devotional post # 2029

Luke 18:28-30

Luk 18:28 And Peter said, “Notice, we have left everything we own to follow you!”
Luk 18:29 Then Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, there is no one who has left home or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of God’s kingdom
Luk 18:30 who will not receive many times more in this age — and in the age to come, eternal life.”

confusing times

The disciples heard Jesus speak plainly about his coming rejection, suffering, and death. He did not hide it in parables. He did not soften the language. He told them directly what was ahead. And yet, none of them understood. The truth was right in front of them, but it was hidden—not because God was playing games with them, but because their hearts were not ready to receive it. Sometimes the hardest truths are the ones we simply cannot take in, even when they are spoken clearly. The disciples weren’t lacking intelligence; they were lacking emotional and spiritual readiness. They did not want a suffering Messiah, so their minds could not grasp one.

That dynamic is painfully familiar. There are seasons in our lives when our expectations collapse, when the future we imagined evaporates, when the path we thought we were on suddenly disappears. Life continues around us—people go to work, children play, the world spins—but inside we are stunned, disoriented, unable to make sense of anything. We don’t know what to think, what to believe, or what to hope for. We don’t even know what we’re supposed to know.

What comforts me in this passage is not the disciples’ confusion but Jesus’ response to it. He did not abandon them because they didn’t understand. He didn’t scold them for failing to grasp what he had repeated again and again. He walked with them through their confusion. He carried them through the very events they could not comprehend. And on the other side of the resurrection, he opened their minds, restored their hope, and gave them clarity they never could have achieved on their own.

Their confusion did not disqualify them. Their inability to understand did not separate them from his love. Their shock did not push him away. Instead, he stayed with them until understanding dawned.

And he does the same for us. When life blindsides us, when our expectations crumble, when we feel lost inside our own story, he remains. He guides us through the fog. He holds us when we cannot hold ourselves together. He brings us through what we cannot yet understand.

LORD, thank you for being with us when we are so confused we don’t know what to know.