I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul. Such is the famous line from the poem Invictus, and such seems to be the battle cry of the free world today. We know best what we need to thrive; our own fulfillment is under our control. And so we work and labor and toil and stress and sell our own souls in pursuing the feeling of having accomplished the good life. As Bob the Builder used to say on TV, can we fix it? Yes we can! The problem is that the best we have ever managed to accomplish is a series of temporary fixes that will only nourish us for a breath of time. Aside from Christ, no amount of human effort has ever accomplished anything eternal.
Why do we have to focus on the eternal? Why did Jesus have to say we should pursue food that endures over food that spoils? Unfortunately, our default is to not think past the right-now. We’d more often prefer the goods we can get sooner, even if they won’t last. Addictions form when we crave the rush that won’t last ‘til the morning. Wasted careers emerge when we prioritize money or power or other things that will die when our bodies do. But God truly does know better. Our Father designed us hardwired with the fundamental need for the blessings that come from him and that last eternally. We were made for something greater than this world could ever offer!
Just yesterday, I became Rebecca’s husband. (Don’t worry, I wrote this well ahead of time!) As she and I have prepared for our wedding day, It has occurred to us that we are entering into the most wonderful thing found in this world: a taste of the eternal love of God. Our mutual humility, our selfless affection, and our ambition to serve each other will for the rest of our lives give us a taste of the infinitely greater relationship with God our Father for which we are both destined. Thank God for marriage! Everything else suddenly pales in comparison! I echo Dr. Brooks when I say that I have to keep Jesus, and I’d really like to keep my wife—everything else is negotiable.
That eternal food, that perfectly nourishing and fulfilling food, does not come from any work we can do. We cannot master our own fate or captain our own soul—but the beautifully ironic good news is that our eternal nourishment comes from believing that Christ in fact can. Fully trusting in the Son of God to master our fate and captain our soul is in fact the doorway to the freedom, restoration, eternal life, and incomparable joy for which our Father designed our souls—and our souls are desperately hungry. So trust in Christ Jesus to captain your soul, because he is a trustworthy captain indeed.
