“Submit to God’s royal son, or he will become angry, and you will be destroyed in the midst of all your activities – for his anger flares up in an instant. But what joy for all who take refuge in him!” (NLT) Psalm 2:12

Loads of personal development books expound on the theory of “self – made success.” A bunch of motivational speakers preach that success and fulfilment in our lives lie in our grip – the self. They expound on “The Power of Self-Belief,” “The Power of Self-Mastery,” “The Power of Self-Compassion”, “The Power of Self-Reflection”, “The Power of Self-Coaching”, and the list goes on and on. Inasmuch as I believe in one building a strong “internal locus of control”, I find this sole reliance on the self most unhealthy. Our obsession of the self makes us believe that we are the “Invictus – the master of our fate; the captain of our soul.” If I am to rewrite William Ernest Henley’s poem Invictus (a poem that is believed to have inspired Nelson Mandela during his many years of incarceration; a poem that has made a whole generation of people and beyond exult in the self), it would read thus:

“Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank my GOD,

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

BY HIS GRACE, I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

BY HIS PROTECTION, 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 FOR CHRIST LIVES IN ME.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

CHRIST is the master of my fate,

CHRIST is the captain of my soul.

When we come to the point in our lives when we think we are the masters of all we survey; when we think science, technology, mathematics, and engineering can even take the place of God, we will only come to the rude awakening that: “God is like the sun. We cannot look at it, but without it we cannot look at anything else” (G.K. Chesterton). As we start a brand new year, let us get our hands off the wheel and allow God to do the driving!

Hymn – I Surrender All

All to Jesus I surrender,

All to Him I freely give;

I will ever love and trust Him,

In His Presence daily live. (J.W.Van De Venter)

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