Crossing the Desert: From Why to What For

Introduction

Nathan opens a new three-month series at Église Comme à la Maison: Crossing the Desert: How to Live Through Trials. While the home groups dig in parallel into the book of Job (the story of a man who lost everything with no explanation), the celebrations will cover three stages of the desert: entering it (the confusion), living in it (letting go), and coming out of it (a new encounter with God).

This first message focuses on entering the desert, that place where you keep repeating to yourself: "Why? Why me? What did I do to deserve this?" These questions are normal when life turns dry, when a failure, an addiction, an illness, a breakup, or an unanswered prayer settles in. But Nathan proposes a decisive shift: moving from asking why (looking for a cause) to asking for what (hoping for a good outcome). The passage is John 9:1-12: Jesus meeting the man born blind.

Outline of the Message

1. Karma: the logic that poisons how we read our trials

• Karma is the idea that everything you experience is determined by your past actions. If you're a good person, good things will happen to you; if you're bad, bad things will happen. Like a boomerang: every act, every thought, every word generates an energy that comes back to you. It's the "more equals more" theory: positive attracts positive.
• This belief is far more rooted in our culture than we realize. The latest album from Bigflo & Oli, listened to by hundreds of thousands and gone gold within a month, is simply called Karma. The message all around us becomes: "If you believe you're a good person, nothing bad will happen to you." But when sickness comes, when grief arrives, when suffering won't let go, can you really just leave it to karma?
• Karma is appealing because it's simple and reassuring. It lets us rationalize suffering, and rationalizing brings relief. We want explanations. The whole world seems to work that way: at school you get grades based on your work, at your job a salary based on your performance, in relationships love in proportion to what you give. We measure everything. We end up thinking of God the same way: "If I'm good, God accepts me; if I sin, God rejects me, or I suffer because I deserve it."
• The shortcut takes hold: faithfulness + good works = blessing, fault + sin = misfortune. But Jesus comes to overturn this human logic. Grace arrives before merit, and suffering isn't always the consequence of sin.

2. The disciples' question: "Who sinned?" (John 9:1-5)

• Jesus passes by and sees a man blind from birth. His disciples ask him: "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" In other words: "Why? Whose fault is it?"
• Picture the scene. The disciples walk past the blind man with Jesus and, without any hesitation, ask their question. They don't see a man who happens to be blind, they see a blind man, a disease, a curse. Compassion and consideration are badly missing.
• Aren't we often just like them? Facing our own suffering, or someone else's, we look for a reason why. That reaction might seem well-meaning (maybe we want to help), but is it really a good question to ask someone who's suffering? Rather than setting them free, it locks them into their suffering and pushes them to look backward, to search for a cause. Sometimes knowing the reasons helps; often it just makes people curl in on themselves.
• The disciples' explanations, by the way, are very weak. First possibility: it's his parents' fault. But the Bible had already addressed this. Where it says God punishes "to the third and fourth generation," it also says, and even more strongly, that he shows mercy to the thousandth generation (Exodus 20:5-6). Blessing far outweighs curse. And Ezekiel 18:20 settles it: "The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, nor the father bear the iniquity of the son." God's logic isn't to pass evil down from generation to generation.
• Second possibility: it's his own fault. But the text specifies that he was born blind. So he would have sinned in his mother's womb? A surreal explanation. The disciples fall into the trap of legalism: strict adherence to a law of "you sin, you suffer." For every wrong turn, a smack on the head; for every sin, some suffering.
• By this thinking, if you're depressed, if you lost your job, you must have sinned (karma). If you can't break free of an addiction, it's because you haven't prayed enough (karma). If your prayer goes unanswered, it's because you're not right with God (karma). Careful here: that doesn't mean you shouldn't pray in your trial, quite the opposite. It means that sin isn't always the cause of suffering, and a lack of prayer isn't always the reason you're walking through a desert.
• The result of this logic is guilt. "I deserved it. What did I do?" But this way of thinking forgets the most important thing: compassion. Etymologically, com-passion means "to suffer with." Searching for causes isn't suffering with someone. What we need most in a trial isn't an explanation, or even a perfectly worded sentence that tells us what we want to hear, but consideration and presence: "I'm praying for you, I'm thinking of you, I'm with you."

