Eric Liddell's Gift That God Never Needed

When Eric Liddell won gold at the 1924 Paris Olympics, the entire British Empire celebrated. He had refused to run the 100 meters on a Sunday, then stunned the world by winning the 400 meters instead. Yet Liddell never treated that medal as something he gave to God. Years later, serving as a missionary in war-torn China, he told fellow internees at the Weifang prison camp something remarkable: "God didn't need my gold medal. He didn't need my running at all. He wanted my heart."

Liddell understood what the psalmist declared thousands of years earlier. In Psalm 50, the Almighty speaks with stunning clarity: "Every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills." God is not a deity who grows hungry, waiting for human offerings to sustain Him. The Creator of heaven and earth lacks nothing.

Yet how often do we approach God as though our worship, our service, our tithes are doing Him a favor? We can subtly believe that our sacrifices put the Almighty in our debt.

Liddell died in that internment camp in 1945, owning almost nothing. But he died offering what Psalm 50 actually requests — a sacrifice of thanksgiving and a life ordered rightly before God. Not because God needed it, but because a grateful heart is the only honest response to a God who already owns everything.