THINK ABOUT IT           8-13-24

One of the most incredible stories coming from the Olympics occurred during the 1988 games in Seoul, South Korea.  There was a young competitor there whose whole life had been in pursuit of an Olympic medal.  The 1988 games represented his best chance.  He was a Canadian named Lawrence Lemieux, and his event was in sailing.  Off the coast of Korea, he was racing for the Gold.  The sea was stormy and rough, but Lemieux was in second place with an excellent shot at first.  Suddenly his attention was drawn aside by an overturned boat, and he saw a sailor draped over the hull, desperately trying to hold on.  Another sailor was bobbing in the water.  The tides and winds were pushing both men further out to sea.  They were Olympians, too, and were competing in another event.  The man who was draped over the overturned hull of the boat had cut his hand in the accident and was rapidly losing strength.  The crewman in the water was drifting away from the boat and going down.  Lemieux had a heart-rending decision to make.  If he didn’t stop to help the men, they would likely drown; but if he did stop and help them he would lose his lifelong dream of winning an Olympic Gold Medal.  Well, it might have been a heart-rending decision, but it didn’t take the young champion long to make it.  He turned his boat toward into the screaming wind and paddled toward the desperate men. As he approached the man who was thrashing in the water, the man gasped, “Please help me!  I can’t last much longer.” 

“Grab onto my boat when I come past you,” said Lemieux.  

“I can’t,” said the man.  “I hurt my back and I can’t pull myself up into your boat.”  Lawrence leaned over and grabbed the man’s vest and tried to haul him aboard, but the effort almost capsized the little craft.  “Just try to hold on until we get to your boat,” shouted Lemieux.  Somehow he managed to navigate his boat through the crashing waves and he managed to rescue the other man as well.  He held them both until a patrol boat arrived.

But the delay cost him any chance he had of winning an Olympic medal.  He resumed the race, but finished in 21^st place.  In its place, the International Olympic Committee awarded him The Fair Play Award of the 1988 games in Seoul.  And when he returned home, the members of Northwood Presbyterian Church in Spokane, Washington, had a special medal cast for him and draped it around his neck while the Canadian National Anthem was played.  He told the congregation, “You spend your whole lifetime trying to achieve a goal, and my goal was winning a gold medal.  I didn’t win a gold medal, but I won something more valuable—the love you’ve shown me here today.”

While everyone else in the world is trying to win medals, accomplish goals, accumulate prizes, and achieve status, we have only one mission, don’t we—to rescue the perishing and care for the dying. (By Robert J. Morgan, used by permission) THINK ABOUT IT!

This one life will soon be past,Only what’s done for Christ will last.

David Stone  

Lakeway Baptist Church  

Humble, TX