What to pray when you have cancer VI

The last petition of the Lord's prayer is particularly important for those who have cancer or are afraid of getting cancer or experiencing any kind of significant suffering.  The petition is: "Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil (OR "the evil one.")."  Aside from being a very important thing for anyone who suffers or is afraid of suffering to pray it is also a very strange request.  If I do not ask God to not lead me into temptation does that mean that God will lead me into temptation?  That is what it sounds like, don't you think?  How should we understand this strange request and what exactly are we asking God to do for us?

First we must be clear that God never tempts anyone to do evil.  Listen to how James says this is his letter (James 1:13-15), "Let no one say when he is tempted, 'I am being tempted by God,' for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.  But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.  Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death."  We are tempted to sin, to disobey God by our own desires.

But the petition isn't "Don't tempt us" but rather, "don't lead us into temptation."  So what are asking God to do?  This petition recognizes that God is sovereign over all the circumstances of my life.  All that happens to me from lost keys to getting cancer is directed by God himself.  God says in Isaiah 45:7, "I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the LORD, who does all these things."  He tells Moses at the burning bush (Exodus 4:11), "Then the LORD said to him, 'Who has made man's mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the LORD?'"  Or again in Lamentations 3:37-38, "Who has spoken and it came to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it?  Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come?

This petition first assumes that we do not want to sin.  The reason we don't want to be tempted is so that we will not sin.  This is the tension in the Christian life.  Every day I must confess my sins and ask God to forgive me for the sake of Christ.  However, I don't want to sin and so I ask the Lord every day to not lead me into those circumstances where he knows I am weak and easily led astray.  We are saying to the Lord, "You know me.  You know my weaknesses and my sins and so I ask you to not bring me into those situations where you know I will succumb to temptation and so sin against you."  In essence we are asking the Lord to fulfill the promise he makes in 1 Corinthians 10:13 where the apostle Paul writes, "No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it."  We are asking God to not place us in circumstances that are beyond our ability to withstand the temptation associated with that situation.

So if we are asking the Lord to not lead us into temptation then we know that whatever circumstance we find ourselves in that the Lord has brought us into it, not to harm us but to help us discover anew that Christ is better than everything else.  If we are praying this prayer then we do not need to fear the future or fear what bad thing might happen to us because we know that God is not placing us in situations that are meant to bring us eternal harm but eternal good.  So if I'm praying this prayer and I still sin, whose fault is it?  It is my fault because the Lord has promised that he would not put in a place where I would be unable to resist.  In every circumstance there is a way to resist the temptation and escape the sin.

I know that the cancer and the chemo-therapy and the brain injured son are circumstances God has placed me in, not so that I will sin and fall but so that I will trust Christ and escape the sin which I am being tempted to fall into by these circumstances.  Here we see why Jesus tells us to pray the second half of this petition which is, "but deliver us from evil (OR "the evil one")."  Every day I must recognize that I am in a fight to believe the promises of God rather than the promises of sin.  I must recognize that my adversary, the devil, is a liar and that, just as he did with Adam and Eve, he is seeking to get me to believe that disobedience to God is a more certain way to happiness than trusting his promises and living as he wants.  So I must ask each day that God himself deliver me from the lies of sin, the devil and the world.  This is the fight of faith.  When I pray this final petition I am joining in the battle.