Invictus
Cris and I watched Invictus the other night. We had already planned on renting it, and then someone at Starbucks told me how great of a movie it was so I rented it that very night. Great story, very motivational, and I love movies that are based on true stories. Throughout the movie you keep hearing Morgan Freeman, who plays Nelson Mandela, quote parts of the poem Invictus. The last two lines of the poem are I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.
I was thinking to myself, man those are good lines, very motivation, and encouraging to keep at it. No matter what people put in my way, I am the master of my fate and the captain of my soul. But as I kept thinking about it, that is completely wrong and I would have to say that we are neither master nor captain of anything about our lives. Paul wrote in 1Cor6:19-20 that we have been bought with a price, a very high price and we do not belong to ourselves, we are Gods! (I realize that these verses are talking more about sexual immorality, but the precept still applies we are not our own)
In case your interested, here is the poem, read it yourself, let me know what you think.
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
June 15th, 2010 at 12:17 pm
I have a feeling this is why so many people have a problem with what the Bible says about God and humans. We want CONTROL, and yet the Bible claims that God is in control, not us. That’s a hard thing to “give up”…