Learning from the Lionesses

Imagine you are six years old. You’re jumping in delight because Chelsea have picked you for their U10s squad. A few years later, you’re 13 and playing for Arsenal – too young for the women’s team, too good for the girl’s team, they put you in the boy’s team.

At 21, you finally get the dream call to play for the Lionesses. It’s your debut World Cup, you’ve scored your third goal and have won player of the match for the second time. Your team hug you, the stadium roars, and the next day’s newspapers sing your praises.

You’ve just put yourself in the shoes (or football boots) of rising star Lauren James. The forward from London has made a mighty splash in the ninth FIFA Women’s World Cup, which took place in Australia this August.

At the time of writing, England have just squeezed through to the final eight on penalties against Nigeria. They’re in good form, and hot off their win of the Euros in 2022. By the time you’re reading this – who knows? Maybe the bookies are right, and they’ve taken the trophy!

What can we, as Christians, learn from the World Cup? In some ways, it is a step forward in the coverage of women’s sport that, alongside the Barbie movie and the Taylor Swift tour, has come at an encouraging cultural moment for women, and we’d be wise to reflect on it. But in other ways, what we learn is far simpler.

How much does performance matter?

We can start by asking ourselves a question: how much does performance matter?

For Lauren James, and likely many others in the World Cup, it matters a great deal. There’s a lot riding on it. Not just the match outcome or how far they’ll go in the tournament, or even how viewers across the world perceive women – but their own sense of self.

‘… players like to separate their identities as people and as footballers. For James, it feels as though the two are permanently entwined as one. “It’s just football,” she repeats with enviable simplicity. “It’s always been football for as long as I can remember.”’ The Independent

For players like James, with identity wrapped in their sport, performance is make or break: if it goes well, then they are worth something. Reflecting on this, I’m reminded of the quote from runner Harold Abrahams in the Chariots of Fire movie: ‘I have ten seconds to justify my existence.’

While this may be especially acute for sportspeople, we can all find ourselves basing our identity on our performance. How often have you felt crushed after failing an interview or exam? Or elated after receiving an award?

But to rest ‘who you are’ on ‘what you can do’ is to sign up for an emotional rollercoaster ride. Why? Because your sense of identity is utterly crucial to how you feel, and your ability to achieve is utterly fickle. Even the best of us will inevitably fail. Lauren James, so good that she’d been described as England’s ‘cheat code’, received a red card in the match against Nigeria and was sent off the pitch.

A better way

Psalm 103 shows us what we can hang our identity on. In verse 10, we read that God ‘does not treat us as our sins deserve’. In other words, God’s view of us doesn’t depend on our performance at all. Unlike in the sporting world, where putting in the hard yards matters, we couldn’t lift a finger (or a foot!) to change how God sees us.

But how does God see us?

‘For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him’ ( Ps.103:11).

God’s love for us is louder than any roar from a stadium, and wider than acclaim from all the newspapers in the world.

How can this be?

On the cross, Jesus achieved the victory for us. He took our long list of failures, and gave us His righteous record. He scored all the goals, but, if we are in Him, we get to lift the trophy.

Understanding our new identity in Christ is the game-changer. It’s fixed, stable, and endlessly satisfying. We can live in confidence, no matter how well or badly things go. As Aubrey Kingsbury, goalie for the US national team, said: ‘Once I learned that it’s not about my performance, and I can rest in Christ’s performance on the cross, it just opened my eyes’.