You let the distress drive you to God not away from Him. The result was all gain, not loss. Distress that drives us to God does that. It turns us around. It gets us back in the way of salvation. We never regret that kind of pain. But those who let distress drive them away from God are full of regrets. 2 Corinthians 7:9-10 selected
Some time ago, I read or heard about a statement that was made to a group of people. It is one of those statements where you fill in the blank. The statement is “I Once Was..”. There are as many individual answers here as there are people, but the idea stuck with me as I pondered the best answer to put in the blank. The answer could be something we have overcome, something we have changed in our life, or maybe even a transformation.
The words I Once Was come from my favorite hymn, Amazing Grace. The hymn was written by John Newton who had such a transformation in his life that he was moved to write the well known and loved hymn. Newton was a ship’s captain and a former slave trader. He was born in Gloucestershire, England in 1725, and when he was just a boy, his mother died while his father was away at sea. Times were difficult. Later in life, he turned to the family business of slave trading and sold many fellow countrymen and even family members into slavery.
Newton had lived a life at sea from the time he was eleven, but on one occasion, he found himself tied to the helm of the ship during a horrific storm at sea trying to hold the ship on course. He cried out to God saying, “Lord have mercy on us.” The ship and crew survived. Of that day, Newton said, “On that day, the Lord came down from on high and delivered me out of deep waters.” Only the amazing grace of God could and would take this wretch of a man and transform him into a child of God.
Newton went on to become a minister and spent 43 years preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, writing hymns, and helping to abolish the slave trade. In later years as his memory began to fail, Newton said he could remember two things; “I am a great sinner and Christ is a great Savior”. What a story of grace; Amazing Grace in fact!
If we each completed the sentence I Once Was…,what would be our story? Paul says, “Even though I was once a blasphemer, and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief.” (1 Timothy 1:13) Each of us can go from being lost to being found. There’s such hope in knowing that being lost doesn’t have to be permanent. Thoreau said, “It is not until we are lost that we begin to understand each other.”
When I think of being lost, I always remember a story from our Bowdon days. Randy and I were downtown picking up a few things when a friend who was supposed to be watching our children came riding by in his truck by himself. He rolled down the window and said, “Hey, do ya’ll have the kids?” I said, “No, I thought you had them.” Without any sense of alarm, “Jimmy replied, “Well, I’ve lost them right now, but I’ll find them.” Thankfully, he did. We might be lost spiritually, emotionally, or physically, but we are never too lost that God can’t find us. “I once was lost, but now I’m found.”
Newton’s hymn tells of being blind, but now I see. There are all kinds of blindness which are not physical in nature. We can be blind in that we don’t see the whole picture of what God is doing in our lives, but rather we only see part of it. We can see the world from only our viewpoint, and be blind to the views of others. We can even be blind to God’s grace and the great love He has for each of us. The good news is that God doesn’t have a finite amount of grace or love, He won’t run out! We have all sinned, and we are all in the same condition. We are sometimes blind.
Newton did horrible things, but he found grace. If grace can be poured out on him and Paul, it can be poured out on us. It’s God’s grace, not ours. We all get to celebrate God’s grace. It’s truly 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. John Newton
What a message! Thank you and the timing couldn’t be more perfect. My father’s dear friend, a retired Methodist minister, prayed Amazing Grace with us over Dad the day before he passed. It was also played on the bagpipes at his memorial. I never realized the true amount of comfort that hymn gives us until then. Thank you!
So True! Simply beautiful! Thank You.