Jennifer Rothschild Show: What if You Prayed the Same Prayer Every Day? with Matt Smallbone

**NOTE: This transcript was generated by AI and may contain errors, misspellings, or mistranslated words.**

Matt Smallbone: This phrase stood out to me that had been hiding in plain sight, which was the phrase that a kind of a reluctant or a not very good pray-er needed to see. Jesus literally says that, tells the disciples, "This then is how you should pray."

And I realized, you know what, I've never actually tried praying the Jesus way. I've done almost everything else, committed my entire life to trying to live out the teachings from the Sermon on the Mount as best as I can, but I'd never actually tried praying the way Jesus told us to pray.

So I said, you know what, I'm gonna give it a year and see what we can learn.

Jennifer Rothschild: Well, welcome everybody. I'm so glad you're here at the Jennifer Rothschild Show. You know why you're here? Because this is where thoughtful people come to grow.

And oh, today we're talking about something good because it deals with one of our biggest struggles. You know what that is?

Prayer. I don't know about you, but I have those questions. Am I doing it right? Am I doing it enough? And is God even listening? You know what I'm talking about.

In fact, I know you know because the podcast that was titled The 4:13— anytime, anytime I did a podcast on prayer, it was our highest downloads. So I know this is going to meet you where you are today.

Well, today we are going to hear that author and pastor Matt Smallbone, well, he's dealt with the same struggles and questions, and he did something radical.

You're not gonna believe this, but he prayed the Lord's Prayer every single day for an entire year. Yes, he's gonna tell you how it turned out, how it changed his life, and what he learned that you can even apply today to help you grow. And also, Oh, it's going to get even better because worship leader, musician, songwriter, my friend Michael O'Brien, he's going to sing the Lord's Prayer over us.

It's going to be a really good day. So I'm so glad you choise to join— you choise— I'm so glad you chose to join us here. Now listen, let me tell you something about prayer that I learned early on.

It's not so much how you do it, it's just that you do it. And so there was this little boy who used to come to our house all the time because his mama worked here, and he was a sweet little thing. I guess he was maybe 4 years old, and he was just learning how to pray.

And so, like, we'd sit down for lunch, you know, we'd all tell God thank you for our food. And so he would put his hands together under his chin, he squint his eyes closed as tight as possible. And so this particular day, you know, we asked, hey, do you want to pray, Parker?

Do you want to say the blessing yourself? And he reluctantly finally decides to pray, and he starts, "Dear God, thank you for our food." And then he pauses because he can't remember how to land the plane and close the deal. And finally he goes, "Thank you for our food..."

"...You da man!" Instead of amen, "You da man!" I've never forgotten it because don't you know that God smiled when he heard it? And really, what a beautiful way to end. You're just saying, hey, it's yours.

You're the man. You're the one, God. And I think that's what you're gonna learn today from Matt, that prayer is about God, but it changes us and it opens this beautiful relationship.

So just in case you are not sure who Matt is, you've already heard his voice and you may go, "Oh yeah, I know that voice." Yes, he's from Australia. And Matt actually spent over a decade as a musician. He was a bass player and he played for artists like Michael W. Smith, Rebecca St. James, For King and Country. And now he is the lead pastor of the Church of the City in downtown Nashville. And he's married and he's got 4 kids and 1 rescue dog named Rosie.

So you are gonna love this conversation like I did. Now you'll know who's who because he has the Australian accent and I have the quite boring American one. So settle in and enjoy Matt Smallbone.

[INTERVIEW BEGINS]

All right, Matt. I'm so glad that we get to be together.

I had forgotten, you know, when I first heard your voice, I told you, oh, how much I love your accent, that you don't even have to be smart and you'll sound brilliant. So well done being born in the right place.

Matt Smallbone: You know, I, I don't think Australians think we sound that much smarter than everybody else, but it is a bit of a perk of living in the south of the United States, for sure.

Jennifer Rothschild: I'm sure it is. It is a perk. Well, it's lovely to listen to, but I happen to know because I have reviewed what you're going to talk about Oh, this is going to be so life-giving no matter what your accent.

So I cannot wait to hear about this because your book is called The Prayer Experiment, and my understanding is that it came from you praying the Lord's Prayer for one solid year every day. So I want to know, like, what gives? Give us a backstory. What led you to do such a thing?

