This part of the Lord's prayer may seem strange.  Asking that God would not lead us into temptation almost presumes that God might do that!  There was only one person who He led into a direct encounter with the devil - Jesus Himself (Matthew 4:1).  But that was His purpose in coming to earth, to confront the Imposter Prince of this world, to deny his temptations, to give him notice that the days of his authority were numbered, and to demonstrate that death (Satan's greatest weapon) was useless at the resurrection.  That was Christ's job, and not ours.  Our task is to live in the victory which He has won for us on the cross and learn to resist each temptation in the knowledge that the Lord is our helper (1 Corinthians 10:13).

But every believer in Jesus is also convinced of their own susceptibility to fall to temptation. So Jesus encourages us to pray that we would be delivered from those situations which would most fiercely wrestle our faith to the ground. We need wisdom not to put ourselves in the way of trouble, but also we need to pray that the Lord would keep us away from those situations in which evil will attack us at our weakest points. And yet we need to be willing to allow Him to guide us in 'paths of righteousness' and not think that we can play with fire and not be burned.

The Apostle Simon Peter was certainly susceptible to temptation – to proudly try to defend Jesus from death (Mark 8:31-33), to assert that he would never be ashamed of Jesus (Mark 14:31), and to deny Jesus (Mark 14:66-72).  But Jesus said, “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” (Luke 22:31-32).  Simon fell in temptation, but Jesus would not let him stay there.

The devil cannot pull any child of God away from His heart (John 10:28-29); but he can and does seduce us into accepting his false authority and believing his worthless promises. ‘The price of freedom is eternal vigilance’: this slogan has been often quoted by political and military leaders.  Spiritually, it is also important to recognise where Satan's attacks may fall on us; but we are not strong enough by ourselves to resist his assaults (Ephesians 6:10-18).  We need to keep sheltering under the Lord's protection and trusting Him to keep evil from our door and invading our lives (Psalm 57:1).