Responding To The Darkness

Facing the evil in our lives with prayer

I have been thinking a lot about the petition in the Lord’s Prayer, “Deliver us from evil.”  When Covid was new and causing so much damage, I came across the notion that, if we just had enough faith and prayed the right prayer, Covid (or any serious illness) would have no power over us.  I would think that a prayer recommended by Jesus would be the right way to go, and if we elaborated a bit, sought to tell God exactly what evil we wanted to avoid, He would get the idea and get the job done.  I know there were a lot of people who prayed (and still do), “Father, deliver me from the evil of this disease or that.”   I’m not saying He doesn’t do that at times, but many who have prayed for protection didn’t seem to get that protection.  The darkness overshadowed their lives.  I was one of those.

I grew up praying the Lord’s Prayer, though for part of my young life it was nothing more than just words I repeated and gave little thought to.  Some reading this may pray the prayer every day, while others do so very little.  It can mean a lot, opening up vast areas of concern God has for us, but it can also be prayed superstitiously and mindlessly, as if we are just reciting some magical incantation that will ward off evil.  Regardless, we all know of those cases where bad things happened to good people of faith regardless of what they prayed.

I still remember the time when I experienced the weight of that petition in a personal way.   I was still a young pastor, a few years of pastoral ministry under my belt, and my son Chad was about 20 months old.  Even though it was a long time ago I still shudder when I think about it.  I was called to the hospital, for there had been an accident.  A child the same age as Chad had fallen down some stairs.  Three steps, that is all it was, but she had landed on her head and was unconscious.  I was there with the family, praying for the little girl and for them, every moment seeming like an eternity, when the doctor came in and announced that their little girl was brain-dead.  There was nothing that could be done.  Life support was taken off and she died.

I was heartbroken as I made my way back home.  I couldn’t help but put myself in the place of these parents, what they must feel, how horrible it all was, how senseless.  But more, I couldn’t help but think of my own child, the same age, and the staircase we had into the basement, and his tendency to slide down those stairs on his belly.  It had taken only three steps – and we had so many!

For the next few days I was a basket case.  I ached for this family and was terrified for my own.  I wouldn’t allow Chad to go down the stairs unless I was there holding him.  I became alarmed at every bump and thump.  I wanted to lock him in his room, taking out anything that was dangerous, even the bed that was about three steps high – anything to keep him from hurting himself.  And I prayed – Oh Father, protect my son – keep him safe – don’t let anything bad happen to him!  I tend to think that this may have been the first time I really prayed with intensity and almost desperation the prayer Jesus gave us found in Matthew 6:13, “But deliver us from evil!”

Evil.  Evil can refer to many things.  Eugene Peterson in his paraphrase The Message words it like this, “Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil.”  I understand that translation, for much of the evil in this world is due to the things we do and don’t do.  We really can be our own worst enemies, and the way we human beings treat others can be absolutely horrendous at times.  Some people want to blame God for that, and you can make a case that God should have thought things through better when He made us, especially when it comes to free will.  God took a great risk there, and I will come back to that in another blog, but for now, yes, the God who wants us to freely respond in love and trust also permits us to do the exact opposite.  Because of that, the petition “deliver us from evil” can take on all sorts of meanings. Check out the news and you see no end to the evil that we can do to each other.  It is easy to target specific behaviors that you do not like (not yours of course!) and cry out, “Lord deliver us from that evil!”  However, I tend to think we often get hung up on specifics and miss the bigger evil’s in life.  Let me suggest a few.  How about the evil of a wasted life?  I think of David at this point and his affair with Bathsheba.  If he had been faithfully serving God and focused on what a king should to be about, he would not have been on the prowl looking at the neighboring rooftops for some sexual prey.  It is true that once it was all over David confessed his sins, but his life following that incident seemed to wander aimlessly, with greater waste and loss.  Deliver me, Lord, from a wasted life.  Or what about this – deliver me Lord from the temptation of using the gift(s) you have given me to advance my own desires instead of yours.  And while you are at it, deliver me from the blindness that keeps me from seeing your larger work, a work You want us to be about. Oh Lord, help us to see!

You understand, there are a number of ways to envision evil, but I return to the darkness of the really difficult things that can happen in our lives, the senseless suffering that takes place when some disease destroys, some incident takes the life of someone we love, some catastrophic moment robs us of the future and throws us into a more complicated season of life.  Applied to things like this, is the petition “deliver us from evil” something that can ward off evil?  We think it would be nice if it did.  We can imagine how convenient it would be to pray this prayer each day, sort of like putting on a jacket before you go out into cold weather, a prayer that will keep you warm and safe and cozy and peril free.   

Though you might wish it to be that way, Jesus never made that promise.  In fact, He said just the opposite in a verse I have quoted many times in these writings, John 16:33, “In this world you will have trouble.”  It is going to come, trouble caused by others, trouble from the natural world, trouble because we are Christ followers, trouble that comes because we are humans in a fallen world.  Jesus adds, “Take heart!  I have overcome the world!”  And He did, there on the cross, the death blow delivered to evil. Because of that, one day all the forces of evil will be halted in their tracks.  One day, as Revelation 21:3-4 puts it, “God himself will be with them and be their God.  He will wipe every tear from their eyes.  There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” 

One day, some day  – but for now, dark and difficult times will come into our lives.  The early church found that out quickly.  They were awakened to the fact that God does not protect even his choice servants when James, the son of Zebedee was executed (Acts 12).  James had been there with Jesus from the start, part of the inner circle, present when Jesus taught this petition, one who may have prayed this prayer every day.  But the early church in that moment  discovered what we have discovered in our own lives, that there is no magical prayer which, when repeated in just the right way with a sufficient amount of faith, will keep bad things from happening. 

