The Song That Almost Never Was

In 1779, John Newton published the hymn we know as Amazing Grace, but the story behind it reveals something profound about humility. Newton had spent years as a slave trader, participating in one of history's greatest evils. When he finally encountered the living God, he didn't rush to position himself as a spiritual authority. Instead, he spent decades sitting with the weight of what he had done, serving a small parish in Olney, England, writing simple hymns for uneducated congregants.

Newton could have buried his past. He could have reinvented himself as a polished clergyman and never spoken of the ships, the chains, the human cargo. Instead, he called himself "the old African blasphemer" well into his eighties. When his memory began to fail near the end of his life, he reportedly said, "My memory is nearly gone, but I remember two things: that I am a great sinner, and that Christ is a great Savior."

That is the architecture of genuine humility. It is not thinking less of yourself — it is holding two truths simultaneously. You are deeply flawed, and you are deeply loved by the Most High.

Newton did not write "Amazing Grace" from a place of strength. He wrote it from his knees. And perhaps that is why, nearly 250 years later, it still brings people to theirs.

The question for us is simple: Are we willing to let our brokenness become the very thing God uses to bless others?