Healing from the Need to Win
Competition can bring out the best in us. The challenge posed by someone else doing excellently in our field makes us rally our internal resources. This is even true in church, where competition is sometimes discouraged. In a town with more than one preacher, the preaching is better. It has to be; people leave the churches with bad preaching and go down the street to another one!
But competition obviously has a dark side, too. At its best, competition spurs us to become who we were meant to be, to accomplish things we wouldn’t otherwise accomplish. But at its worst, competition feeds our insecurity and makes us incapable of loving other people.
Wanting to win can be a good thing–especially if it translates to wanting to do our best. But needing to win–to do better than others–is always evil. It twists us, wounding us, our teammates, and our competitors.
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