Competitive Drive

Introduction:

My dad used to tell me that my greatest strength was also my greatest weakness. As a child I competed at everything. But my competitive nature often got the best of me. I was prideful when I won and devastated when I lost, and measured myself against my competitors. In college I learned what my dad meant. My desire to be the best on the field was consuming my life.

Application:

1. Tell about a situation when your competitiveness consumed your life.
2. Are you comparing yourself to the scoreboard and your opponents?
3. How does the world around you define success and failure in competition?

Bridge:

Ecclesiastes 4:4 talks about competitive drive: “I saw that all labor and skillful work is due to a man’s jealousy of his friend. This too is futile and a pursuit of the wind.”

1. Why is it so easy to compare ourselves to others and try to be better than them? What does this scripture call this?
2. Tell about a time you tried to be as good or better as someone. How did it make you think of that person?

Connection:

1. How can we as a team compete every day – even in practice?
2. When we compete every day is it then about our opponent or about honing the talents and abilities we have been given?
3. How can we prevent being consumed with competitiveness and looking down on our competitors?

Discovery:

John Wooden said, “Don’t try to be better than someone else, always try to be the best you can be.” A competitive drive pushes us to do our best with the talents and abilities God has given us. It is not about your opponent or what the scoreboard says. It is about being your best and getting better every day. I love the saying, “Win the Day.” Every day compete to be better both on and off the field of competition.

Close:

Memory Verse: “Do nothing out of rivalry or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves.” Philippians 2:3