Lord’s Prayer-Lead Us Not Into Temptation

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Given that God is all going and incapable of doing evil, I’m confused by “…lead us not into temptation…”. How can God do that?
 
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The prayer is a petition for us not to be tempted. Because it is up to God to allow us to be tempted by evil. To be tested by temptation. Like Jesus who was tempted in the desert. In the end, God does not allow us to be tested or tempted beyond what we can endure and He allows it only for the greater good that it may cause, if we remain faithful.
 
We ask the Father to lead us. There is an implicit commitmment to follow when we ask someone to lead us.

This reinforces the petition that immediately preceded it. Asking for God to fogive us, we committ to forgiving those wh trespass against. This can be read as committing to following God, forgiving as God forgives.

For myself, I know when I confront someone who has trespassed against me it is a time of great temptation. Anger, hurt, humiliation do not make me likely to forgive. Those moments tempt me to turn in on myself, instead of turning to the other person.

God, lead me to those who have hurt me, so I may forgive them. Overcome the anguish and pain within me that makes me fear them, so that I may follow on your forgiving path.
 
A good answer I heard about this question was by Fr. Mitch Pacwa. It goes like this.
Picture GOD as the most important General in the Universe.
We are, if we consider ourselves Christians soldiers in HIS army.
What does a General do? Lead his soldiers into battle.
We therefore pray to him that we might be spared from the battle.
“lead us not into temptation” what is temptation? The spiritual battle we need to fight every day not to fall into sin.
You can find Fr. Pacwa on “Open Line” Wednesday at EWTN radio.

GOD bless.
 
Long story short, this line of the Lord’s Prayer is just wrong from a theological point of view. Attempts to attribute the problem to the English translation don’t work, because the Latin and Greek read exactly the same. Attempts to downplay the meaning of the words for “lead” and “temptation” also don’t work, the original words are unambiguous.

At face value there is really nothing shocking about this assessment. The only problem is that the prayer is attributed to Jesus Himself, so the idea that there could be something wrong with it shocks people. This sensibility can’t be helped, but it is only that: a sensibility.

Anyway, just follow your intuition, which is already correct. You asked how can God lead us into temptation. Well, He can’t and He doesn’t. He’s not the author of sin, nor is He the one to lead us toward sin or the occasion of it. So to ask Him not to do that is pointless. The alternative discussed in the site linked by Lee1 (“Leave us not unto temptation”) is excellent. As the article says this would not correspond to the Latin and Greek originals, but it does make for a better prayer.

God bless.
 
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The line - before the line you are enquiring about -
Is forgiving the sins - that others do to us -
that is, if we hope to be forgiven, by God - for our own sins -
Now - what happens if we don’t do that…
What if we find it too difficult to do, with certain people…
Say one or two people…
What happens -
Me, I think we retain evil, within ourselves, towards those individuals.
We don’t want that - as Catholics -
We want to be delivered from those demonic feelings.
And what is temptation - ?
That’s what you have to look at.

Book of James. That has some answers - lol
 
Good morning.

There have been some excellent responses so far, and I am including this only to provide another voice. This is the explanation that Lutherans are most familiar with, from Dr. Luther’s Small Catechism (taken from the translation my wife and I use—Copyright 2010, Sola Publishing and ReClaim Resources):
The Sixth Petition
And lead us not into temptation.
What does this mean?
God indeed tempts no one to sin, but we pray in this petition that God would guard and protect us from this, that the devil, the world, and our sinful nature may not deceive us or lead us into false belief, despair, and other great and shameful sins,
but pray that when we are tempted in these ways, we may finally prevail and gain the victory.
Click to expand...
 
I’m glad that your’s and a later comment refer to the temptation in the midst of forgiving others. That is and has been an insurmountable obstacle for me. In the worst cases, there are people who don’t want to forgive me. I’ve had more than my share of conflicts and these have been with current or former Catholics. Their unwillingness to forgive, in my opinion, reflects on our fundamental disagreements in the first place. People take “hard line” positions and it can be impossible to deal with that, as I have discovered.

So, when the inevitable conflicts occur, we pray for restraint to yield to any temptation to retaliate or to compromise on any point where we must stand firm, and, then, we pray for deliverance from contact with the evil that is targeted at us in such situations. So, I personally see those last several clauses as related.

The ten commandments deal with God and with (wo)men, and so does the Lord’s prayer deal first with God and then with our fellow (wo)men.

Further, the prayer contains words like “our” and “us” and when I use those words I am thinking of everybody.
 
I simply say “lead us OUT of temptation”… and then I ask the Lord to forgive me if that’s wrong… covering my bases
 
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