Helltalker’s Desert - Prevention Initiative
by Tim Lien
Jensen Huang, founder of Nvidia Corporation (currently with a 2.26 trillion market cap), recently blessed an audience of Stanford students with a futuristic benediction: “I wish upon you ample doses of pain and suffering.” (Fortune, March 2024) Mr. Huang explained that their expectations of success leading only to greater successes were, in fact, going to make it very hard for them to succeed.
Deserts, a metaphor for suffering, seem helpful in the abstract, possibly inspiring, even. Watching the main character go through her training montage— replete with sweat, groaning, exhaustion, frustration— feels like an exhilarating two minutes from the comfort of your own couch. You approve of deserts in this way. Yes, it is good to see the healthy transformation of the main character. She seems ready for the final boss, now. And the soundtrack is so good.
But if the desert is pulled from the screen and experienced in real life or in the life of a loved one, we think quite differently of deserts. We hate them; they are not meant for us. We don’t need them, not really.
Jesus gave a group of friends a preview of what would happen to him—you know, how his ministry would dwindle down to one staff person, people would accuse him of all kinds of things, and then he was going to be impaled on wood as a sort of retirement gift. He didn’t spare them the gruesome details, either. He was going to go through a desert like they had never seen (Mark 8). Pete, being a well-meaning friend, pulled Jesus aside and told him to stop talking that way. “No, no, that’s not how the story goes,” Pete said.
Jesus was direct. “Get away from me, Satan.” Ouch. Get away from me with all that helltalk. Helltalkers will tell you that you shouldn’t be in a desert. And those will be your friends. Helltalkers prevent deserts.
Pete was just being a friend like Job had friends being friends. He was using the same desert manual they were. Deserts are probably God’s judgment, the manual says in Section 34-6c.
Or. Deserts are for saps—the unprepared, the non-vigilant. Deserts are for the ones who were not conscientious or careful. Deserts await those who didn’t plan correctly. Deserts can be avoided through proper analysis, strategy, and decisive implementation. Deserts should be avoided. Can be avoided. To many, like Job’s well-meaning friends, deserts are clearly God’s scowling time-out. Take a breather; get better; come back and make better decisions that will prevent deserts.
Using the manual written by Job’s friends, deserts probably mean that God is judging my bad decisions. What could we have done to ensure that I didn’t end up here? I don’t like it here; I don’t deserve to be here; people like me don’t do deserts. This can’t be the life that God has imagined for me.
A facile judgment from those who have not truly scoured the story of God. Deserts take up most of the story.
I was talking to a church planter about the many challenges facing our community and dozens of other communities in similar circumstances. “What things would you have done differently? What could we do to avoid what you are experiencing?” he asked, unknowingly revealing the underlying belief: this desert could have been avoided through correct decisions and actions. Tell me the stratagems that avoid deserts; it’s possible to make it to the promised land on your own intellectual maneuvering.
That’s another section of the desert manual that Job’s friends were using: desert-prevention initiatives should be employed with all vigor.
The affluent, the intelligent, and self-sufficient often cannot conceive of a desert as God’s loving hand. Why? There are too many levers left to pull. To try. To keep the desert away. Desert prevention is embedded in every plan, every contingency, every move. The absence of pain and desert becomes proof that the plans are good. Pleasure becomes the presence of God.
“The most deadly appetites are not for the poison of evil, but for the simple pleasures of earth, for when these replace an appetite for God himself, the idolatry is scarcely recognizable, and almost incurable.” (John Piper, A Hunger for God)
C.S. Lewis said that most of the Christian life would be walked in the desert. But Jesus beat him to it: “In this world you will have trouble,” he said.
Pete knew enough not to be a helltalker, again. But it was hard; he had to be trickier the next time. After seeing Jesus chatting it up with Moses and Elijah (The Transfiguration, Mark 9), he saw an opening. “Hey, so, in Malachi it says that Elijah has to come back and then we can go straight to the Day of the Lord! And, lookee here; we just saw Elijah!” He’s trying to tell Jesus, of course, that he could skip that whole pesky Cross thing. The Elijah clause would get Jesus out of it. Pete said this in a very smooth way, of course. Being called Satan smarts a little.
Jesus was wise to Pete’s tricky end-around. “Elijah (John the Baptist) did come. And they worked him over.” John the Baptist’s desert wasn’t all that big in square inches— his head fit on a platter. It’s as if Jesus was telling Pete. “Why do you refuse to believe that suffering is part of the program?!” From then on Jesus wouldn’t stop talking about suffering and deserts. (Mark 9:30ff)
There are some things you can only possess when you travel the way of the Cross, resurrection being one of them. That is meant literally, metaphorically. Temporally, eschatologically. Categorically, even to Stanford students. Or you.
What should we do in the desert, friend?
With no helltalking, would you believe this desert is the best possible route on your GPS?
“All of the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness.” (Psalm 25:10) All of them. Every path. Desert paths. Especially desert paths.
What should we do in the desert, friend?
With no helltalking, would you believe that we will get God himself?
The whole purpose of the desert is so that “you shall know that I am the Lord your God.” (Exodus 16:12) Is He enough for you?
What else should we do in the desert, friend?
With no helltalking, would you believe that we are being delivered to a place that is better than where we currently are? We need this desert.
Joe Novenson, a godly and gentle man, is fond of saying “This will hurt like heaven.” It’s not because he piously doesn’t want to say “hell.” He goes on, “This will probably hurt more than hell. Why? Because Heaven is transforming you and hell doesn’t care if you change or not.”
We need this desert, friend. We don’t need desert prevention initiatives. That’s helltalk.
Behold, I am doing a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert….
for I give water in the wilderness,
rivers in the desert,
to give drink to my chosen people,
the people whom I formed for myself
that they might declare my praise.
Isaiah 43:19-21