I’ve been thinking a lot the last few days about the idea of vocation and calling. I think maybe it’s the Olympics and all those great stories that come out of it. Sometimes I think I like the personal stories of the athletes more than I do the actual competition. Sometimes. I love competition, too. Head-to head competition is some of the greatest real-life stories we ever get to experience, even if it’s from the sidelines or from the comfort (and warmth) of our easy chairs. And here’s why: We are all called to something. We are all called to the equivalent of Olympic excellence and a life of purpose and meaning. Our job is to hear that call and find a way to respond.
In one way or another, these gifted, committed athletes are responding to a call that they have heard for a long, long time. No one becomes an Olympic athlete overnight, and none do it because they have nothing better to do. They do it because they can’t imagine doing anything else. They do it because they know they must respond to a call they sense, even if they cannot always identify where it comes from.
So where does that call come from? Some would say it comes from somewhere deep inside them, from a voice that they don’t necessarily recognize but cannot ignore. For some, it comes from a seed planted by a special person – a parent, a coach, or a teacher. For others, the call comes clearly from the voice or persistent nudging of God. It’s almost impossible for me to think these thoughts and not recall that moving scene from the Academy Award-winning film, “Chariots of Fire” when the great Scottish runner Eric Liddell addresses some of his fans in the pouring rain after a race. He asks them to become more than spectators. He asks them to find their own races, to respond to their own calls in their lives:
You came to see a race today. To see someone win. It happened to be me. But I want you to do more than just watch a race. I want you to take part in it. I want to compare faith to running in a race. It’s hard. It requires concentration of will, energy of soul. You experience elation when the winner breaks the tape – especially if you’ve got a bet on it. But how long does that last? You go home. Maybe your dinner’s burnt. Maybe you haven’t got a job. So who am I to say, “Believe, have faith,” in the face of life’s realities? I would like to give you something more permanent, but I can only point the way. I have no formula for winning the race. Everyone runs in her own way, or his own way. And where does the power come from, to see the race to its end? From within. Jesus said, “Behold, the Kingdom of God is within you. If with all your hearts, you truly seek me, you shall ever surely find me.” If you commit yourself to the love of Christ, then that is how you run a straight race.
Earlier in the film, Liddell convinces his sister that his call to run is as real and as meaningful as his call to ministry. He says: “I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure.”
Enjoy the Olympics. Cheer on your favorite athletes and rejoice in the competition and the victories. But here’s a more important challenge: Emerge from the Olympics with a better sense of your own call, your own race. Then go run it.
Here’s a collection of “Liddell moments” from the film:
Steve, I am just loving browsing through your fabulous blog. I came upon this great piece you wrote from last February and it called to mind my own moment of prayer yesterday.
We live on the prettiest street near the prettiest park in Denver. There is a high school three blocks away, and Denver University is six blocks in the other direction. Bicyclists and runners are everywhere, probably at least as numerous as cars.
But yesterday, as I was driving home, my eyes fell on a runner heading west, probably towards D.U. He was a young guy, maybe 19. His stride was so graceful, so musical, so easy, so hypnotic that I drove ahead a few blocks and parked the car so that I could watch him run towards me. Pedestrians on the street had stopped too.
We get a lot of world-class runners in Colorado because they like to train at our high altitude so that when they run at lower altitudes they have a cardio advantage. This young man must have been in that elite cohort.
Watching him run was an experience of the divine—an entree into the mysterious and sacramental realm of “call” and “response”. I remembered Psalm 139:13,14:
You formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, so wonderfully you made me;
Wonderful are your works.
This young man had clearly and joyously responded to the call to be fast, to be beautiful, to bring all who encountered him yesterday to pause in prayer.
And now I happen to come upon your piece about Eric Liddell. I think I’m supposed to pay attention.
Thanks, Steve.