Does that mean this petition is of no value?  Of course not!  The Lord’s Prayer reminds us that we need to bring all of life to God, including our need for His presence and help in times of trouble.  But what we normally have in mind when we pray this petition is what we want.  Could it be that the deliverance God gives looks different than we expect?  Think again about the prayer, “Father, Deliver us from evil”  What is the heart and soul of this petition?  What did Jesus have in mind?  The word “deliver” means to rescue – to save.  Those who first heard this petition would have thought of that moment in time when God with a mighty hand delivered His people from the satanic grip of Pharaoh and the savagery of slavery, when God split the sea to save them.  They knew this meant that in God’s time (read Exodus), in God’s way (plagues, a wilderness journey, forty years in the desert), He would bring deliverance beyond anything they could imagine. It's important for us to remember that fact.  Deliverance wasn’t always as they envisioned, just as it isn’t that way in our lives today.  Deliverance in Scripture is seldom what those who prayed for it anticipated.

Take the Old Testament character Sarah.  The evil in her life was obvious, a fruitless womb.  When she prayed at 20 and 30 and 40 for deliverance, she had in mind the ability to have a child.  When God did not deliver her there must have been tremendous grief, but God, who always has His own timetable and way of doing things, brings joy to all by having a 90 year old in the maternity ward!  That deliverance was far greater than anything Sarah could have hoped for.

What about Moses?  At age 40 he saw deliverance as something he was to do in his own power for his people.  Satan had a heyday when Moses had to run for his life and seemed to waste it for 40 years in the wilderness.  But this was preparation time.  He had gained the knowledge of Egypt the first 40 years and developed endurance and strength in the desert.  When Moses finally confronted Pharaoh after all those years, there was a power and conviction he didn’t possess before.  God’s deliverance was greater than he anything he could have imagined.

What about Paul the apostle?  When he was put in prison, the hosts of hell must have had a party, they had silenced the one who was so successful for their Enemy (God).  Even Paul’s human opponents breathed a sigh of relief, for they would not have to put up with Paul anymore.  I believe Paul prayed for deliverance, for freedom to share the Gospel, but no one could have foreseen the fact that the silenced pulpit unleashed Paul’s pen.  The letters to the Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and more, were all written while Paul was in prison.  When Paul encouraged us to put on the armor of God, he was probably looking at his Roman captor to identify each piece!  Deliverance was far greater than he could ever have imagined.  As I wrote in my last writing, something good did indeed come from suffering!

Reflect once again on Jesus nailed to the cross, confronted by those who tried to throw His words back into His own face – “Let God rescue him now if he wants to.”  Let God deliver Jesus from evil!  But God did not do it, and I thank Him that He did not!  Deliverance for Jesus would have been legions of angels called to His side.  There would have been no sacrifice given for sins, no provision of amazing grace, no gift of eternal life, no identifying with us in our suffering.  But God did not deliver His Son from the cross, as much as His heart ached, because He wanted to bring about a greater deliverance from evil for us! 

Do you understand what I am saying?  This petition, Deliver us from evil, is a plea to help us have the faith and vision we need for whatever we have to face in life.  Father, help us to trust You to do things right – to deliver us in the ways that will advance your kingdom – to rescue us in just as glorious of a way as you delivered us through our Savior.

In the end, it is all about trust, about faith, about how we journey in life when the hazards, some of which can be terrifying, come along.  With that in mind, we come to the God who has given us the privilege of calling Him Father.  We bring our desire for His Kingdom to be present, His will done, food for the journey of life, help when it comes to temptation, mercy received and given, and protection in the midst of the darkest moments of life.  We come trusting, not demanding – trusting that in His Fatherly love for us, His sacrificial love, His eternal love, He will be with us whatever the peril may be and will, in one way or another, sooner or later, come to our rescue.

“Father… deliver us from evil.”  I want you to notice something else about this petition – Jesus never identifies the specific evil He has in mind.  He leaves it unnamed.  Some translations see it as evil personified in the devil, and it can be translated that way, “the evil one.”  But the text simply says deliver us from “the evil.”  What evil?  It is left unnamed so that you can name it, not just the evil in this world, but the evil in your life, the small evils and even the Job-like evils. Deliver us, our Father, from that which has the power to do us in. 

And He does, and He will, though not necessarily as we envisioned it or would have prescribed it.  As I look back at these three years since “the evil” took its shattering toll in my life, I realize that the God I call Father has never left me, nor did He turn His back on me during those days when I was not on speaking terms with Him. That nightmare has faded but is not forgotten by any means, and yet, I continue to be overwhelmed by how things did go, how strength was given when needed, provision provided, purpose reclaimed.  Though my kidneys still only function at about 13% and physically things have taken a toll, I still find ways (especially in writing this blog series) where I can share my journey and help others who struggle with faith in dark times of life. 

One day all will be changed.  My kidney doctor says it will be when I get a kidney transplant, and that may be the case someday.  But I am taking the long look, envisioning the time when that petition, “Deliver us from evil” will be fulfilled in its ultimate form.  One day our Father will end evil once and for all.  The tears will be wiped, sin will reign no more, disease will be eradicated, death destroyed, tragedies erased, hearts healed, grief gone for good. 

In the meantime, I am content in trusting the One we are privileged to know and be loved by, Our Father.