I listen to music some people consider weird or unenjoyable. So, it kind of shocks them when I say that I would put someone as mainstream as Johnny Cash among my top ten artists. Johnny Cash was a fascinating guy. From covering songs from wildly different musical categories to recording songs from his mother’s hymn book, to recording an audiobook for the New King James version of the New Testament. He did it all.
An interesting testament to how he perceived himself was that one of his favorite movies was Frankenstein. About the film he was quoted as saying, “because it's about a man made up of all these bad parts and yet he still tries to do something decent and be someone decent.”
This might be one of the best descriptions of the Christian life I’ve ever heard. It is so easy to look at yourself and just see all these messed up parts. You KNOW you are loved and forgiven, but you don’t always FEEL loved and forgiven. We all have parts of ourselves that we don’t like, and we can falsely believe that we need to hide them.
Fortunately, the creator of the world already sees all of you. In Psalm 139:13-14 King David says,
13 For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
It's easy to not feel wonderfully made. We need to constantly remind ourselves (and our friends), that from the beginning God formed you and loved you. Johnny Cash and King David put themselves and those around them through a lot of turmoil during their lives, but they still created works of timeless beauty.
We have the same opportunity as they did, to live a life trying to do something decent and be someone decent.