The Man in Black Finds His Way Home

In 1965, Johnny Cash was destroying himself. Addicted to amphetamines and barbiturates, he had been arrested seven times, wrecked every car he owned, and nearly burned down an entire national forest in California. The Grand Ole Opry banned him. His first marriage collapsed. He crawled into Nickajack Cave outside Nashville, intending to die in the darkness.

But something happened in that cave. Cash later described feeling the presence of God so strongly that he turned around and crawled back toward the light. He could not explain how he found his way out of the labyrinth, but he did. June Carter and her family were waiting at the entrance. They took him home and helped him begin the long road to sobriety.

Cash never pretended the struggle was over. Decades later, his weathered voice breaking on his cover of Hurt, he sang about the wreckage of his past with devastating honesty. Yet that honesty was precisely what made his faith so compelling. He did not claim perfection. He claimed rescue.

This is the shape of redemption. The Almighty does not wait for us to clean ourselves up before He reaches into our darkness. He meets us in the cave. He turns us around. And He gives us people to be waiting at the entrance when we finally crawl back into the light.

You do not have to find your own way out. The One who found Johnny Cash in that cave already knows where you are.