And when David - a former shepherd boy, an adulterer, and a murderer - heard this news, he responded by saying, "Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my family, that you have brought me thus far?"

The priest was John Newton, and those words struck a deep chord in his heart as he thought about the year gone by and the year yet to come.

Newton hadn't always been a minister. He had served in the British navy, but his rebellious spirit got him thrown off numerous ships, publicly flogged, and summarily discharged.

He had led mutinies and been shipwrecked, and he made his money in the slave trade, all before he turned things around and committed his life to the ministry of the gospel.

As he considered those days gone by and his subsequent transformation, he might very well have asked, as David did, "Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my family, that you have brought me thus far?"

As was his habit, Newton set to work to write a hymn that would reinforce the themes of his New Year's Day sermon. In that hymn he would tell his poor congregation about the dangers and snares he had faced. He would reflect on the amazing grace that had saved a wretch like him. He would tell them how he had been lost, and how he had now been found.

Those words of "Amazing Grace" were first sung on New Year's Day in 1773 in Newton's small parish of Olney. For many years, the hymn was scarcely sung. But when it surfaced in America and resonated with slaves in the South, the song touched a chord. Today it is undoubtedly the most widely known hymn in the world.

But it all began in that little dark study in the dying days of one year, as Newton took stock of the past and reflected on God's hand in his life. This New Year's Day, we too can look on the past with grateful hearts at what God has done in our lives, and prepare to sing God's praise with our lips and with our lives.

----Archdeacon Norman Collier is rector of St. Mary's Anglican Church