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Who Is the Captain of Your Soul?

Posted on May 22, 2011 by auburnchick

Last week, during finals, my high school students watched the movie, Invictus.

If you’ve seen the movie (which is amazing, by the way), Morgan Freeman (aka Nelson Mandela) recites the poem from which the movie’s title is based…

Invictus

By:  William Ernest Henley

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.

I heard that poem recited four times last week, and each time, I got chills.  If memory serves me correctly, I believe that I had to memorize it when I was in high school.

Fast forward to a conversation I had with a friend last week. She’s going through some personal struggles, and she indicated a desire to start attending church again.  She talked about believing in God and other church figures.  When I inquired about Jesus, she told me that she has a problem with the “Jesus thing” even though she attended church when she was a child.

I sat, dumbfounded.

It’s still difficult for me to hear that people believe in God but do not believe in His Son who died for mankind’s sins and rose again, conquering death, so that all could live forever.

Every day, I hear of people talk about doing this and that…making decisions about their lives.  I can’t help but wonder who, exactly, is the captain of their souls.

One of the biggest lies that Satan feeds us is that we don’t need God or His grace…the grace He showered down on us when He came down in human flesh…and gave His own life for us.

Satan would have us believe that we can, of our own effort, earn our way to heaven.

What a crock of baloney.

We are not the captains of our souls, my friends. Though some people might not believe this truth now, one day every knee will bow to the One who is the Captain and will confess that He is Lord.

So, who do you say is the captain of your soul?

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