Taking Every Thought Captive

The mind is a powerful tool and our thoughts are critical to our success in life.

How do you respond to hardship and difficulty in life?

One of the most unpredictable results took place in the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy this week. At 21, Ilia Malinin, the Grand Prix and World Champion of ice-skating was competing in his first Olympics and was favorite to win gold.

The World Champion

His youthfulness, creativity, and courage have set Malanin apart from everybody else. He routinely executes quad jumps like no one else in the world. There are reports he is working on a quint jump. Aside from growing artistically, he is becoming a technical skater.

His parents were Olympic skaters from Uzbekistan and they moved to Virginia and birthed their son on the East Coast of America. They planned to train many other aspiring young skaters. Growing up on the East Coast of the United States and training as he did, the expectations for this young man caused athletes from other many other Olympics sports to attend his competition Friday night.

However, with the world watching the singles ice-skating competition on Friday evening, the young phenom fell twice in his routine and finished eighth place. It shocked and silenced the crowd of on lookers and millions watching globally waiting to see history made by the young rising star in the sport.

As for what caused his series of mistakes, Malinin attributed his struggles to "mental blocks" and the pressure of competing on the world's biggest stage.

"There's a lot to handle, and the pressure of the Olympics, it's really something different," Malinin humbly conceded. "And I think that not a lot of people will understand that.”

Now, think about your life. The struggle of comparison as a spiritual leader. The difficulty of managing teams of volunteers. The expectations of having to create a culture of ministry that is attractive to people. The demanding schedule of Ministry seven days a week. There are all kinds of pressures upon spiritual leaders to build strong and healthy ministries.

The Beginning of the End

It all started at the very beginning of the skating routine.

Upon taking his starting pose, Malinin revealed that a wave of doubt and concerns crept into the back of his mind. "I just had so many thoughts and memories flood right before I got into my starting pose," he shared.

"I think it maybe overwhelmed me a little bit. I've been through a lot in my life, a lot of bad and good experiences."

If it can happen to a world champion skater, it can happen to you and me.

Here are two lessons that I took away from watching Elia Malinin compete:

First, the foundation of everything we do is integrity

Buildings rise and fall on the integrity of their structure.

Similar to Olympic champions, spiritual leaders are built upon a long discipline of integrity. Our work requires us to be prepared every day. There are many jobs where integrity just does not matter. But when we talk about the Olympics and ministry, integrity is central to our work.

Integrity actually means un-mixed. The root word is integer or a math term for an un-mixed or whole number. So, a person of integrity is someone who is unmixed and completely whole.

The Fruit of the Spirit is what brings integrity in our lives. To have integrity is to have character. And character will win the battle of the mind that seeks to destroy spiritual leaders by a faulty mindset. Maybe we don’t want to work out one day, maybe we want to cut corners another day. Maybe we choose not to be kind or relational on another day.

Olympic champions and spiritual leaders recognize there are no days off when it comes to our integrity.

Spiritual leaders have built routines into their life that consistently build character through fasting, prayer, reading the word, worship, and accountability.

We must show up every day with integrity.

Secondly, we must create routines into our life that build integrity

As God’s building, a spiritual leader must choose to build the foundation first. Because our ministry success rises and falls in integrity.

The spiritual disciplines are the kind of things that create integrity in us. That may be fasting, prayer, reading the word, worship, simplicity, and accountability. These spiritual discipline routines create integrity in our life.

Integrity is not about living perfect lives. It is about living progressive lives.

Integrity is about building a foundation in our life that can withstand difficult times. Integrity is about building a foundation in our life that can withstand pride, laziness, or even doubt.

You can hear the seeds of doubt creep into Malanin‘s mind as he stood in his opening pose of his routine in front of millions of people. And that doubt destroyed his chances for gold.

It is God’s grace and our fruit that assure the foundation of integrity in our life. To have integrity means that we are building a foundation that allows us to grow spiritual fruit in our lives. Spiritual fruit that can counter the daily difficulties that come our way.

The spiritual disciplines or routines build integrity in our life if we prepare diligently. If we trust the process of spiritual information and spiritual disciplines, we will see the integrity needed to be a healthy, spiritual leader.

Olympic athletes will train four years for routines that will last four minutes and define legacies for a lifetime on a Friday night. The importance of integrity cannot be underestimated.

Finally

I’m caught wondering how Malanin‘s pursuit of the gold medal would have been different had he simply overcome the negative thoughts that filled his head in the moments before his routine began.

And as spiritual leaders, we must overcome the negative thoughts that can flood our minds. Negative thoughts such as pride, laziness, or even doubt. Negative thoughts of comparison, unworthiness, and incompetence.

Paul said in 2 Corinthians 10.1-6 that we must “take every thought captive.” Taking every thought captive is one of the most powerful truths in scripture. Taking every thought captive is one of the most powerful tools we can use against hardship and difficulty.

The mind is a powerful tool and our thoughts are critical to our success in life.

And, how we respond to hardship and difficulty in life depends upon our thoughts and mindset.