The Flying Scotsman Who Stayed

In February 1945, Eric Liddell lay dying in a Japanese internment camp in Weifang, China. The Olympic champion who had stunned the world at the 1924 Paris Games — the man whose story would later inspire the film Chariots of Fire — had voluntarily remained in occupied China as a missionary when he could have fled to safety. Now, weakened by a brain tumor, he spent his final weeks not in despair but in quiet, deliberate acts of tenderness. He organized games for the children in the camp. He tutored struggling teenagers. He gave away his last rations. Witnesses recalled that Liddell carried an almost inexplicable joy through those corridors of suffering, a gladness that steadied the frightened people around him.

Here was a man of enormous strength — an Olympic gold medalist, a man the whole world celebrated — choosing to dwell in the midst of the broken and the captive. Not from a distance. Not with pity. With delight.

Zephaniah 3:17 tells us the Lord our God is in our midst — not observing from heaven's grandstand but present among us. He is mighty to save, yet His power expresses itself in the most intimate way imaginable: He rejoices over us with gladness, He quiets us with His love, He exults over us with singing. The God who flung galaxies into space bends close enough to sing over you tonight.