Beside Still Waters Ministries

In my prayer time, I felt that God wanted us to look at His grace, and those that responded to it with hymn texts that continue to be powerful today. First, let’s look at John Newton, who wrote “Amazing Grace”, probably the most well-known hymn around the world. John’s mother was an early, strong spiritual and educational influence on his life, but she died when he was seven years old. At age 11, with but two years schooling and only a rudimentary knowledge of Latin, John went to sea with his father because his stepmother didn’t like him and mistreated him. His life at sea was filled with wonderful escapes, vivid dreams, and a sailor’s recklessness. While he often tried to not abandon his mother’s teaching by working at religiosity, fasting, and praying, but without any true understanding that works is not what would save him, he grew into a godless and abandoned man. John was once flogged as a deserter from the navy, and for 15 months lived, half starved and ill treated, as a slave in Africa. He was known during this time not only for his wild life, but also for his contempt of Christianity, and he would persecute any believers that came into his path.

A chance reading of Thomas à Kempis sowed the seed of John’s conversion. It was accelerated by a night spent steering a water-logged ship in the face of apparent death. He was then 23 years old. Over the next six years, during which he commanded a slave ship, his faith matured. He spent the next nine years mostly in Liverpool, studying Hebrew and Greek and mingling with George Whitefield, John Wesley, and the Nonconformists. He was eventually ordained, and became curate at Olney, Buckinghamshire, in 1764. It was at Olney that he formed a life long friendship with William Cowper, and produced the Olney Hymns. In this wonderful collection was the hymn that basically was John’s autobiography, “Amazing Grace”.

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. (I encourage you to read the whole thing here)
© Public Domain

A marble plaque at St. Mary Woolnoth carried the epitaph which Newton himself wrote:
JOHN NEWTON, Clerk
Once an infidel and libertine
A servant of slaves in Africa,
Was, by the rich mercy of our Lord and Saviour
JESUS CHRIST,
restored, pardoned, and appointed to preach
the Gospel which he had long laboured to destroy.
He ministered,
Near sixteen years in Olney, in Bucks,
And twenty-eight years in this Church.

A fantastic movie about the impact of John Newton and this hymn on William Wilberforce, an abolitionist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, was recently made, called “Amazing Grace“. If you haven’t seen it yet, try to rent it because you will be blessed by it. An interesting historical discrepancy in the movie is that the tune that we know today and is used in the movie was not actually written until 1831, and in America, so therefore would not have been known or sung by William Wilberforce. Nonetheless, it is spiritually very moving, and really makes you think about how we, who have received God’s grace, need to stop the slavery that still exists today. If you would like to read more about William Wilbeforce, John Piper wrote a great autobiography which you can find at his website, Desiring God.

Speaking of someone who needed grace, and out of response to God’s grace wrote one of the most powerful worship songs of today, lets also look at the story of Dennis Jernigan and the song “You Are My All In All”. Dennis grew up with a grandmother that knew that God had a plan for his life and was a source of strength for him, but when she died he felt devastated and abandoned by the Lord. He struggled with homosexuality as a teen and young man, and even after the Lord delivered him from that he struggled with depression because he still felt that God took his grandmother when he had needed her the most.

He eventually sat down and wrote out a long list of the times he felt abandoned and forsaken by God, and turned it over to the Lord. God worked in his heart, showing him those painful experiences through His point of view, broke through the lies, and healed his heart. Sometime after that a little old lady who was a prayer partner with his grandmother commented that Grandmother Jernigan’s prayers had been answered – she had asked God to use him in the area of worship and music for His glory. Dennis realized that the reason God allowed the wounding was so that he could understand God’s grace and what it means to be weak.

In 1988 Dennis felt that the Lord wanted him to share his testimony about breaking the bondage of homosexuality, but this was difficult because he knew that it could mean that he would lose everything in his ministry. But God showed him that others could also be set free if they knew that there was someone else who had been freed. So, he did, and a year later he wrote “You Are My All In All” during a worship time at his church as further testimony to what God had done in and through his life.

You are my strength when I am weak,
You are the treasure that I seek…
Seeking You as a precious jewel,
Lord, to give up I’d be a fool…

Taking my sin, my cross, my shame,
Rising again I’ll bless Your name…
When I fall down You pick me up,
When I am dry You fill my cup,
You are my all in all.
© 1991 Shepherd’s Heart Music

If you haven’t already, receive God’s grace, because there is nothing that is to horrible for God to forgive and heal. If you have, how about taking the time to reflect on all that God has done for you, and I even encourage you to sit down and write about it or express it in whatever way God has gifted you.