For many Christians, we want God’s training program to be a microwave, but more often than not it is a crockpot or slow cooker. Glen Cunningham was born on a farm in Kansas. He attended school in a rural community in the one-room school house so many of us have seen in our travels around the country.

He and his brother were given an assignment to stoke and light the fire in the big pot belly furnace in the middle of the classroom. On one particular morning, they were a bit late arriving at the school house and in order to speed up the process they poured kerosene over the fuel supply before they lit it. Unbeknownst to them there were still some live coals from the previous day’s fire. When they poured the kerosene over the fuel supply there was an explosion and a great fire, which caused both of the young men to be seriously injured.

As Glen Cunningham was running from the building he looked back and he saw his brother lying on the floor next to the furnace and he instinctively ran back to grab his brother from the fire. Tragically, a few days later his brother died from the burns and Glen Cunningham was burned so badly around his legs that the doctor said he would never walk again.

Certainly no one ever dared to believe that he would run again and that he would run again to break the world record in the mile. Before the fire, Glen and his brother had always talked about wanting to be world record holders in the Olympics and wanting to break the record. Glen’s disappointment and grief were almost overwhelming, the pain and his inability to move were certainly depressing.

For days he was confined to bed and finally he was able to get up and hobble across the field of their farm behind the plow pulled by a mule. Although he could not walk very well and could run very little, he could still hobble in his own way at a fast pace.

He took a job at a packinghouse hoping that working on a dock would strengthen the muscles in his legs. He had an all-consuming passion to be a runner and he could not give up on his dream. In his early 20s, he entered college and he put forth effort in preparing to become the track star that he always wanted to be.

He put in long and grueling hours pushing himself further and further to develop his skill. At 25 years of age, with his legs scarred from the accident he had experienced at age seven, still unable to walk very well, Glen Cunningham broke the world record for the mile race in just a little over four minutes. He was to come back just a few weeks later and break his own record, and to go down in the books of history as not only a world record breaking runner but one of the most courageous men who ever participated in sports.

There would be some who would say that Glen Cunningham became a runner in spite of the tragedy. But can we suggest he became the runner because of his tragedy. Those who knew him said that there would not have been enough drive and courage without the tragedy he experienced, but because of the suffering and agony, he was almost as driven as a possessed man until he finally achieved what he set out to do.