Running on God's Timetable

In the summer of 1924, Scottish sprinter Eric Liddell arrived at the Paris Olympics as the favorite in the 100-meter dash. He was the fastest man in Britain, and the gold medal seemed his for the taking. Then he learned the 100-meter heats were scheduled for a Sunday.

Liddell withdrew. He would not run on the Sabbath.

The press called him a fool. His own Olympic committee pressured him to reconsider. Everything he had trained for — years of discipline, sacrifice, and sweat — seemed to slip through his fingers because of a conviction no one else shared. From the outside, it looked like he was throwing away the moment of a lifetime.

But Liddell did not see obedience as loss. He entered the 400 meters instead — an event he had barely trained for, a distance that did not suit his sprinting style. On July 11, he lined up against runners who had prepared for this race their entire careers.

He won the gold medal and set a world record.

Faith rarely makes sense to spectators. It asks us to release what we can see for what we cannot, to trust that the Almighty's plan is broader than our own. Hebrews 11:1 tells us faith is "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

Liddell later said, "God made me fast. But He also made me for a purpose." Sometimes faith means stepping out of the race everyone expects you to run — and discovering that God had a better lane picked out all along.