Johnny Cash is known as the “man in black.” Early in his music career he got into some pretty bad things. His life was not going well. At all. “I never wanted to see another dawn. I had wasted my life. I had drifted so far from God and every stabilizing force in my life that I felt there was no hope for me.”*

He drove to Nickajack Cave which was on the Tennessee River. He crawled and crawled. After a few hours he was surrounded in darkness. He lay there to die. “I was as far from God as I have ever been.”

That’s when something happened. “I thought I’d left Him, but He hadn’t left me.” Cash felt a sensation of peace, clarity and sobriety. How was this possible? His thinking totally changed. “I became conscious of a very clear, simple idea: I was not in charge of my destiny. I was not in charge of my own death. I was going to die at God’s time, not mine. I hadn’t prayed over my decision to seek death in the cave, but that hadn’t stopped God from intervening.”*

After hours of struggle he finally made it back out of the cave. He “began to see the light”—physically and spiritually. He emerged a changed man, and his life took a decidedly different direction. 

Cash’s story is a powerful demonstration of this principle: “God meets you where you’re at, not where you should be at.” There are different versions of that same idea. I’m not sure who said it first. But it’s a reminder that God doesn’t require you to be in tip-top moral shape or a top-notch theologian to intervene in your life. 

Not only was this true for the man in black, but many others—including the apostle Paul. Back when he was called Saul he was headed to Damascus to hunt down Christians when the Lord himself confronted him: “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” (Acts 9:4)

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that Saul shouldn’t have been doing that. Even still, God met him where he was at, not where he should have been at.

The same is true for you. I hope it encourages you. 

-Are you stuck in a certain sin?
-Is there something in your life that you perceive to be a weakness? 
-Is there shame that continually clouds your mind? 
-Is there a frustration which you feel is breaking you even more?

God meets you where you’re at, not where you should be at.

Praise be to God for his abundant mercy.

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Notes and extra content:

—New Podcast: “Something Still Seems ‘Off’—Sarah Joy Covey on Life After the Pandemic.”Click here to listen or watch, or tune in to ‘The Pulse Podcast with Matthew Ruttan’ wherever you subscribe.

–Johnny Cash with Patrick Carr, Cash: The Autobiography (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1997), 169-71.

–Bible quotes are from the NIV.