#amazing grace

Star your ThanksGiving week right with Amazing Grace on X-Art.com

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Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
that saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now I am found,
was blind, but now I see

“I narrowly missed out on a job [in 2006] in London playing the youngest PM in Britain, William Pitt, [in ‘Amazing Grace’]. I did a really good audition and I worked really hard to get the job. The director ummed and ahhed on me for weeks. Finally, he said, ‘My issue with Joel is that he doesn’t strike me as blue-blooded enough.'…When he looked at me, I didn’t seem like the upper class, silver spoon type. Inside, I was like, 'No, no, I can be that!’“ 

So anyway, then I get to [casting] 'The Square’ and I had this realisation.  There’s this thing I refer to as the - You Are The Guy Or You Are Not The Guy - and I realised when I was dealing with this director in London that I just wasn’t The Guy. If I was the only guy in contention, I could’ve been The Guy and I could’ve done a good job, but because there was another person in the frame (Benedict Cumberbatch) that was more The Guy than I was The Guy…Well, now I’ve completely given up all those feelings of, ‘Arghhh!’ because if I was the director, I would’ve picked the other guy too!”

–  Joel Edgerton on losing out on a role to Benedict Cumberbatch and learning that casting decisions are rarely personal 

I love hymns. They are a such beautiful reminders of God’s majesty, love and faithfulness. They can also be the sweetest, most elegant truth of the Gospel, humbling and renewing me as often as I sing them. Amazing Grace in particular is a Hymn that holds a special place in my heart and has brought me more tears of joy than any other. And the majority of those tears can be attributed to a single line:

“How precious did that grace appear the hour I first believed.”

This part of the song reminds me, every time, of a plane ride when I was 16. I had been wrestling all summer with doubts and confusion about my faith. I was, in terms of spiritual maturity, still an infant despite having read through much of the Bible and memorized several verses. I can still remember so clearly the questions that had plagued me all summer; “How can I be saved by grace and still have to bear good fruit?” and  “How can I know I’m saved?”.

So there I was, on the plane home, having had the gospel explained to me nine ways to sunday; spiritually exhausted and as uncertain as ever. And I began to pray. It was a prayer of broken surrender. I didn’t know what It was I was missing. I couldn’t understand why all of the sudden everything seemed to be falling apart, but I was tired.

And then the Lord answered.

I was hit in that instant by an overwhelming flood of understanding! I was literally gasping under the weight of it all! There were no new words. The message hadn’t changed. But where before there had only been confusion, there was comprehension. Where there was guilt there was grace! My eyes were suddenly opened; “was blind but now I see”.

It’s been ten years since that plane ride. Through countless blessings including marriage to my incredible wife and the birth of our son, it remains the single sweetest moment of my entire life. And every time I hear Amazing Grace I sing along and am taken right back to “the hour I first believed”.

-Aaron