What Happened When He Prayed the Lord’s Prayer Every Day for a Year?

The Prayer Experiment 

Matt Smallbone begins The Prayer Experiment with an admission that may surprise readers: although he was a pastor and Christian leader, prayer was not always easy or natural for him. He wanted to pray, but he often felt that he wasn't particularly good at it. One of the barriers was theological. Smallbone believed strongly in the sovereignty of God—the conviction that God is ultimately in control and knows what He is doing. But that belief led him to ask a very practical question: If God already knows what He is going to do, and nothing surprises Him, why do I need to pray? He describes how easy it was to allow that question to become an excuse for avoiding prayer. Rather than openly rejecting prayer, he had essentially "outsourced" it to God. His problem wasn't that he didn't believe in prayer; it was that he didn't know how prayer actually fit into a life with a sovereign God. 
Then, in 2025, Smallbone taught through the Lord's Prayer at his church. As he studied Jesus' words more carefully, he became convinced that this familiar prayer contained far more depth than he had previously recognized. So, he decided on an experiment: He would pray the Lord's Prayer every day for one year.
That experiment became the foundation for the book. Rather than treating the Lord's Prayer as something Christians mechanically recite, Smallbone began to see it as a framework for an entire relationship with God. The prayer Jesus gave His disciples doesn't merely tell Christians what words to say. It teaches them how to orient their hearts, priorities, relationships and daily lives toward God.

Prayer is not about impressing God

One of Smallbone's important themes is that many Christians have unnecessary anxiety about whether they are praying "correctly." Some people think they need to find the perfect words. Others believe that powerful prayer requires a particular emotional intensity, lengthy prayers, or an impressive knowledge of Scripture. Smallbone challenges that mindset. Jesus's teaching on prayer begins by stripping away the performance aspect. Prayer isn't primarily about producing impressive words for God. It is about coming into God's presence honestly and relationally. The Lord's Prayer becomes a kind of corrective to our distorted ideas about prayer.
Instead of asking, How can I become better at praying? Smallbone encourages readers to ask something more fundamental: What if prayer is primarily about learning to be with God? That shift is significant. Prayer moves from being a religious obligation to becoming an ongoing relationship.

Understanding the Father

The first major movement of the Lord's Prayer is: "Our Father in heaven…" Smallbone spends considerable attention on the significance of addressing God as Father. Prayer begins with relationship. Before Jesus teaches His followers to ask God for anything, He teaches them to recognize who God is. God is not an impersonal force, distant ruler, or divine vending machine. He is Father. That changes the posture of prayer. If God is Father, prayer doesn't have to begin with fear. We don't have to manipulate Him into caring about us. We don't have to convince Him that our needs are important. We approach Him because He already loves us. Smallbone explores the tension between God's transcendence—He is "in heaven"—and His nearness. God is simultaneously greater than anything we can comprehend and intimately present with His children. The result is a picture of prayer that is both reverent and personal. God is worthy of awe, but He is also approachable.

"Hallowed be Your name": putting God back at the center

The next phrase of the prayer is: "Hallowed be your name." Smallbone interprets this as a request that God's name would be honored, revered and recognized as holy. That means prayer isn't fundamentally about getting God to conform to our agenda. Instead, prayer begins by allowing God to reshape our agenda. This is one of the book's larger themes: prayer realigns us. The title's reference to realigning our "thoughts," "hearts," and "posture" toward God and the world reflects this idea. Prayer doesn't simply change circumstances around us; it changes the person doing the praying. When we begin with God's character and God's holiness, our own desires are put into proper perspective.

"Your kingdom come": prayer as participation in God's work

Smallbone then moves into perhaps one of the most expansive concepts in the Lord's Prayer: "Your kingdom come." Prayer isn't simply asking God to make our personal lives easier. It is asking for God's kingdom and God's purposes to become increasingly visible in the world. That makes prayer missional. When Christians pray for God's kingdom to come, they're asking God to bring His rule, justice, healing, reconciliation and redemption into situations that desperately need Him. Smallbone therefore expands the reader's understanding of prayer beyond personal requests. Prayer becomes a way of joining God's work. Instead of asking only: "God, what can You do for me?" the Christian begins asking: "God, what are You doing—and how can I participate?" This is one of the ways the Lord's Prayer changes the posture of the person praying.

