shawn White’s record-breaking halfpipe run was that White had already won the gold medal. His previous run had earned 46.8 points, which was already the highest score. He had won. He could have laid flat on his back for his second run and slid the whole way down, but because the gold medal was already certain, he had the freedom to risk all the good moves stored up inside of him.
Jesus has already won the gold medal for me and for my girls. We could lay flat on our backs and sin all the way to end, and our salvation would still be assured. But he has placed all his power for good and beauty inside of us when he came to dwell in us. We have all the freedom to live out this truth, not because we should, but because we are.
