May It Be Soنموونە

In Luke’s recording of this prayer, it ends right here, which makes this a good place to wrap up this slightly deeper dive into the prayer Jesus taught his disciples. 

And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from the evil one.

Let’s be honest: the world around us can be a difficult place. And sometimes, we make the world around other people more difficult! Because of that, you don’t come to God in prayer to drop off a few messages and then get up and leave. When we move on from any particular few moments of prayer, we don’t “hang up.” God goes with us. God goes before us! And why? Because there’s a whole world of things we didn’t cover in prayer! There are things about our jobs and our neighbors and our families we aren’t aware of; troubles and pitfalls and challenges we don’t see yet. In fact, there are things about ourselves we don’t know yet. Jesus invites us to pray for leadership away from both temptation and from evil; from the things we are aware of as well as those we don’t fully see or understand yet.