How Then, Shall We Pray?Sample

“And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.”

Would you agree with me if I said that this world is full of evil—that we are confronted daily with things that should not be? Homelessness, sickness, violence, abuse, divorce. The list could go on and on. Whether it’s us or someone around us experiencing pain, we know that life is not supposed to be like this. 

In this part of the Lord’s prayer, Jesus invites us to pray to the Father to deliver us from evil. The pain we feel now is not meant to last forever, and there will be a day when it is all wiped away, and we as believers will live in perfect peace and joy with God. But right now, that is not our reality. 

And so, we are invited, not to pretend like everything is good but to cry out to the Lord to deliver us from evil and from the evil one! Whether the evil we face is personal, communal or global, we can come before the Lord with our pain and suffering and lament that the world is not as it should be.

What evils do today’s passages lament? What are the speakers asking for?