The Finish Line Eric Liddell Never Saw

In 1924, Eric Liddell stunned the world at the Paris Olympics, winning gold in the 400 meters after refusing to run on Sunday. The newspapers called him the fastest man in Scotland. But Liddell did something no sportswriter expected — he walked away from athletic fame entirely and sailed to China as a missionary.

For twenty years, he taught science to students in Tianjin, tended to the sick, and shared the gospel in rural villages most Westerners would never visit. When Japan invaded, Liddell had every opportunity to evacuate. He stayed. In 1943, he was interned at the Weihsien prison camp in Shandong Province, where he organized games for children, gave away his Red Cross supplies, and tutored teenagers in math by candlelight.

He died there on February 21, 1945 — five months before liberation — of a brain tumor at age forty-three. He never saw the end of the war. He never saw the students he mentored go on to serve churches across Asia.

The writer of Hebrews understood this kind of faith. Chapter eleven is filled with men and women who "did not receive what was promised" yet refused to stop running. They died looking forward. Liddell joined that great cloud of witnesses not at the Olympic podium, but in a cramped internment camp, still spending himself for others, still looking to Jesus — the Author and Perfecter of his faith.