The Freedom Simone Biles Found by Walking Away

In the summer of 2021, Simone Biles stood on the world's biggest stage at the Tokyo Olympics and walked away. The greatest gymnast in history withdrew from event after event, struck by a terrifying condition called "the twisties," where the mind loses its spatial awareness mid-flight. The world divided. Some called it weakness. Others called it courage.

But here is what struck me: Simone Biles was never more free than the moment she stopped performing for everyone else's expectations. She had spent years carrying the weight of being the greatest — the pressure to be flawless, to never falter, to always deliver. In Tokyo, she set that burden down.

Three years later, at the 2024 Paris Olympics, she returned and won four more medals, including three golds. She did not come back as a prisoner of expectation. She came back free.

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 were never meant to carry — the need to prove ourselves, to earn our worth, to never disappoint.

The freedom Christ offers is not freedom from responsibility. It is freedom from the crushing weight of performing for your own salvation. Like Biles in Paris, we return stronger when we finally stop carrying what was never ours to carry.