John Newton's Long Road Home

In 1748, John Newton was a wretch by his own admission — a slave trader, a blasphemer, a young man who had squandered every advantage his devout mother had given him. He had sailed from England full of arrogance, squandered his father's good name, and sunk so low that he found himself starving on the coast of Sierra Leone, practically enslaved himself by a slave dealer's African wife. He was eating scraps from her table like a dog.

Then came the storm. On March 10, 1748, the merchant ship Greyhound nearly capsized in the North Atlantic. As waves crashed over the deck and the crew bailed water for their lives, Newton cried out words he barely believed: "Lord, have mercy on us." It was the first prayer he had spoken in years — the first stumbling step on a long road home.

What strikes me about Newton's story is that God did not wait for him to clean up first. The Father did not demand a reformed life before extending grace. Newton continued in the slave trade for years after that night. His repentance was slow, messy, incomplete. Yet the Almighty ran to meet him in the middle of a storm, just as the father in Luke 15 ran to meet his mud-caked son while he was still a long way off.

The prodigal does not have to finish the journey. He only has to turn around. Grace covers the distance.