The Olympic Champion Behind the Wire

Eric Liddell won gold at the 1924 Paris Olympics, a moment later immortalized in Chariots of Fire. But twenty years after that triumph, the world had forgotten its hero. Liddell was locked inside a Japanese internment camp in Weifang, China — 1,800 civilians crammed behind barbed wire, surviving on watery porridge and boiled vegetables.

Inside those walls, no one cared about Olympic medals. Yet something radiant emerged. Liddell organized games for restless children. He tutored struggling teenagers in chemistry. He gave away his Red Cross parcels — precious chocolate and tinned meat — to prisoners he deemed more needy. A fellow internee later wrote, "He was the finest Christian gentleman it has been my pleasure to meet."

Liddell died of a brain tumor on February 21, 1945, five months before the camp was liberated. The world's fastest man ended his days in obscurity behind a fence, with nothing to show for his fame.

Or so it seemed.

Paul tells the Colossians, "Your life is hidden with Christ in God." Hidden does not mean lost. It means stored where the world cannot reach or ruin it. Liddell's gold medal gathered dust, but his real life — the one poured out in quiet, faithful service — was kept safe in the hands of God. When Christ who is our life appears, Paul promises, that hidden life will shine forth in glory. What the world overlooks, heaven preserves.