The Freedom Simone Biles Found by Letting Go

In the summer of 2021, the world watched Simone Biles — the most decorated gymnast in history — do something no one expected. At the Tokyo Olympics, with millions watching and a nation's gold-medal hopes resting on her shoulders, she stepped back. The "twisties" had stolen her spatial awareness mid-air, making every vault and tumble dangerous. Critics called it quitting. Commentators questioned her toughness.

But Biles understood something profound: she was not free as long as her identity was chained to other people's expectations.

Three years later, at the 2024 Paris Olympics, she returned — not to prove anyone wrong, but because she wanted to compete on her own terms. She won three gold medals and a silver, becoming the most decorated American Olympic gymnast ever. But the real victory had already happened in Tokyo, the moment she refused to let the crowd's demands own her.

The Apostle Paul wrote, "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery" (Galatians 5:1). So many of us live under yokes we never chose — the need to perform, to please, to prove our worth. But the Almighty never asked us to earn His love. He already gave it.

True freedom begins the moment we stop performing for the crowd and start resting in the One who already calls us His own.