"Your will be done": surrendering control

The next phrase takes the experiment even deeper: "Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." This is particularly important given Smallbone's earlier struggle with God's sovereignty. If God is sovereign, prayer isn't an attempt to wrestle control away from Him. But neither is prayer passive resignation. Instead, prayer becomes an act of trust and surrender. Smallbone addresses one of the most difficult questions Christians face: What do we do when God doesn't answer prayer the way we hoped? The book doesn't pretend that unanswered prayer is easy or that Christians can always explain why God allows painful circumstances. Instead, Smallbone emphasizes that prayer gives us a place to bring our disappointment, confusion and unanswered questions while continuing to trust God's character. The book specifically addresses reconciling God's goodness with unanswered prayer. 

That makes "Your will be done" less of a resignation and more of a declaration of trust: God, I want what You want—even when I don't understand what You are doing.

"Give us this day our daily bread"

Smallbone then brings the Lord's Prayer down from the cosmic level to the very practical: "Give us this day our daily bread." The movement is striking. Jesus teaches His followers to pray about God's kingdom—and then immediately teaches them to pray about bread. In other words, God cares about both the eternal and the ordinary. Smallbone uses this portion of the prayer to explore dependence. We like independence. We want to be self-sufficient. We want enough money, resources, plans and security that we don't have to depend upon anyone.
But prayer forces us to acknowledge that everything ultimately comes from God. "Daily bread" also teaches us to live one day at a time. Instead of trying to control the entire future, we learn to trust God with today. That becomes an antidote to anxiety. Prayer reminds us: I don't have to possess tomorrow's grace today. God gives what is needed for the day in front of us.

Forgiveness: receiving and extending grace

Another major section addresses: "Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors."
Smallbone emphasizes that forgiveness isn't an optional side issue in Christian spirituality. Prayer brings us face-to-face with both our need for forgiveness and our responsibility to extend forgiveness. There is a two-way movement. We come to God acknowledging our own failures. We receive grace. Then that experience of grace changes how we respond to people who have wronged us. This doesn't mean that genuine hurt is insignificant or that forgiveness means pretending something didn't happen. Instead, Smallbone presents forgiveness as part of the freedom God wants to create within us. Prayer becomes a place where resentment, guilt and relational wounds can be brought into God's presence.

"Lead us not into temptation"

Smallbone next turns toward temptation. Jesus' prayer acknowledges something Christians sometimes forget: we are engaged in a spiritual battle. Temptation isn't simply a matter of weak willpower. There are patterns, 
environments, desires and spiritual realities that can pull us away from God. Consequently, prayer involves asking God for help before temptation overwhelms us. That makes prayer preventative rather than merely reactive.
Many people pray after they have already fallen. Jesus teaches His followers to pray for protection beforehand.

"Deliver us from evil"

The final petition recognizes the reality of evil. Smallbone does not treat Christianity as merely a program for becoming happier or more successful. The Christian life takes place within a spiritual conflict. Therefore, Christians need God's protection and deliverance. Prayer is one of the ways we acknowledge that we cannot successfully navigate life through our own strength. This section also reinforces the book's broader message: prayer isn't weakness. Dependence upon God is actually part of spiritual strength.

The biggest transformation: prayer changes the person praying

Perhaps the most important takeaway from The Prayer Experiment is that Smallbone's yearlong experiment didn't simply teach him a better prayer. It changed his understanding of prayer itself. He discovered that repeating the Lord's Prayer wasn't necessarily repetitive in the negative sense. The same words could expose different needs and produce different reflections on different days. One day "daily bread" might make him think about physical provision. Another day it might expose anxiety. Another day it might remind him of dependence. "Your will be done" might feel like joyful surrender one day and difficult trust another. The words remain the same, but the person praying them keeps changing. That's why Smallbone argues that Christians never outgrow the Lord's Prayer. It isn't an elementary prayer that we eventually graduate beyond. Its simplicity is part of its profundity. 

To learn more about Matt Smallbone, or to purchase his latest book, The Prayer Experiment, click the LINK!

To learn more about Church of the City, click the LINK!

CREDITS

Author, The Prayer Experiment (Zondervan, 2026) / Lead Pastor, Church of the City, Nashville / former bass guitar player for Michael W. Smith, and his cousins, Rebecca St. James, and FOR KING + COUNTRY / married to Mary, three sons, one daughter, and a rescue dog named Rosie