Eric Liddell: The Olympic Runner Who Gave Up Gold for God

The fastest man in Scotland was about to throw away the race of his life. The 1924 Olympics were in Paris, and Eric Liddell was the favorite to win the 100 meters. Then the schedule came out. The heats fell on a Sunday. And Eric Liddell, who believed the Lord's Day belonged to the Lord, quietly announced that he would not run. The newspapers called him a fool. Some of his own countrymen called him a traitor. He did not budge an inch. So he entered the 400 meters instead. A longer race. One he had hardly trained for. On the morning of the final, someone pressed a folded note into his hand carrying an old promise: "Those who honor Me I will honor." He won gold. World record. Then he walked away from fame at the height of it to become a missionary in China, where he died in a Japanese internment camp at age forty-three. His last recorded words: "It's complete surrender." This is a five-minute story about laying aside the race you trained for so you can run the one God set before you. Scripture echo: Hebrews 12:1-2, Matthew 6:33, 1 Samuel 2:30 Key figure: Eric Henry Liddell (1902-1945), Olympic gold medalist and missionary to China Read or listen on the blog: https://rodneycoe.com/eric-liddell-runner-who-gave-up-gold/ Five minutes. Pull up a chair.

Transcript

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The fastest man in Scotland was about to throw away the race of his life. The 1924 Olympics were in Paris, and Eric Liddell was the favorite to win the hundred meters. The event he had trained for, the event that was supposed to make him a legend. Then the schedule came out. The heats fell on a Sunday, and Eric Liddell, who believed the Lord's Day belonged to the Lord, quietly announced that he would not run. The newspapers called him a fool. Some of his countrymen called him a traitor. He did not budge an inch. Don't go anywhere. You will want to hear the rest of the story. Welcome to Lift Up Your Day, a five-minute devotional short stories with a biblical heartbeat. I'm Rodney Coe, and today the runner who gave up a sure thing and found something far better. So Liddell did something nobody saw coming. He entered the 400 meters instead. A longer race, one he had hardly trained for. One of the experts flatly said he could not win. On the morning of the final, someone pressed a folded note into his hand. He carried an old promise from Scripture. Those who honor me, I will honor. He closed it in his fist and stepped to the line. And when the gun sounded, Eric Liddell ran like a man who had nothing left to protect. He won. Gold medal. World record. The man who refused to run on Sunday outran the entire field the rest of the week. That alone would make a fine story, but the medal is not the reveal. Here is the reveal. Eric Liddell walked away from his fame at the very height of it. He had been born in China to missionary parents, and he felt God calling him back there, so he went. He spent the rest of his short life teaching and preaching in China while the world slid into war. When the Japanese invaded, Liddell was captured and thrown into an internment camp. The conditions were brutal, and in that camp the Olympic champion became the man who carried water for the sick, organized races for the children, and gave away his own rations so that others could eat. He died there in nineteen forty five of a brain tumor at forty three years old. He never saw home again. The last words anyone heard him say were these it's complete surrender. That was Eric Liddell's whole life in three words. We spend so much of ourselves protecting our plans, our reputation, our sure thing, and here is a man who let go of all of it, and somehow ended up holding more than he ever gave up. Hebrews twelve one and two tells us to lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Notice he does not say run the race you picked out for yourself. He says, Run the one set before you. Lidell's race was never the one he trained for, it was the one God set out in front of him. And Jesus said it plainly in Matthew six thirty-three. Liddell sought first. He lost a race and gained a calling. He let go of his comfort and gained a crown that will never rust. May we do the same. And that, friend, is how God lifts up your day.