Matt Smallbone: Well, I am a pastor, so I'm the lead pastor of Church of the City in downtown Nashville. We got a couple congregations across the city, and I'm in the, the downtown one. We got a, a vibrant young congregation, bunch of 20 and 30-year-olds, um, figuring out life.

And, uh, we, we team teach, uh, with all of our churches across the city. We're always in the same scripture. And every now and then there's a sermon series that you have some mastery over, and, and every now and then one comes up where you've got a lot to learn.

And I will say, on January 1st, 2025, I was feeling, um, a bit of imposter syndrome because we were about to jump into 21 Days of Prayer and Fasting, which is fine, we've been doing that for years, but we're about to teach 7-week series on the Lord's Prayer. And so I've loved Jesus for, for very many years, closing in on 30 years now. But I was carrying around— just not really a secret— but I love Jesus and I'm not very good at prayer.

And I knew this. And so you got two options as a pastor. You either kind of fake it and wordsmith the heck out of your stories or something, or you kind of own it and learn alongside your congregation.

So that is what we did. So I taught the 7-week series in the Lord's Prayer. I took on the posture of a learner and this phrase stood out to me that had been hiding in plain sight, which was the phrase that a kind of a reluctant or a not very good prayer needed to see.

Jesus literally says that, tells the disciples, 'This then is how you should pray.' And I realized, you know what, I've never actually tried praying the Jesus way. I've done almost everything else, committed my entire life to trying to live out the teachings from the Sermon on the Mount as best as I can, but I'd never actually tried praying the way Jesus told us to pray.

So I said, you know what, I'm going to give it a year. And see what we can learn.

Jennifer Rothschild: Okay, so when you did this, Matt— which, may I just pause here and say, I appreciate your admission because I feel the same way. I teach scripture and prayer is hard for me. I'm not disciplined with it.

I'm one of those desperate prayers. I, I get really good at my prayer life when things get bad, but when things are well, I just— I— it's hard. It's just not— I get it. I think a lot of us do.

Matt Smallbone: I'm learning there's a lot of us who are very— we love Jesus and we're just very haphazard in our prayer life. And, you know, for most of us, unanswered prayer is a bit of a barrier. Others of us like personality-wise.

Like, I've often wondered whether I just don't have the right personality to be good at prayer, because every now and then in my line of work someone suggests maybe a silent retreat might be the answer, and I'm just like, oh, I'm just not— I'm just not wired for that stuff.

So my, my prayer life as a pastor has been these fits and spurts of like trying to get up at 4 AM and pray for a couple of hours, and I can pull it off for 2 days, and then I just kind of, you know, give up, despondent. So I think there's a lot of us out there, is what I've learned since writing this book, right?

Jennifer Rothschild: And I think I think that's super important that we're acknowledging that right up front, because that means this is a very welcome conversation for all of us. Because even those who are really quote unquote good at prayer, and I'm using that phrase so loosely, we still need this because there's so much more. When you think about that, Jesus says, this is the deal, this is how you pray.

Okay, then we want to understand that better. But I'm curious for you personally, so knowing that maybe your relationship with prayer was a little haphazard or difficult, How did praying the Lord's Prayer every day for a whole year impact your prayer life and your perception of prayer?

Matt Smallbone: Yeah, well, the surprise twist was it kind of realigned everything for me. So I now have this great conversational relationship with God that I was missing. I realized I was coming to prayer really like I think most of us Westerners do, with a very hyper-individualistic mindset, that my job is to try and convince God to do stuff for me the way I want him to do stuff for me.

And that's a recipe for disappointment for sure. So I've I've really learned that my relationship with Jesus has moved from being lived almost entirely in my head and through social justice as well with my hands, but it's really moved my heart that I have this kind of really close friendship with God now. But what has really changed is it gave me the right framework for praying.

I've prayed every framework, read every prayer book that isn't on the Lord's Prayer, uh, it turns out, and there's just something about the way— it's only that Jesus understands the human soul and knows the process that we need to go through when interfacing with the God of the universe. It's just changed a lot about my hard, but it's also been just kind of so rewarding because I've relearned actually what prayer is, is meant to be and what it, what it isn't meant to be.

Jennifer Rothschild: And how kind that Jesus would tell his disciples and us, okay, so when you pray, this is what you say. I mean, that's a gift. That's a gift to repeat those words.

And then we're going to unpack more of that, what that actually— how that began to be fleshed out in your life. But you mentioned something already that I kind of want to— I think we need to address, because you talked about barriers.

