“Lead me not into temptation; I can find the way myself.” – Rita Mae Brown<\/p>\n\n\n
As I have been consciously praying the Lord’s Prayer daily over this past year, the one phrase that I haven’t given as much attention to as all the others is also the one most commentaries struggle to explain: “Lead us not into temptation”.<\/p>\n\n\n
On the face of it, it’s a weird thing to pray. The Bible makes it clear that God does not tempt people:<\/p>\n\n\n
James 1:13 “When tempted, no one should say, \u201cGod is tempting me.\u201d For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone.”<\/p>\n\n\n
So why would we pray that He not lead us into temptation?<\/p>\n\n\n
Maybe “temptation” is not even the target. The word Jesus uses in His prayer is also translated as “trial” in some places.<\/p>\n\n\n
Again in James: “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials<\/i><\/b>, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” (1:2-4)<\/p>\n\n\n
And God does lead people into trials at times. Most famously, the Holy Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness where He had to face off against Satan.<\/p>\n\n\n
And if it makes you squeamish to think of God putting you to a test, then you’re not really aware of your daily situation down here on earth.<\/p>\n\n\n
Because if you think about it, God can’t really say a single word to you without it becoming a test. As soon as He says “Forgive that coworker”, for example, it has become a trial of your willingness to obey.<\/p>\n\n\n
Will you forgive or won’t you? God’s not going to be tempting you to disobey. He’s on your side and wants what’s best for you.<\/p>\n\n\n
In the end, I guess I have always read “lead us not into temptation” as being equivalent to “lead us away from temptation”.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
Maybe it’s a clever way to get us to think about the alternative. If God is not leading us into temptation – and He’s not – then where is He leading us?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
Into victory, strength, and satisfaction in Him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“Lead me not into temptation; I can find the way myself.” – Rita Mae Brown As I have been consciously praying the Lord’s Prayer daily over this past year, the one phrase that I haven’t given as much attention to as all the others is also the one most commentaries struggle to explain: “Lead us […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3918"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3918\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3919,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3918\/revisions\/3919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}