Eric Liddell

Eric Liddell,

The Scottish flier,
Discovered through devotion
That he was not a sprinter.

Don't get me wrong.
He could run the 100 with the best of them.
He was a rugby man,
He knew how to flee a tackle,
How to take a hit,
And how to make a hit never happen.

But one night on a ship,
As words spoken to a boy flashed through his mind,
He discovered that he could not run on the Sabbath.

All that he had trained for,
All that he had wanted,
Could not be,
Not that way.

So he spoke to the Committee.
The Committee spoke words of duty
And loyalty to country.
In one man's words,
They sought to sever his running from his life-force
His athleticism from his essence.

Then in walked Lindsay.
Lindsay graciously said,
(With all British civility)
"You can take my place in the 400.
Another day, another race."

"What the hell does that mean?"
Asked the committee.

Lindsey explained in words,
But the reality of the thing
Was shown to the world on a clear-skied weekday,
As Liddell lifted his head to heaven.

Eric shook the hands of each of the other runners.
He wished them the best.
But he also had something to prove,

And thus not out of spite,
But knowing what was to be,
He said "I don't suppose I'll see you again until the finish line."

An American asked his coach,
"What about this guy Liddell?
Should I be concerned?"

But the coach did not understand.
All he knew was training,
And sprinting.

Eric,
Would you have done it the same way
If you had it to do again?
Would you place your principles ahead of the race?
Would you give it all up again?

Somehow you knew that the race was long.
You had an endurance that the world couldn't see.

Would you have run that race again,
If you knew that you would die of a brain tumor in China?

Did your principles abandon you
In those missionary days
When a cancerous growth took control of your brain?

Or was that also a lesson learned,
Like the 400?

Just a stepping stone on the way to something greater?
You make me smile, Eric, and yet you make me look inside.
Such devotion.

You loved the Chinese like you loved the race, but even more.
"God made me for a purpose, but he also made me Fast!"
You told this to Jenny as you set off for a date with destiny.