Most often, we treat prayer as the work of internal processing. We try to compose, sanitize, and spiritualize our thoughts before we turn them into prayer requests. Or worse yet, we have a conversation about our needs with ourselves first and only after do we talk to Jesus. But Jesus wants us to be external processors in prayer. To just start asking before we even know what we need or want, before we even know how to complete the sentence. He will begin to shape us, and even more joyous, He will bring us into fellowship with Him. In the last petition in the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus wants to teach us also how to pray in “real time” as temptation, trials, and evil unfold before us. This petition is one that is to be prayed both before difficulty arrives and also to be blurted out immediately as temptation strikes. In times of temptation, like all other times in prayer, we are to be external processors with our Father in prayer. Let’s look at this last petition in the Lord’s Prayer as we close out our series on prayer this morning.