Matt Smallbone: Yeah.

Jennifer Rothschild: So obviously a lot of do. And so I'm curious if you, in your studying prayer, maybe with your congregation, you discerned what maybe some of the most typical ones are. But, but even like, it might be easier to see them in someone else's life, but how do we identify them in our own lives and then overcome them?

Matt Smallbone: Yeah, so I mean, I think it's an honest conversation of, of— you start with like, why, why is prayer so difficult for me? So for me, I've named a couple of things already, like I don't really have this easily, naturally contemplative art to me. Like, I, I like to fill my life with noise and fun and busyness rather than silence.

And that is a barrier. That's a legitimate barrier. Sometimes I've wondered over the years where I'm afraid to be left alone with my own thoughts for too long because I— sometimes it tends to get dark when that happens.

Um, I think unanswered prayer is a massive barrier for most people. As I was writing this book, I realized that I really stopped praying after a miscarriage. And so I went through a season.

I was a touring bass player, we're living in the United States at this point, and we're doing a West Coast tour. And we live in Nashville, Tennessee, and the West Coast tours, you're always away for a couple of weeks. And my wife was at home looking after 3 little boys, and we just found out we were pregnant.

And while I was on the West Coast and unable to get home, playing worship music nonetheless, Mary miscarried. And I had my phone on silent in the hotel room, and it was just this like, you've got to be kidding me, God, I've given my life to serving you. What is the deal?

And so I threw up some pretty hectic, impassioned prayers as we were losing this baby on different sides of the country. And at that point, I think I just became very pragmatic in my faith. Like, I, I do believe that— I never stopped believing that God is good, that Jesus is kind, and wants what's the best for me.

I also have this— believed in and still do— the theological concept of sovereignty, which is that God can do all things. And so I just kind of got a bit pragmatic about it and went, listen, if God's not gonna do what I ask on the real important things like this, I ultimately do trust that he's good. Well, I think I might just stop asking for things.

And so that was— it was kind of a— and there was really several years after that where, uh, to say that my prayer life was haphazard would probably be a real overstatement. It was— it was just really, really just stopped at that point. So for a lot of people, I think the unanswered prayers and coming to God with these things that we think are really important and they don't turn out the way we want them to in that moment. I think that's a big barrier for a lot of people as we get older and the disappointments stack up.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah, I agree. Well, and I, I think too sometimes that's my own self-protection because I don't want God to disappoint me. And sometimes it's trying to protect him.

Okay, God, I don't want you to look bad. So if, if I'm gonna pray for something and you don't answer, at least it's going to be between you and me, right? It's so complicated.

And you mentioned the word sovereignty, and So that would be another thing that sometimes for me is a barrier, and I'm curious your take on it. Well, if God is sovereign and he knows, what the heck am I going to be asking for and trying to change his mind? He is immutable.

So I get kind of confused with the whole doctrine of God sometimes with prayer. Talk to me about that. How do you manage that?

Matt Smallbone: Well, it's very complicated, and I would just want to say that what I'm about to say, I may disagree with 5 years from now when we're listening back on this.

Like, this is a— This is definitely a journey, and it's very nuanced, and it just— I think we'll be thinking about these things for the rest of our lives. Yeah, I do think that I am grateful for almost all of the unanswered prayers that have happened in my life, probably with the exception of this miscarriage.

But when you think about all the things you pray for when you're younger, like I, I mentioned this in the book, if all of my prayers had been answered as a child, I'd currently be divorced from Madonna and working at a circus, you know. It's like those some things I prayed about with a lot of passion as a fourth grader, you know. So I, I think we, we spent a lot of time praying for things that aren't, quote, in Jesus' name.

And that's an important part of it. Jesus talks a lot about the things we pray for in Jesus' name he will do. Like, the Gospel of John is full of that.

It was also really frustrating to read all that stuff after we lost this baby. But the whole in Jesus' name thing was never meant to be a magic incantation that you, you throw on the edge— on the end of a prayer to kind of, you know, coerce God into doing stuff. That was actually how the pagans prayed, and Jesus said, don't pray like that.

And so that's— that was a big part of it for me. Like, just a lot of the things I've prayed for in my life, and I think this accounts for probably 99% of my disappointment in prayer, are things that actually weren't good for me. And in Jesus' name actually means aligned with the nature of God.

