July (1 of 2): Small Group Discussion Guide
Why Did This Happen?
In John 9, Jesus refuses to reduce suffering to a simple cause-and-effect equation. Instead, He opens our eyes to a deeper, redemptive reality: that even in pain, God is present and at work. This story invites us to confront the places where we’ve settled—into shallow hope or cynical despair—and instead choose the harder-to-see, but ever-present hope that Jesus offers. Not the kind of hope that denies suffering, but the kind that dares to imagine something beyond it. In this conversation, Jesus meets us in the wilderness of our “why?”—not with explanations, but with healing.
Announcements
We are asking all who participate in Restore’s community to give if they are able! Thanks to your generosity, we have begun to close our budget gap! However, we still currently have a monthly budget deficit. You can give safely and securely HERE!
Resources
Leaving Egypt: Find God in the Wilderness Places by Chuck DeGroat
The Doors of the Sea by David Bentley Hart
Sermon Video
Sermon Text
John 9:1-15
As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
3 “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. 4 As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. 5 While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
6 After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. 7 “Go,” he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam” (this word means “Sent”). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.
8 His neighbors and those who had formerly seen him begging asked, “Isn’t this the same man who used to sit and beg?” 9 Some claimed that he was.
Others said, “No, he only looks like him.”
But he himself insisted, “I am the man.”
10 “How then were your eyes opened?” they asked.
11 He replied, “The man they call Jesus made some mud and put it on my eyes. He told me to go to Siloam and wash. So I went and washed, and then I could see.”
12 “Where is this man?” they asked him.
“I don’t know,” he said.
13 They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. 14 Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man’s eyes was a Sabbath. 15 Therefore the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. “He put mud on my eyes,” the man replied, “and I washed, and now I see.”
John 11:33
When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.
John 3:31
The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is from the earth belongs to the earth, and speaks as one from the earth. The one who comes from heaven is above all.
Galatians 1:4
Who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father.
Galatians 4:3
So also we were in slavery under the elemental spiritual forces of the world.
2 Corinthians 4:4
The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
1 John 5:19
We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one.
Romans 12:2
Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Hosea 2:14
Therefore, I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her.
Critical thinking without hope is cynicism, but hope without critical thinking is naïveté.
- Maria Popova, Bulgarian writer
“Thus it is that the world often seems divided between false hope and despair. Despair demands less of us, it’s more predictable, and in a sad way safer. Authentic hope requires clarity—seeing the troubles in this world—and imagination, seeing what might lie beyond these situations that are perhaps not inevitable and immutable.” - Rebecca Solnit
Our spiritual journey must lead through the desert or else our healing will be the product of our own will and wisdom. It is in the silence of the desert that we hear our dependence on noise. It is in the poverty of the desert that we see clearly our attachments to the trinkets and baubles we cling to for security and pleasure. The desert shatters the soul’s arrogance and leaves body and soul crying out in thirst and hunger. In the desert we trust God or die.
-Dan Allender
What is a merciful heart? A heart aflame for all of creation, for men, birds, beasts, demons, and every created thing; the very thought or sight of them causes the merciful eyes to overflow with tears. Hence we constantly lifts up tearful prayers for God’s care for and mercy upon even unreasoning brutes and enemies of truth and all who do us injury. - St. Isaac the Syrian
God is the great Lover who meets us in the wilderness in order to win our hearts back. Much happens in our lives that creates distrust, cynicism, bitterness, shame, and fear. However, if you’re up for the journey, God wants to rescue you—not just from your slavery but for a life of love. God knows that we’re hurt; God knows that we need to be wooed back into a trusting relationship in the midst of our pain.
- Chuck DeGroat
When I no more can stir my soul to move,
And life is but the ashes of a fire;
When I can but remember that my heart
Once used to live and love, long and aspire,
Oh, be thou then the first, the one thou art;
Be thou the calling, before all answering love,
And in me wake hope, fear, boundless desire.
- George MacDonald
