The Lord’s Prayer continues, “Lead us not into temptation, and deliver us from evil.” This is also a difficult part for me, because God does not lead us into temptation. That is the tempter’s job. We pray this so that the devil and our sinful self may not mislead us into false belief, despair, and other sins. We pray that God guides our heart and our mind in living a life of discipleship. Lives of loving God with all of our heart, soul, and mind and our neighbor as ourselves. I also don’t care for the more contemporary version of “save us from the time of trial”. I believe all times of life can be times of trial, times of difficulty. In our life, we can focus on the difficulties and ignore the beauty of creation around us. But sometimes the very trials of our lives help the beauty of life to shine even brighter. For example, when I have a bad day I can come home and be a grouch and make the rest of my family miserable, which I confess has happened. Or I can come home from a terrible day and see the beauty of my wife, the joy of my children, and the comfort of my home. Suddenly, the trials of the day seem to fade in the glory and the beauty of the gifts I have from God.
Daily I ask God to deliver me from evil. Sometimes it’s more difficult than others. It can be so easy to respond with anger. It can be easy to demand that I get what I want, worrying so much that my point of view is heard so that I don’t even listen to the other. For me, this daily focus on the self is what I need to be delivered from: to see the other as a child of God even in the midst of disagreement. Daily the Holy Spirit calls on me to set aside my wants and to see the needs of my neighbors to be delivered from my self point of view to a whole creation point of view. To be more ready to listen then to speak. Growing up my grandma would always say to me, “You have two ears and one mouth. Think about what that means.” Her saying this to me was a deliverance from evil. A freeing from the self.
The Lord’s Prayer ends, “For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever!” We return to proclaiming God’s kingship, to proclaiming God’s power, to proclaiming God’s glory. Our proclamation doesn’t create the reality. God’s kingdom, power, and glory is forever and ever in itself. We pray this so it may be true in our lives. We pray this so that we may be kingdom people, with the power of the Holy Spirit, reflecting the glory of Christ! This is most certainly true! Amen!
Oh, next time let us talk about amen.
Pastor Tim
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