Gregory Scott Blog

On Feeling God’s Pleasure

Eric Liddell – 1924 Olympics Gold Medalist

This year is the 100th anniversary of Eric Liddell’s 1924 gold medal performance in the Paris Olympics, later memorialized in the 1981 Academy Award winning movie, Chariots of Fire.

There are a number of memorable lines in the movie but none better than when Liddell is explaining to his sister why he must temporarily put off the mission field to participate in the olympics:

God made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure.
Chariots of Fire (1981)

The thing is, apparently Eric Liddell never said this. These are the words of screenwriter Colin Welland. There’s not much about Welland’s religious beliefs on the internet. He was married though for 53 years before his death from Alzheimers, which is a good indication of something more at his core than secular humanism.

Still, I believe the line above was truly inspired by the Holy Spirit. It captures better than just about any single statement I have heard two components of God-inspired work.

The first is the teleological component: “God made me fast.” It’s unstated implication is inescapable: “Therefore He made me to run.” It was the implicit argument in what Liddell (fictionally) says to his sister in Chariots of Fire to explain why he should run, and it is a sound one.

On the Trump Assassination Attempt

When I first read about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, I knew three things would happen.

I knew Evangelical pastors would tell their congregations Trump’s narrow escape was proof of God’s support of Trump and that they would be mistaken.

I knew prominent Democrats would go on television and say they were glad Trump was okay and that they would be lying.

And I knew non-Christians would say Trump was just lucky in avoiding the bullet and that they would be wrong.

Irish-Scotch Travel Journal – Epilogue

Walls – “some of the best evidence we live in a fallen world.”

After another delayed flight and misplaced piece of luggage, we arrived home in the dark early morning hours. We were tired but, as always, glad to be home. That the trip home included airline logistical problems added a strange symmetry to our journey, but perhaps it was fitting.

We don’t always know what themes will develop on our journeys, even when they are planned around certain historical figures or events, and this one was no different. In retrospect it is clear this one was about evangelism and walls.

The historical figures we came across each day were like a dream team of disciple-makers: Patrick, Columba, Maughold, Aiden, and Cuthbert. King Jesus used Patrick to remake Ireland into Kingdom-territory, and then He did the same with Maghhold on the Isle of Man, Columba in Scotland, and Aiden and Cuthbert in Northeastern England.

Studying these Kingdom heroes seemed to inspire our group, as when Ann spoke to our taxi driver in Dublin about the Lord, and The Wife and I shared about the Lord with our taxi driver on the Isle of Man.

And then there were the walls. The first walls we saw were those in Londonderry, built in the early seventeenth century but becoming even more iconic during The Troubles of 1968-1972.

The most famous wall was Hadrian’s. As I mentioned in a post, walls are some of the best evidence we live in a fallen world. Walls are designed to keep people separated from one another. Emperor Hadrian built his wall in 122 A.D. after giving up on defeating the vicious pagan Picts in what is now Scotland.

Fittingly, Hadrian’s wall has been all but dismantled now, not just through the pillaging of people but through the presence of the gospel. The Romans could not tame the Picts so they built a wall. Columba introduced them to the gospel and there was no longer a need for a wall.

Irish-Scotch Travel Journal Day – 14

To continue the story about Oswald from yesterday’s post, Oswald went to battle against King Cadwallon at Heavenfield, near Hadrian’s Wall. Oswald was significantly outnumbered, so he installed a great wooden cross in the his camp and called his men together to pray for victory.

After he prevailed at Heavenfield, Oswald became king of Northumbria. He then sent to Iona to ask that they send him a bishop for his newly acquired kingdom. They sent Aiden. Aiden did not know the language of Northumbria, but Oswald having been raised at Iona knew both languages. Wo when Aiden preached Oswald would translate his sermons so people could understand the gospel.

Aiden also established the monastery at Lindisfarne, a tidal island only accessible when the tide goes out. As we approached Lindisfarne this rainy day we saw numerous pilgrims walking along the road to the causeway in their rain gear to cross on foot. As we drove by them, I’m sure some judged us for accessing the island with the help of a Vauxhall automobile, but I’m pretty sure Aiden wasn’t wearing Gore-Tex either.

Because we had been to Lindisfarne, we didn’t spend too much time at the ruins of the 12th century abbey, although we did find a stone monument there marking where Cuthbert was originally buried. We also walked to the shore to get a good look at Cuthbert’s Island, a tiny island off the southern coast of Lindisfarne to which Cuthbert would retreat to be alone with God.

The now grass covered beach (behind the trees) where the Vikings landed in 793 A.D.

Next, we walked back around the other side of the abbey to the bay where the Vikings murdered the Lindisfarne monks in 793 A.D., marking the start of 200 years of Viking terrorism on and domination of Britannia. The coastline had since receded and been covered with grass, but we could still see the contours of what used to be the beach where it had happened.

Lunch and the warm, dry setting of a pub were welcome after hiking in the cold, wind, and rain, but before long I was chomping at the bit to get moving. I tried to hurry the rest of the team without putting too much pressure in the system. We still had to get to Heavenfield.

We exited the causeway without doing anything sign worthy in search of Cuthbert’s cave and armed with some sketchy directions from a tour guide at Lindisfarne, which included a reminder to take one turn where there is no longer a sign for Cuthbert’s cave. Not a good sign.

Irish-Scotch Travel Journal Day – 13

It was time to get off the ship today, literally and figuratively. The servers have noticed I’m the only one who comes to breakfast with his laptop and almost always orders water, even for dinner.

I told one of the servers the first day that like a finely tuned Ferrari, you couldn’t put just anything in this gas tank. Then this morning at breakfast when I ordered water again, the server gave me a look that was something between sarcastic and dismissive. The honeymoon is apparently over.

I offered different itineraries to the team today, all of which was more ambitious than what we settled on, but in the end Bamburgh Castle was what they wanted to see. So, that is where we went.

In fairness to The Wife, we arrived here a little late in the day on our 2018 tour, and the castle had already closed. She had wanted to come back to see what she had missed.

So, we rented a car in Edinburgh. The Avis agent asked me if I could drive a stick shift. I thought, “Is the Pope Catholic? Can Lewis Hamilton drive an F1 car?” But then I thought he might not know if the Pope was Catholic or who Lewis Hamilton is, so I settled on “Yes.”

When we settled on Bramburg Castle, I did require a moment of group prayer where we asked the Lord to guide us if He wanted us to see any other sites on our drive today. I think the Lord likes such prayers, and the more we invite Him into our lives the more we will experience His presence.

A little more than halfway to our destination, I saw a sign pointing left for a golf course I had never heard of. We were near the coast of the North Sea and I thought it had to be a links course, so I suddenly turned left off the generous two lane road, down a little single lane road into the country side.

When the group asked where we were headed, I told them I was following the lead of the Holy Spirit. As it turned out, we got lost, never found the golf course, and had to retrace our steps back to the road we left. Ann insisted this was evidence I had not heard the Holy Spirit, but the Lord does not always lead us down paths with no challenges.