Amazing Grace

Hymn Series Day 6 – Amazing Grace

John's mother died in 1731 when he was 6 years old. He was left to the devices of an emotionally distant step Mother and a Father who was always at sea. After being mistreated at boarding school, he was taken onboard his fathers ship as an apprentice and thus began his seafaring ways. He came close to death on several occasions and likewise fell in and out of belief in Jesus. He lived more and more recklessly as time went on and was made to join the navy as he was too much for anyone to hire. It wasn't long before he was dishonourably discharged from the Navy and he fell into the slave trade. Sailors had a reputation of living loosely, but Newton was known to be one of the basest and profane sailors many had ever met. He lived with moral abandon and said of himself “I sinned with a high hand… and I made it my study to tempt and seduce others.”

In 1747, on one fateful voyage upon the ship Greyhound, an incredible storm came upon them, threatening to capsize the ship. Newton and another crew mate tied themselves to the ships pump and spent hours trying to empty the ship of water. Newton turned to the captain and said “If this will not do, then Lord have mercy upon us!” He then rested for a short time and returned to the deck to steer the ship for the next 11 hours, all the while pondering his divine challenge.
His conversion was not immediate. After the trip, he embarked on several more slave trading voyages, one where he even captained the ship. But when in port, he had started to attend church and bible study – slowly his heart began to change. At 30, he collapsed, nearly died, and never sailed again. He started to write about his experiences and life, started to become more involved in church and evangelism, and discovered that his views on many things were changing as his relationship with Christ was growing. He started writing Hymns purely to be sung at his weekly prayer meeting, of which ‘Amazing Grace' was born. Newton has actually never attributed this Hymn to his days of slave trading… and it would miss the point of his story to do that. It's an autobiography of his whole life – lost and found, blind now seeing.
In 1787 He wrote ‘Thoughts Upon the African Slave Trade' to help William Wilberforce's campaign to abolish the slave trade, to which he said it is “a business at which my heart now shudders,”.

Today, remember the greatness of Gods grace – its not always instantaneous, but weaves and leaks its way into our lives moment by moment, day by day… If you took a snapshot of Newtons early life, how many of us would have written him off? Take the time to look at the journey and allow grace to permeate and marinate a broken soul…

Thank you John Newton for expressing a story so many of us are familiar with… A story of true repentance and revolution of the soul.