When I was a small boy I had a frightening experience. I had seen the big boys climb up a high stone wall, hang over the edge for a few minutes and then drop to the ground.
To prove that I could do whatever the others did, I decided to make the climb too. I would be like the big boys! Without stopping to think, up the wall I went, there being fairly easy toeholds up the side.
When I reached the top, I dropped down on my knees as the others had. Gently I let myself back over the wall, hanging onto the top with my hands. Glancing down, I came to my senses. What a drop that would be for one small boy!
Scared through and through, I thought how I could save myself, but it was too late. To pull myself up I could not, and to let go looked like certain death. Frantic with fear, I clung to the wall and hung there in midair.
Why didn’t I pray? I could not call on God, for I did not know Him. In fact, I was so far away from Him that the thought of prayer never entered my mind.
In spite of my ignorance of Him, the God of all grace took note of me. In His wonderful, overruling providence, He undertook for me. A man working nearby had been aware of my foolish effort and now saw my helplessness and distress, and he came where I was. Coming down from the high embankment behind the wall, he bent down, took hold of me, lifted me up and set my feet on top of that solid wall. I was saved by one who saw and pitied me and stooped down and picked me up.
This was a lesson I could not forget, and years later God brought it back to my mind. A time came in my life when I was overwhelmed with a sense of sin and guilt in the sight of God. How I longed to lead a godly life! I dared not die in my sins, and nothing I could do gave peace to my soul. In my misery I cried to God, but not until I had learned my own utter helplessness did I find any relief. When I gave up my own efforts for salvation and submitted totally to the saving of the Lord Jesus Christ and the cleansing power of His precious blood, only then did I learn the joy of being “only a sinner saved by grace.”