From the Depths of Nickajack Cave

In October 1967, Johnny Cash crawled into Nickajack Cave near Chattanooga, Tennessee, with every intention of dying there. Years of amphetamine and barbiturate addiction had hollowed him out. He had lost his first marriage, alienated his friends, and been arrested seven times. He later said he wanted to remove himself from God's creation because he felt unworthy of it.

He crawled deep into the labyrinth of limestone until his flashlight batteries died and the darkness became absolute. And there, in the belly of the earth, something shifted. Cash described feeling the presence of the Almighty so powerfully that he knew, even in total blackness, that it was not his time. He began crawling back, following a faint breeze until he saw a pinpoint of light at the mouth of the cave.

He emerged a different man. With the help of June Carter and her family, he got clean. He recorded some of the most powerful gospel music of the twentieth century. The man who crawled in to die walked out to live.

There is something profoundly biblical about that story. Jonah in the belly of the fish. Jesus in the tomb. Paul struck blind on the road. God has always done His deepest transforming work in the dark.

Some of you are in a cave right now. You crawled in thinking it was the end. But the God who met Johnny Cash in the limestone dark is the same God who meets you in yours. Follow the breeze. The light is closer than you think.