A winner is the master of his fate and the captain of his soul

I found this article from Francis Kong's Book, The Early Birds catches the worm and the second mouse eat the cheese.

The Winner's prayer

The late Commodore John W. Caunce, master of the original Elizabeth (that majestic ocean liner of the Cunard fleet), kept a framed copy of an old prayer on a wall in his quarters. He often showed it to passengers who visited him. Many people know the prayer, but its origin is obscure:

Here's how the prayer goes.

Lord, thou knowest better than I know my self that I am growing older and will someday be old.

• Keep me from the fatal habit of thinking I must say something on every subject and on every occasion.
• Release me from craving to straighten out everybody's affairs.
• Make me thoughtful but not moody, helpful but not bossy.
• With my vast store of wisdom, it seems a pity not to use it all, but Thou knowest, Lord, that I want a few friends at the end.
• Keep my mind free from the recital of endless details;
• Give me wings to get to the point.
• Seal my lips on my aches and pains. They are increasing, and love of rehearsing them is becoming sweeter as the years go by.
• I dare not ask for grace enough to enjoy the tales of others' pains, but help me to endure them with patience.
• I dare not ask for improved memory, but for a growing humility and a lessening cock-sureness when my memory seems to clash with the memories of others.
• Teach me the glorious lesson that occasionally I may be mistaken.
• Keep me reasonably sweet; I do not want to be a saint (some of them are so hard to live with) but a sour old person is one of the crowning works of the devil.
• Give me the ability to see good things in unexpected places and talents in unexpected people.
• And give me, Lord, the grace to tell them so. Amen.

Now, this seems to be a prayer that would surely be honored by God.

You seem to sense immediately the maturity level of a person by the way he prays. Most people I know, when faced with an extremely difficult situation, would pray this way: “Lord, remove the problem away from me because I cannot handle it.”

And then you find people who get themselves in a nasty fix and then blame God for placing them there. There prayer goes this way: “Lord, why do you put me in this difficult situation?”

But the mature person prays this way: “Lord, give me the strength to go through this and grant me the wisdom to learn lessons from this situation. I cannot deal with the problem on my own strength, so then in You I will put my trust.” Now that's the prayer of faith and humility, and I am positively certain that God honors prayers like this.

One day a businessman, who needed millions of pesos to clinch an important deal, went to church to pray for the money. By chance he knelt next to a man who was praying for P100 to pay an urgent debt. The businessman took out his wallet and pressed P100 into the other man's hand. Overjoyed, the man got up and left the church. The businessman then closed his eyes and prayed: “And now, Lord, that I have your undivided attention...”

Hard to imagine God would be pleased with a prayer like that...

By the way, how do you pray, anyway?

Life is a matter of perspective. It's not what happens to you; it's how you look at it and how you take it. Don't take life too seriously. No one has gotten out of it alive anyway.    

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Other people when they  heard about the The Winner's prayer by Commodore John W. Caunce, the first thing comes in their mind is this prayer is being prayed when you want to win something or to win on a competition,  but when we read the prayer carefully the prayer  is about being humble with our talents and gifts that God's given to us, being strong and not always complaining when we experiencing pains and down falls, asking for guidance to speak the truth, to have patient and humility, learn to not let our hearts grow back crooked because sometimes when our heart breaks it can grows twisted, gnarled and hard to forgive, and lastly is to be appreciative on people. 

In short, the prayer is about asking God for his guidance to become a better person because being one, you can already consider  yourself as a winner. Because a winner is winning your own self to become better and it can only be possible if our prayer is accompanied  with actions.


Same like how William Ernest Henley says,"I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul." Let us be the master of our fate and  the captain of our soul to become a better person under the guidance of God, because through this you become a true winner on this life.