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I often hear believers apologizing because they are not everything they wish they were. It’s usually followed by a sincere determination to adopt a new strategy, or simply to try harder. Most of us feel like everyone else must have their lives together and we alone are struggling to live perfectly what we profess. I recently read some letters from John Newton (of Amazing Grace fame), which refreshed my soul like a cool breeze in summer. Newton, then 40 years old, wrote that he was often pondering…

“…the remarkable and humbling difference which I suppose all who know themselves may observe… between their judgment and their practice.”

Was it possible, I wondered, that I wasn’t alone?  Newton then described what he saw as a normal struggle of every Christian…

“To hear a believer speak his apprehensions of the evil of sin, the vanity of the world, the love of Christ, the beauty of holiness, or the importance of eternity, who would not suppose him proof against temptation! To hear with what strong arguments he can recommend watchfulness, prayer, forbearance, and submission, when he is teaching or advising others, who would not suppose that he could also teach himself, and influence his own conduct?”

Yet, he continues… “What a contradiction is a believer to himself!”

“He needs not to be told of the vanity and uncertainty of all beneath the sun; and yet is almost as much elated or cast down by a trifle, as those who have their portion in this world.”

“He believes that all things shall work together for his good, and that the Most High God appoints, adjusts, and overrules all his concerns; yet he feels the risings of fear, anxiety, and displeasure, as though the contrary was true.”

“He feels himself an unprofitable, unfaithful, unthankful servant, and therefore blushes to harbour a thought of desiring the esteem and commendations of men, yet he cannot suppress it.”

Maybe even worse, “…His heart is continually leaning and returning to a covenant of works.”

Newton was describing what I feel! What so many feel!  We are so ashamed of our struggles to live the Christian life, yet God ordains those very struggles to drive us to Christ!  Newton says it this way.

“…on account of these and many other inconsistencies, he [the Christian] is struck dumb before the Lord, stripped of every hope and plea, but what is provided in the free grace of God….”

And that, I believe, is the point. Instead of focusing on our own failures, God wants us to focus on the only hope for failing people, our Savior, Jesus Christ!

[In the next blog, we’ll talk about how Newton sees God using our own inconsistencies in our lives.]                

Read more at: John Newton, Cardiphonia, Letters to a Nobleman, Letter 2 (1781).