Week 3, day 6: Did somebody say... freedom?

“but deliver us from the evil one.” (NIV)

“but keep us safe from the Evil One.” (Good News)

Dan Green writes:

A little insight into the way conversations in our household can go… today it took all of about 30 seconds for us to go from reading this verse, to exploring what the word ‘deliver’ conjured up in our minds, to discussing Deliveroo cyclists and then into a full on rendition of ‘Did somebody say, did somebody say, did somebody say JUST EEEAATTT’!!

Once we had calmed down a little bit and gathered our thoughts, we decided to think about what the word ‘evil’ conjured up in our minds instead, and thankfully this one didn’t get anyone started on any TV adverts!

Layla said the word immediately brought to mind ways that people are ruining this planet, conjuring up images of trees being chopped down and people being impacted by climate change. Someone else brought up the topic of modern day slavery, which we’ve been learning about through Slave Free Lent (a lent resource run by IJM – we highly recommend it!) and which we all agreed was evil.

As we discussed these ways that others around the world are suffering, and how they must be so much more aware of evil than we are, it made us really aware of just how fortunate we are as a family. But it also made us wonder if this line of the Lord’s Prayer is one that we can pray in solidarity with others, on behalf of humanity?

Our prayer today is: Deliver us from evil Lord, rescue us and set us free from all of the ways that we harm ourselves one another, and all of the ways in which we harm your creation.