This week my
daughter related a story to me that brought me a laugh. As she was driving, she
heard her three-year-old daughter Caitlin saying, “In your happiness, in your
madness, in your gladness, in your sadness, in your fearedness, God is with
you. God is with you in all your nesses. She may only be three, but she has
that right. No matter what state our emotions are in or what circumstances we
find ourselves, God is with us. He is with us in all our nesses.
You may be
feeling lonely and abandoned, angry and hurt, fearful and afraid, or maybe
excited and happy, but God is with us in all our emotions. He made us and knows
what we are like. The Apostle Paul, in his first letter to Timothy, gave thanks
to God for his marvelous grace. He was thankful that God chose him though he
was an unworthy blasphemer who persecuted Christians. Paul says, “The grace of
our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that
are in Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 1:14).
Are you
aware of how much God’s grace has been abundantly poured out on your life? Paul
had been a hard, arrogant, murderer who was obsessed with hunting down and
persecuting Christians. Though he had once been the hunter, God had hunted him
down, saved him, and called him to be his apostle to the Gentiles. When Paul
thought about this, he was lost in the wonder of God’s amazing grace.
You may be
familiar with the song “Amazing Grace,” but are you familiar with the author?
His name is John Newton. He was born in London on July 24, 1725. He grew up the
son of a merchant captain, so he learned the seas. Later, he was drafted into
military service, but John’s depraved nature surfaced, and eventually he wound
up on a slave ship, ultimately becoming a captain of his own ship. He treated
people in a deplorable manner and lived as a reprobate. He had been abused, so
he abused others.
He had had some early religious instruction from his
mother, who had died when he was a child; he had long since given up any
religious convictions. However, on a homeward voyage, while he was attempting
to steer the ship through a violent storm, he experienced what he was to refer
to later as his “great deliverance.” He recorded in his journal that when all
seemed lost and the ship would surely sink, he exclaimed, “Lord, have mercy
upon us.” Later in his cabin he reflected on what he had said and began to
believe that God had addressed him through the storm and that grace had begun
to work for him.
For the rest of his life he observed the anniversary
of May 10, 1748 as the day of his conversion, a day of humiliation in which he
subjected his will to a higher power.[1]
Amazing grace! how
sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but
now am 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! (`Amazing Grace,’ John Newton, 1779)
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