Eric Liddell and the Sabbath

Some years ago I read a book called A Boy's War by David Michell, who was a young boy in a Japanese prison camp in China during the Second World War. His school was imprisoned in the same camp where Eric Liddell was held, and later died just months before liberation.

Eric Liddell is the man on whom the movie Chariots of Fire is based. He refused to run the 1924 Olympic qualifying heats for the 200 meters because they were held on a Sunday. Instead, he ran the 400, a race for which he hadn't trained. He won the gold medal in the 400, and set a new world record. Shortly thereafter, he departed for China, saying that he was "Going abroad to endeavor to do his part to unify the countries of the world under Christ."

Michell recounted something that truly impressed me regarding Eric Liddell:

"Strong as he was in his conviction about Sunday not being a day for sports, he even agreed to referee the games of some of the children whose parents let them play on Sundays, when he found them fighting over the game." (A Boy's War 116)

This man who would not compete in the Olympics on a Sunday for himself was willing to referee games for children in a prison camp on Sundays! He understood that the Son of Man is the Lord of the Sabbath, and therefore trusted Christ both by refraining from running in the trials for the 200, and in refereeing games for children on a Sunday.

O how I want our children to grow up with heroes like this, who live according to God, and not according to their own wills! I remember being inspired throughout my childhood years by the missionary biographies that my parents read to me. They became my heroes, of whom the world was not worthy.