“This, then, is how you should pray:

“‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
    on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
    as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation,
    but deliver us from the evil one.’

- Matthew 6:9-13

The Bible is clear that God does not tempt anyone - he never intends evil or invites evil (James 1:13-15). But the Scriptures are equally clear that God does lead his people into places of testing. Moses reminds Israel in Deuteronomy that God led them through the wilderness to probe what was in their hearts. The Spirit leads Jesus himself into the desert. Not every time of tempting or testing leads to evil, and not all times in the wilderness is punishment.

Think of what it takes for a child to mature: resistance, failure, challenge. We even put them through examinations. Those examinations aren’t intended to hurt them - they’re important because you can attend the lessons and you can do the homework. Still, in the end, the examination will reveal what we have learnt - not least to ourselves. 

One of the great idols of our age is comfort. We can come to believe that a good life is a frictionless life and even that God's role is to provide one. But people formed in frictionless lives are not resilient people. If you were to look back at your own story, my hunch is that the times of deepest growth were not the easy ones. In the time of testing, our character is unveiled. We discover both our weaknesses and what God can do in spite of them.

So we pray lead us not into temptation - not because testing is always to be avoided, but because we know our own fragility. And we pray deliver us from evil because we know that in the wilderness there is an adversary who would use the test to destroy rather than to form us.

The one we pray to has been in the wilderness himself. He knows the weight of it. And if he led us there, he will lead us out.