We’re always trying to be a little cool. My attempt at cool is a mini-fascination with Johnny Cash. But I have a confession of sacrilege to make, which will probably disqualify me among any moderately authentic fan of the Man in Black: Walk the Line was my first real exposure to Johnny Cash and I don’t own any of his records.

I’m not sure how much I actually like Cash’s music. But I like his story, and the stories he tells. And he’s cool. Black suits and slick hair; a rebel whose most famous recording was in a prison, where he’s heard heckling the wardens in front of the inmates.  He played for presidents and made a record with U2. His cool is so universal that Sara found this shirt for me at The Gap. (Yeah, the one that sells overpriced jeans.)

Cash is the perfect icon for a grown-up evangelical Christian like me. Gospel songs, songs celebrating family and America, social songs, love songs, rock, country.  A bold Christian who seemed to believe in Truth, Jesus, the Bible, Justice, Judgment, and Hell. A man whose artistry propelled him to the top of the cultural mountain but whose faith was never an asterisk to his stardom. He spent time in jail, sang for presidents, lived a life of debauchery before turning to Christ, and sang with U2 our other favorite ‘Christian’ cultural kings.

Liking Johnny Cash can add a certain cachet to an otherwise uncool life. I may have never lived an ‘edgy’ life. But Johnny did. To the world, he’s a fighter, unconstrained by any law but his own. To the Christian, he did all the rebelling for us. We can take our milquetoast youth and say, “See! Look what God did for him.”

But underneath the cool is a fascinating story of an imperfect saint. In autobiographical accounts and stories told following his death in 2003, it was clear Mr. Cash was never clean for very long. Despite singing “I’ve got Jesus in my Soul” he struggled with addiction to amphetamines for his entire life. I’ve taken so much from the Cash transformation and regression story – it is what the Kingdom of God is like around the world. We are all haunted by the demons within and without that conspire to drag us back to rebellion and misery with promises of satisfaction. Some are more blatant and public than others, but all of them restrain the final perfection Jesus promises in Glory.

This present, but not yet salvation is a helpful lens to view the work we’re doing in Ethiopia (or anywhere – home, work, school). Each positive step is shadowed by mind-bending steps backward. As one young woman is faithfully building a small business and repaying the small loan that helped her start it, another shutters her coffee shop doors and can’t be reached to find out why. The multiple baptisms I witnessed in January demonstrating the efficacy of our church planting strategy has been met with some frustrating decisions by leaders in the last few months. Many similar stories could be told about our other development initiatives.

I look at these challenges and remember my cool-hero Johnny Cash and the arc of his entire life. A redeemed man finished his earthly journey still wrestling with the same chains that drove him to Christ. The end of the Discovering Light mission isn’t Nirvana. My expectation isn’t for God’s good kingdom to eradicate all the bad that exists in Arsi Oromo communities. (For the record, I could probably write about all the good that existed in Johnny Cash before his conversion and how it’s similar to the good in Ethiopian villages that haven’t embraced Jesus.)

Knowing our earthly limitations, we seek a Cash-like transformation that sweeps entire villages and districts in Southern Ethiopia.