And there's a— you know, I pray for stuff all the time that I think I need today or tomorrow that just ultimately wouldn't be the best thing for me. It's— I think a lot of my prayer life is, is a bit like a 3-year-old demanding Red Bull from their parents. And, and you just can't believe— I think that's the price of doing business with a higher power and being invited into conversations, you know. It's like we're— we are literally toddlers coming to this fully formed, bright, brilliant being.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

Matt Smallbone: And we're demanding Red Bull before bed and getting disappointed. So I, I think that accounts for almost all of it. There's 1% that's a real mystery to me.

I will just say that I have found peace 15 years later, past this, um, you know, post this. But for anyone who's gone through miscarriage, I'm very aware I don't want to say anything trite or easy because it's, you know, there's a number of couples in our church right now going through miscarriage, and it is, it's, it's an absolute tragedy.

Jennifer Rothschild: Oh, it is. And yes, and it's not something— it's, it's one of those difficult sentences in life that doesn't have a period. It's an ellipsis.

You just process it differently as you age in every season. Yeah, I'm curious though, Matt, because what you're describing here, this whole in Jesus' name thing— I love you mentioning it's not like our superpower, yet there is power obviously in the name of Jesus. And I also appreciate the nuanced way you present this, and, and it's important for us to listen with grace because, yeah, we're all in process.

And, and, but here's one thing that, that I keep going back to. So let's say a lot of our listeners, some may be in a church tradition where they do liturgies all the time, like that is so normal to them, they read prayers. A lot of them are not, and they're doing the O Holy Spirit, come down, Holy Ghost, all that kind of stuff.

Okay, so do you risk— if you are praying the Lord's Prayer every day, how do you risk it not becoming a formula? Because for what you just said, it increased your heart relationship with Jesus.

Matt Smallbone: Yeah.

Jennifer Rothschild: So how do you manage that balance?

Matt Smallbone: Yeah, so I use it as a framework. I went into this whole experiment going, I'm gonna try and figure out how to make this work for my personality. So I banned myself from getting up at 4 AM and praying for 2 hours at a time.

I was gonna do that. And then what I learned along the way is the Lord's Prayer really is a framework for all of your prayers. It's one prayer.

I still haven't come across a situation in my life in the last 18 months where the Lord's Prayer hasn't been everything that I've needed it to be. So what I do is I use it as a framework. The Lord's Prayer is in two halves.

The first half, which we all miss, is direct— prayer is meant to begin directed at God. And then the second half has a human, has an us focus more so than a me focus, by the way. And there's a lot to that.

But there are 6 movements in the Lord's Prayer. And so what I do is I just pray each movement like it's in in the book of prayer, and then I pray what I got after that. So I mostly pray reacting to a situation that's going on in my life.

So if I'm worried about one of my kids, I'll start with our Father who is, who is close. Our Father who is in the heavens is the literal translation, and a lot of theologians have caught that that is also translated as in the air. You know, it's a God who is as close as the air around me.

Uh, holy is your name, I revere you. So I'll start with that. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

I'll say, God, I just admit you're close right now, and I know you're my kid's father and you're my father, and I know you care for all of us. And I just ask that you would be the good father that I need in this situation. And I just want to say I respect you and I'm wanting to hear from you today.

And then you move on to the next bit, uh, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And then you just go, God, I'm about to ask you for something very specific for my kid, but I said I submit my will to yours. I want the way the kingdom that you are king of and the rules in your kingdom, I want them to be true in my life.

And I ultimately, I'm going to ask you for something very specific here in about 10 seconds, but I submit my will to yours, and I pray that your will will be done because I acknowledge that you're brighter, bigger, and can see the full picture better than I can. And so really, it's, you know, my favorite language is— I'm borrowing from my friend John Tyson, Church in City, New York. He uses the phrase, pray what you got.

And so I just kind of read the prayer, you know, well, I've got it memorized by now, actually, because the 5-year-old. That's part of the genius. But you do the bit and then you, you throw in your own words.

And I pray this— well, I actually prayed this prayer several times a day and still do. I didn't stop after the year. Um, and it's anywhere between 2 minutes and, I mean, 10 minutes probably is about as long as it goes. And just kind of hit it at different parts of the day.

Jennifer Rothschild: I love it. It's beautiful because, yes, calling it a framework— that, I love it. It's like you've just, just described, here's the architecture you know, the architecture of my prayer.

