"I Pray The Lord My Soul To Take - Part 1"

I Pray The Lord My Soul To Keep – Part 1

Matthew 6:9-13 (KJV)

One night many years ago, a Christian woman couldn’t sleep. It was well past her usual bedtime, but she found herself overwhelmed with fear. Her husband, Colonel Gracie, was crossing the Atlantic that night on his way home from England. When she couldn’t push the frightening thoughts away, she got out of bed and began to pray.

Right about that same time, out on the ocean, the safest ship that had ever been built, the Titanic, had struck an iceberg and was beginning to sink. Panic had broken out as people realized there weren’t enough lifeboats for everyone on board. Colonel Gracie had given up all hopes of surviving himself but was doing his best to get women and children into the lifeboats. His only wish was that he could get some kind of message to his darling wife. As the ship began to slip into the water, he said good-bye to her in his heart.

Meanwhile, back in America, Mrs. Gracie was still praying. After two hours she still didn’t have any peace, so she continued to pray until about 5 in the morning. It was then that a certain peace possessed her, and she went to sleep.

Out on the North Atlantic, Colonel Gracie was plunged into the icy water and then sucked into a giant whirlpool that had formed. He kicked and swam against the downward pull as best he could, and suddenly he broke through the surface and found himself near an overturned lifeboat. Along with several others, he climbed aboard and waited until 5 in the morning, when he was picked up by another boat and carried to safety.

Of all the prayers we pray, the most frequent and most fervent is the prayer for protection—for the safety and well-being of ourselves and the ones we love. In fact, it was probably one of the first prayers you learned to pray as a child: Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. And if I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. Kind of a scary thought, but even as kids we understood that there was a big bad world out there—that anything could happen.

As grown-ups we’re even more aware of how difficult and dangerous life can be. Which is why every time you board an airplane, every time your kids leave the house, every time you hear something go bump in the night, you ask God to keep you and the ones you love safe, close to him.

Stories like that of Colonel Gracie and his wife encourage us to keep on praying these kinds of prayers. Clearly, something supernatural was happening that night.

God was inviting Mrs. Gracie to participate, through prayer, in the rescue of her husband. At the same time, we know there were others on board that ship who also had people praying for them, but those passengers didn’t survive. How are we to understand this? How are we supposed to pray in the face of difficulty and danger, and what can we expect from God when we do?

To answer these questions, I want us to explore the last few lines of the Lord’s Prayer—our template for real conversation with God. The first movement in the Lord’s Prayer is all about connection. The second movement is about submission. The third and fourth are about provision and confession. The last movement, then, is about protection: “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” It’s just a handful of words, but they raise all kinds of questions—and offer a remarkable promise. Let’s explore it in four phrases and see what we can learn about prayer in the time of trouble and temptation.

“Lead Us”

The prayer for protection begins with the words, “Lead us.” Jesus was well aware of the kind of world in which his disciples would live. He was well aware of the world in which we would live. It is a fallen world, where the forces of nature sometimes run amuck. It is a sinful world, where human beings do foolish and wicked things to one another.

It is a haunted world, where Satan attempts to thwart God’s purposes and ruin our souls. Jesus battled that Enemy for 40 days in the wilderness, and he that knew that his followers would also have to engage in similar spiritual warfare.

There are a million ways to get hurt in this world—physically, emotionally, and spiritually. What if the cancer comes back? What if our kids get into drugs? What if my parents get a divorce? What if my friend turns away from Christ? As he sends us out into this difficult and dangerous world, Jesus teaches us to pray, “Lead us.”

It’s an interesting word that Jesus uses here. It’s not the usual word for “lead,” which means “to direct” or “to go in front.” The word used means “to bring” or “to carry.” It implies personal involvement and assistance. It’s not a general directing his troops from the safety of a distant hilltop. It’s more like a shepherd walking alongside the flock as they make their way through the valley of shadow.

Notice that the prayer is not “keep us” from temptation and evil. That’s impossible. As free people living in a fallen world, we’re going to encounter trouble and hardship. That’s why the prayer is “Lead us”—”Bring us through;” “Show us the way.”

If you hire a guide to take you on a wilderness trip, you don’t expect him to eliminate all the obstacles and challenges. After all, it’s supposed to be an adventure! You want him to show you the way—to draw upon his knowledge of the woods and expertise to see you through and get you home again.

Before we head out the door in the morning to face the workday, before we send our kids off to school in the morning or to college or the battlefield, before we have a hard conversation with someone or make a difficult decision, we should pray, “Lead me.” That simple prayer assures us that the Lord will not only show us the way, he’ll be right there beside us to carry us through.

“Not Into Temptation”

The next phrase is one of the most confusing in the whole prayer: “not into temptation.” As we say these words, we wonder what they mean and why we have to say them. Why do we have to ask God not to lead us into temptation? It’s like asking our wilderness guide not to lead us into a pride of lions! You wouldn’t think you would have to specify that! Let’s see if we can clarify what it is we’re asking—and what we are not asking—when we say these words.

