One of my favorite statements on the power of faith and God is in the documentary When We Were Kings, the movie about Muhammad Ali and George Foreman's 1974 heavyweight title fight in Zaire (the "Rumble In The Jungle"). Ali came into the fight as an underdog: Foreman, the writers said, was too young, too powerful... his right hand too devastating for an older Ali to reckon with, much less defeat.
Ali, though, saw the heavyweight fight as a chance to help his people's cause at home, and in a prefight sequence in his hotel room, he shadowboxes as he talks about his approach to the fight:
"Now when I go in the ring," he says as he dances, punctuating his words as he punches the air with jabs and crosses, "you see what kind of mind I got now? I've just got a POWER now. I mean, I've got a power that I'm not even gonna realize, until after, I might look him in the face and say 'How did I do that?' Allah, God, I'm his tool. God got in me. My purpose is my people. This man looks slow... God has made this man look like a little kid... that so-called right hand ain't NOTHIN' now... I don't even FEEL him... I ain't got no feelings... I walk right in and I take my shots... because I got God on my mind. I'm thinkin' of my people bein' free... and I can help with just one fight. Now he looks little in comparison to what I'm gettin' FROM it. He ain't NOTHIN' now! But..."
And Ali stops punching and his eyes get big and scared, his voice hushed.
"...if I think about ME... just me... and 'George Foreman knocked out Joe Frazier,' like HE was God... 'George Foreman knocked out Ken Norton'... and the white press, the power structure, ranked me to get tired in five, six... then I'll go in like Norton and the rest of them and get scared.
"But I'm not lookin' at the world and what THEY see. MY God controls the universe."
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