“And lead us not into temptation” - Luke 11:5

This verse is probably the one that puzzles people the most, or at least the Christians with whom I have spoken about the Our Father, and for a long time I counted myself among them. When facing temptation, thanks to some notes in Gideon’s Bibles at hotels which I’ve noted in the front cover of my Bible, I’ve flipped the pages forward to the book of St. James.

“Let no one say when he is tempted: ‘I am tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted with evil and he himself tempts no one” – James 1:13

In his book, “Jesus of Nazareth”, Pope Benedict XVI points to the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 4, verse 1, which states: “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil”, so the Pope’s ensuing analysis is the following:

“Temptation comes from the devil, but part of Jesus’ messianic task is to withstand the great temptations that have led man away from God and continue to do so. As we have seen, Jesus must suffer through these temptations to the point of dying on the Cross, which is how he opens the way of redemption for us,” the Pope writes.

Again, I am not a Biblical scholar or a theologian but my best layman’s interpretation of this verse then is something like God tolerating or allowing us to be tempted as a means to test our hearts, our deepest and truest intentions. For me, it calls to mind the parable of the sower, with seeds (our heart-felt intentions?) falling on sun-baked rocks, shallow soil, and rich, moist deep fertile soil (a soul eager to please God?).

The Pope’s book draws on the Book of Job to help interpret this verse and he wraps up that strand of his logic in the following way:

“When we pray it, we are saying to God: ‘I know that I need trials so that my nature can be purified. When you decide to send me these trials, when you give evil some room to manoeuvre, as you did with Job, then please remember that my strength goes only so far. Don’t overestimate my capacity. Don’t set too wide the boundaries within which I may be tempted, and be close to me with your protecting hand when it becomes too much for me.”

Once I read that paragraph by the Pope, then I finally felt I understood this sixth petition in the Our Father.