Lord's Prayer: If he's leading, why do I need deliverance?

"Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil (one)."

Long have I thought on this verse and struggled with its implications. We pray for God to lead us like the Psalm 23 shepherd who guides by relationship but also has tools to keep his sheep from danger. He can protect the sheep with his rod or block the departure from safety with his staff.  We long to be guided with such security.

Yet, sheep are stupid. As a veterinarian, I watched a shepherd gently call all his sheep to himself and lead them expertly through multiple gates to better pasture - except for the little guy on the side of the flock who just seemed absurdly impatient. He came to the gate and decided it would be quicker to jump around the fencepost to the right rather than the left like everyone else. And so jumped squarely into the fence itself. Next came panic and running back and forth behind the fence as the flock walked away down the path. He was trapped, victimized by his own poor judgment. Anatomically, sheep have big brains; physiologically, they seem underused. Sounds like a good spiritual description of me.

Hence my thinking about "lead and deliver" in the Lord's prayer is shaped by a vivid memory of that stupid little lamb. The shepherd's leading was there all along and most of the time, the little guy followed it. Yet with just one split-second of poor judgment disaster developed. After that, forget leading, he needed deliverance.

So I pray that the good shepherd chooses paths for me that do not lead me into circumstances like Abraham's "offer thine only son", or Job's "have you considered my servant", or Jesus's "he was led by the Spirit into the desert". I pray that he just leads me through the gates and down the smooth path to better pasture. Yet along that path I know there will be fence posts and I'll jump the wrong way occasionally - whether by ignorance, allurement or evil influence. I just know that I'll end up looking stupid, running around behind a barrier bleating loudly as I watch the shepherd walk away. In those moments, "Lord, deliver me."