In the model prayer Jesus said; Lead us not into temptation. Why should we ask God to not lead us into temptation? If God doesn’t want us to sin, why would He even lead us to the place of temptation? What is the point of asking God to not do what His nature and character would keep Him from doing? The word temptation has been translated as “the moment of hardship or suffering”. That helps us a little, but still why would God lead us to the place of hardship or suffering unless it was in the long run good for us, in which case, we ought to embrace that moment? This line from the Lord’s Prayer has been paraphrased, “keep us from the occasion of stumbling”. Now we may be getting somewhere.
Later in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus tells us: Enter by the narrow gate: for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction and many are those who enter by it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and few are those who find it. It is apparently easy to miss the right way. Along the path from here to our eternal home there are a multitude of options, all of which are opportunities for us to stumble, to fall into temptation and to take the wrong path. Perhaps an illustration will be helpful.
In the confusing and occasionally entertaining movie trilogy The Matrix, there is a scene in which the hero, Neo, is walking down an endless corridor filled with an infinite number of doors. Each of these is a back door to and within the giant mainframe/software that runs The Matrix universe. Each is, or appears to be, a short cut.
Jesus calls us to “the narrow way”. He never said there were no exits or off ramps along the narrow way. In fact, one of the stratagems of the enemy is to provide for us what appears to be shortcuts to worthy goals and ends. These stratagems fall into three general categories. One is the category of our appetites or the desires of our body. These in and of themselves are not wrong; the trying to find their satisfaction outside of God's will is an exit off the narrow way. A second strategy is for us to find confidence and the future in our possessions and things. Again there is nothing wrong with legitimate ownership. Provided we understand that we are stewards and not really owners, that we will give account of those things entrusted into our care and that having more of those things will never bring us the satisfaction of soul. The final and most dangerous strategy is the strategy of pride. Pride can take so many forms that the number of expressions of pride is itself infinite. It could be the pride in the color of our skin that turns into racism. It could be the pride of our good works that is a form of self-righteousness and legalism. It can be the pride of accomplishments in which we imagine in some way that because we do something that gives us value and meaning. Each of these three strategies has 1,000 or perhaps 10,000 doors that would lead us off of the narrow way.
So, what are we to do? A couple of strategies might be helpful. First, always keep our focus on the one who is at the end of our journey. Humility, generosity and purity can never find enough motivation except in wanting to do it for the sake of Christ. Second is praying that God would make us blind to the doors that would lead us away and if we should try one of those doors may God grant us the grace that that door is locked and dead bolted and welded shut and barred.
To pray, “Lead us not into temptation” is to meditate on God's grace and provision that would keep us from falling. It is not to think about sinful things and then try to resist them, that's counterproductive. It is, rather, asking God to help us to want Him more than anything else.
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