Amazing Grace

I'm sitting here, at my keyboard, wanting to write a blog on "Grace". I feel like an ant attempting to write a thesis on The Grand Canyon. The word rolls easy off the tongue but feels like a barbed hook when I try to swallow it. Grace. It is what is at the very heart of the Prodigal's Story. We love the way the story ends but, at the same time it is such a hard pill to swallow when we see it happening to someone who doesn't deserve it. Someone like the Prodigal Son, who throws his inheritance away with drinking and drugs and gambling and prostitution.... and God only knows what else.....

John Newton was a ship's captain in the 1700's. He lived for the slave trade. He was responsible for thousands of men, women and children to be bought on the auction block like so much chattel.

I think it takes a heartless man to treat another human being like a commodity,... but, back then slaves weren't "human beings"... they were just commerce.

One night, during a storm that threatened to sink the ship, John Newton cried out to God for mercy. Amazingly enough, God heard his pitiful plea and spared his life. John Newton. The slave trader. God not only heard him, God intervened in a powerful way and changed John Newton's heart.... made him a different person. That is so.... unfair. Maybe that's why there is the saying that "God works in mysterious ways".... If "I" were God I sure wouldn't have done it. I would have thrown him overboard and saved the ship... but not him.

John Newton eventually left his sailing life and became a preacher. He shared what he had found with others. He shared this "grace" he had discovered.

Another fellow by the name of William Wilberforce heard John Newton preach and he, too became a disciple of Grace. So much so that William Wilberforce started the movement to abolish slavery. Interesting how that works....

John Newton found an interest in hymn-writing and started writing music for The Church. Among the many hymns he wrote, one in particular has always stood out. The song is called, "Amazing Grace". I'm sure you've heard it,... even sung it at one time or other. There must have been something amazingly memorable in being the captain of a slave ship, in the middle of the night, in the middle of a storm.... and having your entire world turned upside-down by the simple cry of "God have mercy on me!"......

I know it works. It happened to me... many years ago. I had my world turned upside-down by Grace. Actually, to be correct, I would have to say that I had my world turned "right-side up" by Grace. Perhaps it is something that has to be experienced rather than explained. Like I wrote in a previous blog, it is like trying to describe what the color "blue" tastes like....

All I know is that, when I hear or sing this song, I can definitely relate. It's the best thing I've heard that comes the closest to describing "grace"..... It is.... Amazing....



Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound

That saved a wretch like me

I once was lost but now I'm found

Was blind, but now I see



'Twas Grace that taught my heart to fear

And Grace, my fears relieved

How precious did that Grace appear

The hour I first believed



Through many dangers, toils and snares

I have already come

'Tis Grace that brought me safe thus far

And Grace will lead me home



When we've been there ten-thousand years

Bright, shining as the sun

There's no less days to sing His praise

Than when we've first begun