The Wretch Who Was Found

John Newton built his identity on the Atlantic slave trade. For years he worked aboard ships that carried human beings in chains, eventually commanding his own vessel. He was, by his own later admission, a wretch.

On a stormy night in March 1748, Newton's ship nearly went down. In that terror, he cried out to the God he had long mocked — and something shifted. Not all at once. The transformation took years. But slowly, the man who had trafficked in human lives began to see himself differently — not as trader, not as wretch, but as a sinner held in the grip of an inexplicable grace.

Decades later, Newton penned the words that millions would sing: "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found." Notice what he wrote. He didn't say grace improved him or promoted him. He said grace found him. The Almighty didn't hand Newton a better version of his old identity. He gave him an entirely new one.

This is what the apostle Paul meant: "If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here" (2 Corinthians 5:17). Your identity is not your résumé, your worst failure, or the label others have pinned on you. It is who the Creator says you are — found, forgiven, and made new.