Inside the uninhibited showman is a true believer. “Yes, I’m Christian, I’m a true believer,” says Noah Lyles, who adds he learnt God’s plan for him when he was sick in bed and asked God for a test. Earlier, he says, he was “messed up” in his view of the church by the life he led as a child. “I actually grew up in a cult,” the American track star said in a podcast released after he won a gold medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Lyles, 27, who won the 100 metres’ gold and 200 metres’ bronze at Paris, said he was speaking about religion for the first time on the podcast, Everybody Wants to Be Us.
Cult life
“I actually grew up in a cult,” he said. It was “super strict”, the track star revealed.” All the moms had to be homeschooling their kids, and the father was the head of the household, and the church told you who you could date, who you couldn’t date”.
“That’s why we moved to North Carolina cuz we were going to start another church only to figure out they wanted to do the same thing,” said Lyles, recalling his early life with his parents, Keisha Caine Bishop and Kevin Lyles. “So we left that [church too] but that kind of really messed up my view of church, and it definitely messed up my mom’s view,” he added. “Even now she struggles to trust churches in general but she never lost her faith in religion.”
The test
Talking about his parents, who divorced, Lyles recalled how he came to believe in God based on a test his mother told him to try.
“When I was young, she said God says when you lack faith, ask for a test and He will provide the test. and I was like, okay, I’m gonna ask for the test.
“I think I was in ninth grade. I wanted to make the world youth team and I got sick. I got something that was really contagious. It was the swine flu, H1N1, I got H1N1 and I was sick as a dog.”
He doubted he could recover in time for the team selection trials, but he prayed.
He prayed to God, “I know this is selfish of me but I’m gonna ask for the test. God if you can provide me a way to make this team, I’m not going to doubt anymore that this is your plan.”
“I made the team,” Lyles recalled. “ I was the youngest person to make the team. And I made the team as an alternate but got to run and made it all the way to being ranked ninth in the world. I was like, yeah, I was sold.”
Relationship with God
He added, “A lot of people think you have to be super into the church and super into the scriptures. It doesn’t have to be that serious. It’s a relationship between you and God. That’s it… It doesn’t have to be what somebody else has told you. It’s a relationship between you and God and what you guys make of that. And that’s how I view it. I don’t have time to go to church every weekend. I gotta run!”
“A lot of people will move through life not knowing the purpose they have and because of that, they get sidetracked, they get lost or sidetracked very easily,” said Lyles. He also gets sidetracked, but then he thinks, “I have a purpose”. He added, “Sometimes the purpose that I want and the purpose that God has are different, and I have to remember that because when I go after mine, it doesn’t go as well. When I go after His, it goes very well, and it’s better than I can imagine.”
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Noah Lyles: In Paris on a mission for a bigger gold haul than Usain Bolt – Sportsry