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.

With ‘Amazing Grace’ I sometimes lose the simple but profound truth in the familiarity of the song… ‘Conversion’ in some Christian circles is a cliché, but my life and perspective on life is transformed. I was a lost, blind wretch; now I’m saved, found and seeing. The grace of my God is amazing and totally undeserved…  

‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears relieved.
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed.

As I understand God more clearly I appreciate what it is to ‘fear’ God… I see his greatness, wisdom, power and ‘otherness’ with greater clarity… my own fears are diminished because He can hold them and manage them. This amazing grace is truly precious… beyond value.

Through many dangers, toils and snares
I have already come;
’tis grace hath brought me safe thus far
And grace will lead me home.

I look back on my life. I look at where I am now. I look at my family and friends. We’ve been through ‘dangers, toils and snares’… sadness, disappointment and heartbreak… some self-inflicted, some totally random. We’ve come through them all by our God’s amazing grace… so I’m totally confident that ‘grace will lead me home’.

When we’ve been there ten thousand years
Bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing god’s praise
Than when we’ve first begun.

This morning I read Isaiah 65:‘I am creating new heavens and a new earth… I will create Jerusalem as a place of happiness. Her people as a source of joy… And the sound of weeping and crying will be heard no more… The wolf and the lamb will feed together…’

I’m trying to imagine the unimaginable… I return to the certain, confident hope shared in recent funerals… Amazing grace will lead me home.