But dude, I decorate it like according to my personality. And, and that's important because I think what happens to us is we think there's one way, there's a formula. In fact, I'll tell you this, um, prayer podcasts are always our highest downloads, and I think it's because deep down we think we are like not doing it right, or there is just one way, one formula, and then we haven't figured it out yet.

So talk to us about that. Is there really just one way, or are we failing if we're doing it a certain way. I—

Matt Smallbone: Well, what also stood out to me when I'm teaching this prayer series to my, to my congregation is that there is actually two ways not to pray. So Jesus is very clear about that before he jumps in the Lord's Prayer. He says, don't pray like Pharisees, um, and you don't pray like pagans.

And so the Pharisees kind of— I think to, to do the hermeneutical work to bring it to 2026 is, is a bit like kind of praying for praying a spiritual TED Talk in front of a room so that everyone's looking at you thinking you're really smart. So don't do that. What a challenge that is for a preacher, by the way, you know, because it feels like that's part of the job.

Um, and, and then don't pray like a pagan, which is use all these kind of babbling words and just try and get the phrases right so that you can kind of turn God into a cosmic vending machine to get your way. So God says don't pray like that. I don't think there's just one way to pray.

I do think though you've got to pay attention to— if you've never tried it. Jesus literally says, this then is how you should pray. And I don't know how to get around that.

Literally, Jesus said it. So what, what's brilliant about the prayer is the movements. You start with adoration, then you submit your will before you ask for anything, and then you ask for daily bread, and you get really specific about what you think you need, uh, for that day.

But it doesn't stop there. Then Jesus says, every time you should pray. And this is— this was the— this was the greatest benefit for me in this, this whole experiment, is that do several times a day now.

I forgive people. I ask God to forgive me of something that has happened in the last couple of hours, and then I also forgive someone else for something that has happened in the last couple of hours. And Jesus says you should do that every time you pray.

But Jesus really, when you get beneath his teachings on forgiveness, really teaches it should be regular and unlimited. And I've never really approached forgiveness that way. It was kind of like when I was weighed down with enough unforgiveness, I'd forgive the easiest person just so I could, I could stand up a little straighter.

So you forgive every day, and then there's this whole bit about deliver us from evil. As a good Methodist, we never did spiritual warfare in my prayers ever. It was not— I was naturally not— never actually drawn to that.

But now every day I'm like, God, I know there's a target on my back, and would you, would you protect my children? There is, there's just some genius about the scaffold of this prayer that covers. So what I will say is, of course, you can pray in the other You've got to find a way to do gratitude, by the way.

I got in a bit of a— got a bit of a funk where it's not obvious where gratitude fits in in this prayer. But there is something beautiful about saying— and it's actually in the first line, is probably the best place to do it— hallowed be your name, thank you for all the good things. There's something beautiful.

What I did miss is my prayers always began with like, God, thank you for today, thank you for my family. I missed that bit for a little bit, and I think that that's an important part of it here.

But again, I haven't had any situation in the last 18 months where this hasn't been really the perfect framework that has helped me more completely pray through a situation because normally I would just ask God for stuff and be disappointed when I didn't get my way. And now it's like, man, you go from that to asking for forgiveness and forgiving somebody, jumping into spiritual warfare.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

Matt Smallbone: Asking God not— don't allow this thing to break me. It's just a more complete way. And I think us Westerners left on our own, we just— again, we just pray for the very specific thing that we want our way. And this prayer, this prayer just breaks all of that apart.

Jennifer Rothschild: Oh man, there's so many things. I would, I would love to ask you, and I'm so glad you've written the book because I know I personally want to dive deep. Because even that concept of forgiveness, frequently, every time you pray— you're not convinced God answers prayer, pray that every day.

Forgive me, help me to forgive those who have messed up with me. I mean, wow, God's ready to answer. Okay, but, uh, there's so many things, like I said, but I'm gonna have to get to our last question just because of time.

So I am recommending the book so highly. Okay, no, I do have to ask you one more question before the last. Okay, I just do.

There's not a lot of eye language in the Lord's Prayer. And when you mention that about us Westerners, it's me, my four, and no more usually when we pray. So how did praying the Lord's Prayer and that sense of communal, um, petition impact you?

Matt Smallbone: I think, you know, our Catholic brothers and sisters all don't call it the Lord's Prayer, they call it the Our Father. And I think they're on to something because that opening phrase just frames up the whole thing beautifully. It's a reminder that in this prayer we're not only children children.

