Amazing Grace for a Prodigal Pastor’s Kid
In 1748 a violent storm off the coast of County Donegal, Ireland, was battering a ship so severely that sinking seemed inevitable. On board, a slave trader named John Newton was not yet ready to die, so he cried out to God for mercy. God answered his prayer, and this marked the beginning of a spectacular transformation in the life of a man who had been a vile sinner up to that point. Years later, as a minister, he contemplated on this radical change as he penned the hymn, “Amazing Grace.”
Like Newton, countless others confess to such a dramatic turn. The active agent in all of them is God’s grace. No man can change on his own. No one can save himself. All humanity is fallen into sin and heading for destruction. While some may not appear to sink so low in sin, the outcome is all the same. The wrath of God awaits each sinner. It is an unavoidable and unchangeable end, no matter how much we insist to think otherwise.
We are lost and in need of redemption. Only God’s grace can achieve that.
Amazing Grace
John Newton’s desperate call for God’s mercy and his story of transformation remind me of my own story. Like Newton, I had to cry out to God to save me when I was drowning. And just like him, I was heard and helped by God. “He brought me up out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my steps” (Ps. 40:2).
“I grew up in 1980s communist Romania as a pastor’s son. Needless to say, this presented challenges for me on several levels.”
The graphic and emotionally charged words of this psalm speak of my own experience as a lost sinner. They sum up God’s amazing grace that saved a hopeless wretch like me. For many years I languished in a horrible pit, one from which I could not climb from until God intervened, reached down to me, and pulled me up. I was a hopeless wretch; I just could not see it yet.
A Wretch Like Me
I grew up in 1980s communist Romania as a pastor’s son. Needless to say, this presented challenges for me on several levels. While, for the most part, my childhood was idyllic it did include a substantial dose of bullying and ridiculing because I came from a Christian family. This inevitably turned out to be a significant factor in my attempt to sever ties with my Christian heritage. However, while this amplified my full-blown rebellion, the main cause for turning away from God was forged deep inside my own fallen nature. More than anything, it was the lust for the things of the world that drove me away from God.
As a teenager, all that I found to be fun in life seemed to run contrary to the strictness and rigidity of God and Christianity. I was convinced that going my own way would be far more rewarding. But I painfully learned that drifting away from God is directly proportional to one’s misery. It would take twenty years for me to fully learn that lesson.
My parents were doing their best to bring me back to the right path, but I was determined to go a different way. My Christian background, which made me feel as an outcast before, was an embarrassing baggage to me, one that I was eager to offload. I secretly envied my secular friends who seemed to live such exciting lives. I often contemplated how much easier my life could have been if I were born in a different family. I remember dreading to be asked what my dad did for a living.
“I painfully learned that drifting away from God is directly proportional to one’s misery. It would take twenty years for me to fully learn that lesson.”
It seemed the only solution was to break away from the context of my upbringing. So, I plunged into a life of sin and debauchery. Getting intoxicated, chasing girls, fighting, and any kind of wild living that came my way I consumed with an insatiable thirst. I was under a spell, and all efforts from my parents to talk sense into me fell on deaf ears.
I particularly recall one Sunday morning as I was stumbling my way home after drinking all night. I passed by the church my father pastored, saw the people coming to church, and thought what a disgrace I was to my dad and my family. I am not sure if members of the church saw me or not (I was way too hammered to pick up on that), but it is a scene that haunted me for years. It was one of many lows that I hit in my wild chases for pleasure and happiness.
I Once Was Lost, but Now I’m Found
My rebellion was at its highest during my teenage years, and while my life seemed more contained from age 22, inside I was sinking deeper into misery. For years I lived with the conviction that earning financial freedom would supply the means to my happiness. So, I pursued success with all my might, only to experience disappointment after disappointment. Even when I had some achievements, the pleasure was brief, and once it was consumed, it left me emptier than before.
Despite starting to doubt whether the course I was on could deliver satisfaction, I still refused to consider that God might be the answer. My whole life, after all, was characterized by rebellion against God. In fact, sometimes I would blame God for my failures. I was often under the impression that he held me down, just as my parents had done through my childhood. I was hoping he would let me be and stop interfering with my life. Fortunately, he did not cut me loose.
After two decades of trying to be my own master, I was depressed and felt like a failure. I was a wretch, broken and in despair, and this time I knew it. I also knew, due to the godly upbringing I once so loathed, that my only hope was to cast myself at Christ’s feet in full surrender and to repent of my sins.
As soon as I cried out to him, the lowest level of despair turned to joy and hope. I was, like the psalmist says, lifted out of the miry clay I was wallowing in and set firmly upon solid rock. I was finally rescued. It was all because of grace; all because of God’s amazing favor toward an unworthy sinner like me.
Amazing Grace, How Sweet the Sound
“As soon as I cried out to him, the lowest level of despair turned to joy and hope. I was, like the psalmist says, lifted out of the miry clay.”
Soon after my conversion, “Amazing Grace” became my favorite hymn. It described my experience with such clarity that it felt like I had written the lyrics. “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I am found. Was blind but now I see.” It is amazing what God’s grace can do. In fact, grace is by definition amazing. We add amazing in front of it to emphasize even more the awe we experience when God is willing to cast away our sins and remember them no more. When we have brought disgrace to his name for years, blaspheming him repeatedly, he embraces us and rejoices that we have been found and rescued. Instead of letting us have the wrath we deserve as sinners, he makes us heirs with Christ. Isn’t it just amazing?
Grace may be free to us, but was not without a cost. We can have forgiveness because Christ was willing to take upon himself the punishment of our sins. The apostle Paul writes, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that you through his poverty might become rich” (2 Cor. 8:9).
No matter how big, or how many, your sins, God’s grace is sufficient to save you. Paul writes, “where sin abounded, grace abounded much more, so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 5:20–21).
God can change you and me, and he can use us in his service, if we just surrender to him. It was grace that saved a wretch like me, and it is grace that will carry me home. What an amazing grace!
David Simon is husband to Bianca and father to Rebeca, Sarah, and Hannah. He is currently working on his Master of Divinity, following which, by God’s will, he will enter full time pastoral ministry. For the past four years, David has been serving as a deacon at International Baptist Church in the Oslo metropolitan area, Norway. You can read more of his writing at his blog, davidsimononline.com.