First of all, let’s look at the word “temptation.” Temptation is a solicitation to evil—an invitation to do the wrong thing. When you tempt someone, you want them to fail. When Satan tempted Adam and Eve, he wanted them to fall. He wanted them to eat of the forbidden fruit and thus alienate themselves from God. We know from Scripture that God would never do that.

James 1:13 (NIV)

“When tempted, no one should say, ‘God is tempting me.’ For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He tempt anyone.”

God never solicits us to evil. He doesn’t want us to fall. He wants us to stand. He wants us to do the right thing, the good thing.

But the word translated as “temptation,” can also be translated as “test.” When you test someone, you want them to pass. A good teacher doesn’t give a test in hopes that students will fail. The purpose of the test is to prove that they’ve mastered the material and are ready to move on to bigger and better things. While God will never lead us into temptation, he might take a temptation—a solicitation to evil—and turn it into a test—an opportunity to prove ourselves.

Think of it this way: You’re on a diet, and I deliberately drive you past an ice cream stand. I slow down as we drive past and point out that it just opened for the season. I then pull into the parking lot so we can look over the list of flavors. I even suggest it wouldn’t hurt to ask for one of those little spoonfuls just to try it out. That’s a temptation. I’m inviting you to do the wrong thing. I’m setting you up to fail. God would never do that, because he never wants us to fall.

However, sometimes the road of life takes us past an ice cream stand, doesn’t it? This is not because God is setting us up. It just happens to be there. But if we ask God to help us—to see us through—we will find we’re able to drive right past it. What might have been a temptation and an occasion for failure, becomes a test that proves we’re able to stand. When we pray this prayer, we’re asking God to lead us through life in such a way that the difficulties we encounter don’t undermine our faith, but rather strengthen it.

Still, this is a confusing phrase. It sounds strange to ask God not to lead us into temptation. Thousands of pages have been written trying to explain this, and I’ve read a lot of them. But it seems to me the whole thing can be resolved very simply with a well-placed comma: “Lead us, not into temptation.”

There was no punctuation in the original manuscripts of the New Testament. It’s up to us to figure it out. A simple pause after the phrase “Lead us,” gives us a sense of what Jesus means here. The prayer might be paraphrased in this manner: As we make our way through this difficult and dangerous world, Lord, lead us; bring us through situations that could lead to our downfall, and turn them into opportunities to do the right thing, so we can move on to bigger and better things.

So, as a student heads out the door in the morning, she might pray, Lord, lead me today. When I’m taking that math test, help me not to peek at my neighbor’s paper but to do my own work. And when kids start gossiping about other kids, help me to speak up for them, or to walk away. A business traveler might pray, Lord, when I’m away from home, keep my mind focused on my work and my family, so I’m not distracted or tempted to do something foolish. A widow might pray, Lord, lead me away from self-pity and isolation, and direct me to new activities and relationships.

I have found that calling on Jesus is one of the most helpful ways to deal with temptation. If I simply speak Jesus’ name—out loud or in my head—I find incredible strength to walk away. Because in the end, sin isn’t so much about violating a rule as it is about violating a relationship. You can’t start the relationship with a lie.

Life presents enough temptation on its own without God having to lead us into it. This prayer simply reminds us to turn to God when we do encounter temptation and ask him for the strength to drive right past, moving on to bigger and better things.

Closing Illustration

Linda was felled by not one but two brain aneurysms. For weeks she lingered on life support, growing weaker each day. As her condition deteriorated, her children were called in to say their goodbyes, and her church prepared for a funeral. Then Linda suddenly snapped out of her coma. As she came to, she looked over at her husband and asked, “Where is everybody else?”
Shaking his head, he explained, “They allow only one of us at a time in the ICU. There is no one else here.”

Linda argued, “No, I heard them. They were all speaking at the same time, and there were hundreds of them, too. Some of them I knew; others I didn’t. But they were all around me. They were here!”

Linda’s husband assured her that all those people had never been in the room. Like many, he initially thought that Linda must have been hallucinating. Some people speculated that Linda had seen and heard angels. But the real answer was probably much closer to home.

A few days after her miraculous recovery, Linda discovered that a large prayer chain had been created to pray for her. This group had been formed when news of her condition was sent out to local churches, and then it had spread to other groups throughout the region. Within days Linda’s name had been placed on hundreds of prayer lists and written in scores of prayer logs. For weeks, thousands were praying for her each day. Her miraculous recovery convinced Linda of two things: the voices she heard were of the people who had been praying for her, and those prayers had pulled her back from death’s door.

Linda’s story is far from unusual. Countless people have been touched by the power of prayer. Science and personal experiences have proven that the words of prayer do have impact. But that impact can’t happen unless the ones doing the praying believe their words carry weight.