3. Jesus' answer: overturning the logic of karma

• Jesus answers in a single sentence (John 9:3): "It was not that this man sinned, nor his parents, but that the works of God might be revealed in him." He literally overturns the disciples' karma thinking, and ours too.
• Jesus reminds us that God is a God who forgives, a God who frees us from guilt. And he points out the limits of karma:
  • Karma makes victims feel guilty. It places on the shoulders of the person suffering the idea that they deserve their fate.
  • Karma paralyzes. It sets in a kind of fatalism: "If I'm going through this trial, I must have deserved it, and there's nothing I can do about it."
  • Karma pushes us toward comparison. "I suffer a little less than he does, so I must have done better works." Comparison in a trial is a weed that needs pulling up.
  • Karma turns us inward. We stop doing good freely; we do it to receive something. It's a kind of spiritual self-centeredness.
• But there's another story: the story of God's free love. A love that doesn't wait for us to pay up or do good works. We don't deserve it, but God loves us so much that he offers it to us freely. That's what frees us from guilt.
• Yes, injustice exists; yes, you can suffer unfairly. But God is just, with a justice that isn't a scale balancing our sins against our sufferings. God's justice is built on his love, his grace, and his faithfulness. At the cross, Jesus took on the condemnation and guilt our sins deserved, so that we would not be subject to this karma logic.
• Five contrasts emerge between Jesus and his disciples:
  1. Jesus shows compassion; the disciples sow guilt.
  2. Jesus operates from a logic of free gift; they operate from a logic of accounting and legalism.
  3. Jesus turns the blind man's gaze toward God, who is good; they turn it toward his parents or his sin.
  4. Jesus looks toward the future and the outcome (the "for what"); they look toward the cause and the origin (the "why").
  5. Jesus hopes for good; they suspect evil.
• Nathan quotes a line from Orelsan's song Jour meilleur: "When you've got a desert to cross, there's nothing to do but keep walking." That's exactly what Jesus makes possible for this blind man: to move forward, while his disciples hold him back, tying his hands and feet. Jesus offers compassion in the present, one day at a time, and hope toward the future.

4. "So that the works of God might be revealed in him"

• Jesus offers this blind man an entirely new way of reading his suffering: that it be useful, that it have meaning and purpose, though not necessarily an explanation. That his suffering become an opportunity to give God his best. What freedom that brings into our own sufferings!
• Your trial can remind you of a few precious truths about God: that he is fully good, that he is just, that he loves you, that he is sovereign even when you don't understand, and that he deserves your very best.
• Jesus offers you the chance to hope, and to say to God: "Lord, I want your works to be revealed in me. I want this trial to be useful for your glory."
• Nathan shares about a financial trial he went through six months earlier: he was scammed out of several thousand euros from his business account through a single phone call, all the money he had to cover bills due the very next day. A double trial: first, tearing himself down ("how stupid am I for falling for that"), then the anxiety of not being able to pay himself a salary. But when he and Opaline chose to turn it into an opportunity to trust God and give him their best, peace came. "It really helped me get through the trial peacefully, because I know God is good, that he is just, that he loves us, and that he provides for our needs, without looking at what I deserve."

5. God draws near: the mud, the saliva, and the touch (John 9:6-7)

• "Having said this, he spat on the ground, made mud with the saliva, and applied it to his eyes." That's a lot to take in! Jesus adds mud to the eyes of a man who already can't see. The blind man might well have thought: "Why are you doing that? I already can't see anything, and now you're adding more?"
• In our own trials, it's sometimes the same. Sometimes we don't understand what God is doing even while he's already healing us. Sometimes the healing doesn't come the way we expected. Sometimes it's hard, confusing, painful. But Jesus asks you to trust him, and that's exactly what this man does. He obeys perfectly, he lets himself be healed, even though it makes no sense, even though it's disgusting.
• To trust God, you have to believe he's near. Look at what Jesus does: he takes some dirt, he spits, he makes mud, and he touches the blind man. Since the man can't see, Jesus adapts to his other senses:
  • Spitting makes a sound: the blind man hears Jesus.
  • The dirt and mud have a smell: the blind man smells Jesus near.
  • And above all, Jesus touches him. He spreads the mud on his eyes, he creates contact.
• Jesus doesn't heal this man the way he did elsewhere ("Go, your faith has saved you"). He meets him where he is, he speaks to him in his own language. Healing isn't some impersonal magic act: the blind man knows it's Jesus who healed him. It's a real encounter.
• That's what God does with you in your trials: he meets you where you are, he adapts to you to encounter you personally. He isn't a distant God, kind but seated far off on his throne. He offers you a real encounter in the depths of your heart. In your suffering, in your illness, in your confusion: what difference does it make that Jesus draws near? What will you answer if he offers to build or renew a relationship with you?

