When Faith and Competition Collide: Shining for the Opponent You Never Saw Coming

For too many years I lived as though my identity rested entirely on the scoreboard, not my soul. The athlete. The competitor. The closer. I believed that if my results faltered, I would falter. And I lived under that pressure—so much so that failure didn’t just feel like a bad day … it felt like losing a piece of me.

I thought that compartmentalizing my faith would protect my performance. On Sundays I worshipped. In the arena I played. My faith was quiet until the work was done. My sport was loud until the preaching began. But the split began to tear at me from the inside.

The turning point came in the middle of one of my arenas.
At my 18,000‑square‑foot baseball academy, I had built a community: coaches, instructors, clients—all committed, all striving for excellence. Then someone came in trying to pull away what we had built. They were taking clients. They were trying to redirect instructors. The pressure hit. The anger surged. The competitor in me showed up ready to fight. I asked God: “You made me a competitor for 30 years. Now what? Am I supposed to stand down? Fold because I follow You?”

In that moment, I sensed a whisper: “Love your opponent.”
It felt like a paradox. In the Christian life we are told to turn the other cheek, to love our enemies. But what about when the opponent is literally chasing what we built? What about when excellence is at stake, and we’ve poured our life into it?

So I went to Scripture to ask: What does this love‑for‑opponents thing really mean?
I landed on this verse:

“For he causes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” — The Holy Bible, The Gospel According to Matthew 5:45 (Bible Gateway)
This verse hit me like an old saying in baseball: “It may be somebody else’s day in the sun; sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, but sometimes it rains.” The point: God’s economy isn’t just about my win. It’s about His design. The competitor in me had been so anxious about shining (or being overshadowed) that I messed with God’s plan for all of us.

In that moment I realized: Loving your opponent doesn’t mean you stop competing. It means you compete better. You invite excellence—for yourself and for them. You show up not with bitterness but with boldness. You shine not to obscure them but to inspire them. You win not as an act of dominance but as an act of service.

Why this matters for The Champion Within

In my upcoming book, I lay out the acronym H.O.M.E. —

• Homeostasis (soul‑level stability)

• Objectivity (seeing self and situation accurately)

• Miraculous (acknowledging God’s work)

• Eternal (living for what lasts beyond the scoreboard)

When competition becomes the enemy of identity, we drift into “worth = performance.” But when competition becomes aligned with our eternal identity (a son of God, a man of purpose), performance becomes an expression of who we already are—not who we hope to be. At the academy, the moment I shifted from “defend what I built” to “build what matters,” I entered HOME. I stepped into identity and stability. I stopped being fearful of loss and started being free to lead, create, and inspire.

What loving your opponent looks like in practice

1. Pray for them.
   The command of Jesus in Matthew fits this:

“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” (Discipleship.org)
In competition that means: I prayed for the person trying to take clients; I asked God to protect them, guide them, bless them—not so I’d be naïve, but so my heart wouldn’t harden.

2. See them as someone to bring out the best in, not crush.
   Theologians note that competition isn’t inherently un‑Christian — what’s un‑Christian is the posture of exploiting or crushing rather than challenging and raising. (Theology of Work)
   At the academy I asked: “What if this person becomes part of our mission instead of just our competition?” Suddenly the 18,000 sq ft space wasn’t just a fortress—it was a platform.

3. Aim for excellence — your own and theirs.
   When I realized that God gives blessing (sun and rain) without condition on who deserves it, I recognized: Excellence doesn’t stop when the opponent enters; excellence begins there. My job wasn’t to coast, but to elevate. I trained harder, coached smarter, created bigger—because I wasn’t trying to prove I mattered. I already did. So I could show up fully.

4. Recognize that results don’t define you—character does.
   In my book I emphasize: identity anchors you, performance releases you. Loving your opponent means you’re not defined by beating them or losing to them—you’re defined by being faithful, by leading well, by choosing love. In doing that, you become more, not less.

My story, refined

That day in the academy when someone threatened what I’d built, I felt the old pressure. My identity-in-performance adrenaline surged. But I heard the call: love your opponent. I said yes instead of “not yet.” I transformed a moment of threat into a moment of invitation—to excellence, to service, to kingdom impact.

And here’s what happened: Because I shifted internal posture, my external performance changed. I coached with more clarity, the team responded, the culture deepened. I didn’t have to win by defeating someone else; I won by freeing someone—including myself. I stopped playing scared and started playing aligned—with faith, with purpose, with identity.

Invitation to you

If you’re reading this and you’re in the arena—business, sport, faith, leadership—let me ask:

• Who is your “opponent”?

• Are you competing against them out of fear or for them out of freedom?

• What if your win could be their win too, and what if that multiplied?

Jesus said be the light of the world, a city on a hill that cannot be hidden. He also said: love your enemies. So here’s the dynamic: shine bright, love well. Let competition be your stage—and love your opponent so they don’t just watch you play—they grow because you did.

Your identity is not at stake. It is secure. So take up your performance with love, not fear. Let your excellence not just outshine the field, but uplift it. Because when you do that, you’re not just competing—you’re completing.

About the Author
Ricky Scruggs is a faith‑driven performance coach, author of The Champion Within, speaker, and founder of the building champions movement. He trains athletes, leaders, and high performers to live and lead from identity—not insecurity—so they can dominate their arena without losing their soul.