While everyone was marveling at everything he was doing, Jesus said to his disciples, ⁴⁴ “Listen to me and remember what I say. The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of his enemies.” ⁴⁵ But they didn’t know what he meant. Its significance was hidden from them, so they couldn’t understand it, and they were afraid to ask him about it.

Luke 9:43b-45

Dear God, I’ve heard of the phrase “willful ignorance,” but it’s interesting that you were willfully keeping the disciples ignorant.

I’m trying to set the scene in my mind. In this chapter alone we’ve had:

• Jesus sending out the 12.
• Herod’s confusion.
• Jesus receiving the 12 back and then promising them rest.
• Jesus changing course and feeding the 5,000.
• Jesus, Peter, and “who do you say that I am?”
• Jesus predicting his death #1 (verse 22).
• Jesus challenging the crowd to take up their cross.
• The Transfiguration.
• Healing the demon-possessed boy.

And now we get betrayal/death prediction #2 in verse 44. So the disciples are trying to make sense of a lot of things. Being so powerful when they were sent out. The miracle of feeding 5,000 with food left over. Jesus predicting his death. The transfiguration. One more healing. And then this thing about being betrayed.

I can’t tell you how much better these stories of the disciples being inadequate make me feel. I feel so ignorant and foolish sometimes. I feel overwhelmed by my situation. I feel like I am missing opportunities or things I should know or understand. I feel like I’m presented with situations and don’t know the right thing to say or do. I feel all of that. But stories like this help me to appreciate how hard it can be to know and understand what’s going on. And there are many times when, in the moment, I remember to pray to you while I’m in the midst of a struggle or difficult situation, asking you to give me the right words to say or things to do.

Father, I’m just going to trust you. Work through me. Love through me. Live through me. And Holy Spirit, please keep me from straying too far off the path. “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love.” But in this case, it’s not even me wandering. It’s just me not seeing or perceiving. It brings me back to this passage from Isaiah 6:

⁹ And he said, “Yes, go, and say to this people,

‘Listen carefully, but do not understand.
    Watch closely, but learn nothing.’
¹⁰ Harden the hearts of these people.
    Plug their ears and shut their eyes.
That way, they will not see with their eyes,
    nor hear with their ears,
nor understand with their hearts
    and turn to me for healing.”

Please don’t harden my heart, plug my ears, or shut my eyes. If you’re doing it to protect me or others from me, then fine. Isolate me and keep me as ignorant as you want. But I pray that my heart will be such that when you are keeping me ignorant it is because my ignorant heart would make a mistake out of it’s pursuit of you and not because you simply can’t trust me to do the right thing. Holy Spirit, help me to do the right thing.

I pray this in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,

Amen