Undefeated: An Interview with Andre Ward

Join us as Ben Stuart sits down with the highly accomplished Olympian Andre Ward to discuss adversity, pressure, and the gifts that God gives us through the Church and His Word in those times.

There's no pressure like Olympic pressure. The weight of your entire country is on you. And if you have the honor of winning, you'll be riding high for a while, but you're eventually going to come down off that high. You're going to sober up and realize that all your problems are still there. You can keep doing all the wrong things, but God will kill your "good time" by troubling and bothering you. When you finally surrender, when you turn your face back to God, you are given the power to say no to the hard things over time.

The book Andre wrote is called "Killing the Image" because younger guys come up behind him and see the present-day version of him without knowing all he had to go through to get there. By killing his image, he's telling the whole story without shame. He felt like God was saying, "You have to tell the story because it's My story, My testimony, and My glory."

David discusses this in Psalm 18. He can scale heights and is string enough to bend a bronze bow, but it's God's gentleness that makes David great. We need God to be gentle because we're not always in a secure place.

God gives us mentors, and community is essential. You don't have to carry all the weight by yourself. They cover you. Divine connections are powerful. The God of the Bible is all about community. Just because there is friction doesn't mean there shouldn't be a relationship. Pride is what holds us back from flourishing with others. Are you humble enough to receive the word of a friend? What voices are you allowing to speak to you?

When it comes to high-pressure circumstances, when it feels overbearing, it's time to stop and ask what's off in your heart. Take His Word at face value and sit at the feet of Jesus. Pause in the pressure. Meditate on the things of God and let Him settle you. He's not far from you. His grace is unmerited favor, and it's sufficient. So, thank God for the burden, you prayed for it, but as Him for some more grace to do what you need to do.

Moments of adversity allow God to do something in you. It builds your faith. When we go through it, it's a powerful thing. It should be a memorial set up in your life to remember how faithful God is.

The critic isn't a sign that you're off. It's a sign that you're right where you need to be. Jesus had some real haters. But just as Jesus displayed; only your Father defines you.

James 4:8 says draw near to God and He will draw near to you. He knows anyway, but for the sake of relationship, He wants to hear from you. If you approach God humbly, He will respond to you.