Jim Ryun – The True Gold of Life

 

The fastest high school miler

This story begins with a tall and gawky high school student in a small town in America, in the state of Kansas.  Kansas is known for cornfields, hot, humid summers and fiercely cold winters.  For some reason, this student decided to join his high school’s cross-country and track team.  During his first week on the team, the coach scheduled a one mile race – not against any other schools, just within the team.  And Jim Ryun, running in his first mile race, against only his own teammates, finished only 13^th, behind many other boys of his own age.  No particular talent for athletics seemed apparent in that run.

But just two months later, he ran in the state cross-country championships and finished sixth.  By the following spring, he was the fastest high school runner in the mile in the United States, and not only that, but the fastest high school miler in history.  His time was 4:07.  All this in his first year of athletics.  His sophomore year in high school.

By his junior year, he was finishing so far ahead of the other high school athletes that he began racing older runners - people who were their own country’s national champions, people who had been to the Olympic Games.  Against that level of competition, he ran the first ever sub-four minute mile by a high schooler.  And that same year, 1964, he was sent to the Olympic Games in Tokyo.  There, he got sick and was unable to make the final – he could only watch the great New Zealander, Peter Snell, win the 1500meter gold medal.

Ryun went back to America for his last year of high school.  He finished the year by competing in the national championships.  He won in 3:55, which was – needless to say – a high school record.  It was also an American record.  And, by the way, one of the people he defeated in that race was the Olympic champion, Peter Snell.

 

A Christian athlete

That was his high school career.  Would it surprise you to know that Jim Ryun was a Christian?  Ever since he was a child he had attended church every Sunday and every Wednesday night.  In an interview he was asked whether he found it difficult to be a Christian.  He answered this way, “I don’t profess to be a great Christian, for there are those many little things – once in a while – that you do and that you regret you haven’t done.  But I think this is true in anybody’s life.  It’s just part of growing up.  But you’re always striving to do better.  The most difficult is doing all of the things you’re supposed to do and doing them well.  There’s no problem with smoking, drinking, or dancing.  As for swearing, every once in a while when you get in a crowd and somebody starts in you’ve got to watch it!”

So here was Ryun, in his life as a Christian, striving to do better, to please God, to follow God’s rules for living.  Who would doubt that God would bless him for it?

When Ryun entered college as a freshman at the University of Kansas, he ran like no one had ever run before. It was said that people would fill stadiums not to see whether Ryun would win, but to see by how much he would win.  He broke the world record for the mile and the half-mile.  America’s most famous sports magazine put him on the cover and declared him Sportsman of the Year.

 

Disappointment at Mexico City Olympic

Ryun once said that all his life he had wondered what it would be like to be on the inside of something where the whole world was watching.  He was finding out.

As the Mexico City Olympic Games approached, Ryun was the favorite to win the gold medal.  By this time he was the world record holder for the 1500 meters, and he had defeated decisively everyone he would face at Mexico City.

Think of it.  He was the best in the world, the best there had ever been, and the whole world was watching.  And as a Christian, he was drawing attention, not only to himself, but to God. The facts of Ryun’s faith were commonly reported in newspaper and magazine articles – people knew that Ryun was a Christian who tried to follow God’s rules for life.  How great if Ryun would win, and there - receiving the medal - say, “I thank my God.”  What an opportunity for God to draw attention to himself!  Surely God would arrange for things to turn out right: a well-deserved victory by the world-record holder and credit to God.

 

At Mexico City, Ryun ran a magnificent race, faster than anyone had thought possible in the thin air of high altitude, but the medal placed around his neck afterwards was silver, not gold.  He finished second to the great Kenyan runner Kip Keino.  From our perspective it seems disappointing, as if not only Ryun but God missed his chance to be in the spotlight.  How do you make sense of that? 

 

New opportunity for Gold

The next year Ryun continued to run, but he seemed to be getting tired of it.  That same year, he retired.  And he took retirement seriously.  For a whole year he didn’t run a step.  In one year, he gained almost twenty kilograms.  But then the lure of another chance on the world stage – the Olympics – drew him out.  He began training again.  After six months of hard work, he entered his first race.  He won, but his time was unimpressive. 

In his second race, the entire field conspired against him.  They talked before the race and determined to all take turns setting such a scorching pace that the barely-in-shape-again Ryun would have no chance.  But it was no use.  Ryun still won, and this time his time was quite impressive.  He had equaled the world record.

The Munich Olympics were approaching.  There would be another chance for Ryun – and, it would seem, for God.  Because wouldn’t a victory for Ryun be a victory for God?  Surely it would be in God’s own interest to have one of his followers win, wouldn’t it?

Shortly before the Olympics, Ryun ran a mile race that again stamped him as the favorite going into the Games.  He ran faster that anyone in history had ever run; only he himself had ever gone faster.  He was ready to run for the gold medal.

 

The Tragic Fall

In his preliminary heat at the Munich Olympics, another runner accidentally tripped Ryun.  Ryun fell hard and though he struggled to get to his feet and catch up, he could not catch the other runners.  He appealed to the Olympic committee – the videotape later showed that he had been knocked down – but in the end, the Olympic committee decided against granting him a place in the final.  And so the fastest miler in the world that year, the fastest who had ever lived, was kept out of the Olympic final.

Disappointment again.  If God is like us, wanting what we do, it seems he  -- God -- missed his chance again.  Surely a God with the power to create and run the universe knows how to make things turn out better.  It seems an unsatisfying end to the story from our point of view.

 

“I Pray when I Run”

Ryun eventually retired from running and took up a new career in politics.  Today he is a United States Congressman from the state of Kansas.  It is over thirty years since Ryun had his last chance at an Olympic victory in Munich.  Recently a magazine interviewed him and asked if he still runs.  He said yes, just for enjoyment, five or six kilometers a day.  And then they asked, “And what do you think about while you run?”  He said, “I pray.”

“I pray.”  Here, thirty years later, is the true ending of the story.  After all these years, what did Ryun learn?  Was it that running is a trivial activity?  No, he still runs today.  Was it that following God’s rules for life doesn’t pay off?  No, but it seems that Ryun’s idea about God changed.  Before, he seemed to think that what God expected was that Ryun would follow a set of religious rules, a Christian code of ethics, and that following those rules was what it meant to be a Christian.  To Ryun, to be a Christian was simply to be a servant. 

And now, all these years later, when he runs, he prays.  Now there is a relationship between him and God.  He loves God, and loves to talk with him, as a friend.  This is what Jesus said in John 15:15, “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business.  Instead, I have called you friends…”

This is what God is really interested in.  God wants us to love him.  The meaning of life is not in achieving great things, even in achieving them for God; it’s in learning to love God. 

 

The Ultimate Gold

In Jim Ryun’s own words, “the longing of the human heart is toward a deep fellowship with God, a very intimate and personal relationship of communion at the heart level.  That is the ultimate in the spiritual world – the Olympics of the Spirit.  There is no greater race in life to train for than becoming one with the God who created us.  That is life’s true gold – not bestowed for one brief moment of worldly glory, but a relationship that endures throughout all time.  It is toward that relationship with Him, that prized and intimate friendship in the heart, that God is training each one of us.”