6. "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam": the trial that bears witness (John 9:7-12)

• Jesus doesn't send this man to just any pool. He sends him to Siloam. And John points out that Siloam means "sent." Jesus sends this blind man to wash while he is not yet healed. The man obeys, goes, washes, and comes back able to see.
• His neighbors and those who had seen him begging no longer recognize him. "Is that really him?" "It really is me," he answers. "How were your eyes opened?" He tells the story. His healing doesn't bear witness to himself, or to the mud: it bears witness to God.
• Later in the chapter, this man grows in understanding: he starts by talking about "the man they call Jesus," then in verse 17 says "he is a prophet," and finally calls him "Lord" twice. He comes to know Jesus to the point that the religious leaders call him "a disciple of Jesus." His trial became the place where he became a disciple.
• The same invitation is extended to you. Even while you're still in your trial, Jesus sends you out to bear witness to him. He entrusts you with a mission: to give him your very best, to become his disciple.
• Nathan closes with Psalm 42, where the psalmist, whose "tears have been my food day and night," ends up speaking to his own soul: "Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise him." That's the shift: from the why of the cause to the for-what of hope.

Key Takeaways

• Karma is a belief deeply rooted in our culture and our reflexes, but it isn't God's view. Your sin isn't always the cause of your suffering, and a lack of prayer isn't always the reason for your trial.
• Looking for someone to blame in suffering breeds guilt, paralyzes, pushes toward comparison, and turns us inward. Compassion, suffering with someone, is far more precious than an explanation.
• Jesus turns "why" (because of what) into "for what" (toward what end): "so that the works of God might be revealed in him" (John 9:3).
• God's justice isn't a scale balancing sins against sufferings: it's built on his love, his grace, and his faithfulness. At the cross, Jesus took on your guilt.
• God stays close to you in your trial. Just as he touched the blind man with his saliva and mud, he comes to meet you personally, sometimes through ways you can't understand, but always in a real encounter.
• Your trial can become the place where you become a disciple, and where your life bears witness to God.

Personal Application

1. Which "why" question keeps looping in your mind right now? Take two minutes to write it down, then lay it before God.
2. Where has the karma reflex crept into how you read your trial: guilt, comparison, fatalism, withdrawal? Name it precisely.
3. If you had to swap your "why" for a "for what," what work of God would you want to see revealed in you through what you're going through?
4. Who around you is suffering right now? How can you move from explanation to compassion this week: a message, a call, a presence?
5. If Jesus adapted to your senses to meet you today, what unexpected "mud" might he use? Are you ready to trust him even when you don't understand?

Bible References

• John 9:1-12 · The man born blind, healed by Jesus (main text).
• Exodus 20:5-6 · God punishes to the third and fourth generation, but shows mercy to the thousandth.
• Ezekiel 18:20 · The son will not bear the father's guilt, nor the father the son's.
• Psalm 42 · "Why are you in despair, my soul? Hope in God."
• Job 1 · The man who lost everything with no explanation (parallel home-group series).

FAQ

Does karma really exist in the Bible?

No. The Bible does recognize a link between sin and consequences (Galatians 6:7: you reap what you sow), but it never teaches a mechanical, binary law that determines every event in your life based on your past actions. God is a personal, free God, whose justice is built on his love, his grace, and his faithfulness, not on a cosmic scale. And Jesus explicitly rejects the reasoning "if he's suffering, he must have sinned" (John 9:3, and also Luke 13:1-5).

Could my current suffering be the consequence of my sin?

It's possible, but it isn't automatic. Nathan is clear: "Our sin isn't always the cause of our trials." Some suffering is linked to our choices (an addiction, a lie that blows up), some isn't (a man born blind, an illness, a bereavement, an injustice). If the Holy Spirit puts a specific sin on your heart, bring it to God and receive his forgiveness. Otherwise, resist the voice that makes you feel guilty for no reason: that isn't God's voice.

How can I concretely help someone who's suffering without falling into the disciples' trap?

First, resist the urge to look for a cause behind their suffering or to suggest "what God is trying to tell them." Offer them consideration ("I'm thinking of you, I'm praying for you") and compassion ("I'm suffering with you, I'm here"). Be present in the present, one day at a time. And give them space, when they're ready, to discover for themselves "for what" God can bring something good out of this desert.