We can't just only child our way in our relationship with our Heavenly Father, and we don't always get what we want because there's other kids around here as well. So our Father is really important, and, and it really frames this up as a community prayer. But also, give us today our daily bread.

So you're also praying that your neighbors— you know, the pronouns really matter— give us our daily bread. You're praying that your neighbors and the people in your community will have enough as as well. So, I mean, I, I only prayed 1/6 of the way Jesus told us to pray. It turns out I'm a genius at asking God for stuff, but other than that, I was just missing some really important parts to what it means to have a really robust and thorough conversation with the Creator of the universe.

Jennifer Rothschild: Okay, so inspiring. This is going to be a gift, and, and I appreciate— he is our Father, and we are brothers and sisters, and we need to come before him as that kind of family caring about each other. All right, this is our last question though, Matt.

We're gonna get to it here. All right, what What advice do you have? And obviously your advice is going to be based on what the Bible says.

To that person who's listened to all this, they're inspired, maybe even a little convicted, but they're like, dude, I am so reluctant because I'm just so bad at this. So like, what advice do you have to the person who feels like they're just a poor or reluctant prayer?

Matt Smallbone: Well, I would say if you do want to pray, just commit to getting that one thing right. Don't add in a bunch of other stuff as well. If you're going to try and get good at prayer, it's not also the right time to, you know, start trying to Sabbath properly every Saturday.

I have found for me at least, and for anyone wired like me, I need to do a spiritual practice until it fills me with joy and I want to do it. And that doesn't usually happen in the first few times for me. I think of it like, do you have any crazy CrossFit friends who just love getting up at 4 AM to lift heavy things?

Jennifer Rothschild: Yes! I don't understand—

Matt Smallbone: Now, what I've realized— well, what I've realized is they're not built differently than you and me. They've just got through the initial discomfort and they legitimately love it because of the community and they love how they feel because of it. They're not doing it because it makes them as miserable as it makes you and me if we were to do it once a year.

It's actually become part of who they are and they've seen the benefit of it. So I just say, I would give yourself a month, give yourself 2 months, make it work with your schedule. Especially, listen, any stay-at-home parent or anyone with kids under the age of 2 or 3, you've just got on your stage of discipleship that you're in, and there's certain things you're not going to be able to do.

I love that story of John and Charles Wesley's mom in the kitchen. Do you know that one where she just covered her head with the tea towel and she said, "When the tea towel's over my head, I'm praying. Leave me alone."

Like, "Don't come to me." That's, that's one of the most baller things of all time. And I think that's really what it is. Make this work around your lifestyle.

It's best to create some quiet space. Jesus does say go to a room and close the door. That's the best way to do this.

But also he Jesus was kind of essentially homeless for much of his ministry as well, so he didn't actually have a room with a door most of the time. So I would just say give it— add this one thing in. I'd recommend praying through the Lord's Prayer if you've never done it before, remembering that this is Jesus legitimately said, this is actually how you should pray.

And do it until it brings you joy and you want to keep doing it. And just release yourself from adding in any new kind of spiritual practice until it fills you with joy.

[INTERVIEW ENDS]

Jennifer Rothschild: I don't know about you, but I was so inspired by that, right? So many seeds for thought. Let's try it.

I mean, just see what the Lord calls you to do. Would you be open to praying the Lord's Prayer every day? You don't have to commit to a whole year, but just try it for a week.

Try praying it several times a day, maybe with each meal. Just start small. Don't forget what Matt suggested.

We don't join the Olympics until we've run around the block a couple times. So be patient with yourself, just try it. And when you do pray it, remember you're using the Lord's Prayer as a framework, not a formula.

And by the way, if you wanna go a little deeper, I just realized I'm part of a Bible study called When You Pray with several other of your favorite Lifeway authors like Jen Wilkin and Kristi McLelland and Kelly Minter, Jackie Hill Perry. Y'all, it is so good. But we talk about the different prayers in the Bible.

That might help you also feel a little less intimidated about prayer, if that's a thing for you, it's going to help you. So there's so much available for prayer, and of course everything you're going to need is going to be on the show notes. So check them out, especially check out Matt's book on the show notes.

All right, now it's time to actually pray together, and our dear brother Michael O'Brien is going to lead us in the Lord's Prayer. So, Michael, let's pray.

Michael O'Brien: Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. In heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom, In the power, in the glory, forever. Amen.