The Man in Black and the God of Second Chances

In 1968, Johnny Cash walked into Folsom Prison to play a concert for two thousand inmates. What most people forget is that Cash himself was barely standing. Years of amphetamine addiction had hollowed him out. He had been arrested seven times. His first marriage had collapsed. He once crawled into Nickajack Cave outside Nashville, intending to lie down in the darkness and die.

But something happened in that cave. Cash later described feeling the presence of the Almighty so strongly that he turned around and crawled back toward the light. June Carter and her family took him in. He got clean. And when he stood on that small stage at Folsom, he was not a celebrity performing for criminals. He was one broken man singing to others who understood brokenness.

The prisoners heard it in his voice. They roared when he sang because they recognized someone who had been where they were — and had been pulled back from the edge by a grace he did not earn.

That is the shape of redemption. The God who meets us in our darkest cave does not wait for us to clean ourselves up first. El Roi, the God Who Sees, finds us in the pitch black and says, "Turn around. There is still light."

Whatever cave you have crawled into — shame, addiction, regret — the same hand that reached for Johnny Cash is reaching for you right now.