Something I Thought Recently

I think this actually occurred to me a couple of weeks ago, but I've only just thought to write about it.

I probably thought of it as a result of the number of religious people I'm seeing around in Blog-land, and I have just been reminded of it tonight.

Our Father which art in Heaven,
Hallowed be Thy Name.
Thy Kingdom come,
Thy Will be done,
In Earth, As it is in Heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive them that trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory,
For ever and ever.
Amen.

Now, these days, I don't remember very much of it.

Part of it I remember because of this joke, which I remember from The Vicar of Dibley. It appears to be in a few other forms on t'Internet, but here it is:

The CEO of McDonalds manages to arrange a meeting with the Pope at the Vatican.

After receiving the papal blessing, he whispers, "Your eminence, we have an
offer for you. McDonalds is prepared to donate £100 million pounds to the church
if you change the Lord's Prayer from 'give us this day our daily bread' to,
'give us this day our daily hamburger.'

The Pope responds, "That is impossible. The Prayer is the word of the Lord,
it must not be changed."

"Well," says the McDonalds man, "we anticipated your reluctance. For this
reason, we will increase our offer to £300 million pounds. All we require
is that you change the Lord's Prayer from 'give us this day our daily bread
'to 'give us this day our daily hamburger.'

Again, the Pope replies, "That, my son, is impossible. For the prayer is the
word of the Lord and it must not be changed."

Finally, the McDonalds guy says, "Your Holiness, we at McDonalds respect your
adherence to your faith, but we do have one final offer. We will donate £500
million pounds - that's half a billion pounds - to the great Catholic church
if you would only change the Lord's Prayer from 'give us this day our daily
bread' to 'give us this day our daily hamburger.' Please consider it."

Then he leaves.

The next day the Pope convenes the College of Cardinals. "There is some good
news," he announces, "and some bad news."

"The good news is that the Church will come into £500 million pounds."

"And the bad news, Your Eminence?" asks a Cardinal.

"We're losing the Wonder Loaf deal."

But the line I have been thinking about recently is "And lead us not into temptation".

Some years ago, I read a series of books which included personified "concepts", such as Time, Death, Fate, War, and Nature. The people in these "offices" were in a constant battle against Satan, who himself was also "person-ish", rather than, e.g. a big beasty thing. He very obviously (well, subtly) lied, cheated, and twisted the truth wherever he could.

Now, "lead us not into temptation" reminds me of that. Why is it not something like "Grant us the strength to resist temptation" or something? If you spend 99% of your life not being tempted, then surely one is more likely to give in to temptation if/when it occurs?
(It made me think of the books (Incarnations of Immortality), because it made me think of the subtle sort of change that Satan would have made - seemingly innocuous, but perhaps with hidden consequences)

I don't remember what it was that caused me to think of this, but that, as the Americans say, is my two cents.