Praying the Lord's Prayer slowly, one line at a time

When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, He did not give them a method. He gave them a prayer. It is short enough to say in thirty seconds and deep enough that people have been praying it for two thousand years without reaching the bottom. That is the difficulty. Words you know by heart can pass through your mouth without touching your heart. This is a way of praying the Lord’s Prayer slowly: one line at a time, with a pause after each, letting the line become your own request before you move on. Nothing here is new. It is simply the prayer Jesus gave, taken at a walking pace. If you have said it a thousand times and felt nothing, or if you have never said it at all, you can begin here. Read the whole prayer once first, then take it line by line.

So then, this is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’

— Matthew 6:9–13

Before the prayer, two things Jesus said about praying

And when you pray, do not babble on like pagans, for they think that by their many words they will be heard. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.

— Matthew 6:7–8

Jesus gives the prayer right after warning against two kinds of praying: praying to be seen, and praying with a pile of words to wear God down. The Lord’s Prayer is the opposite of both. It is private, and it is brief. You are not informing God of anything. You are coming to a Father who already knows, and saying what He has taught you to say.

That takes the pressure off. Praying slowly is not a technique for getting more out of God. It is a way of letting the words He gave you do their work in you.

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name

‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name.

— Matthew 6:9

Begin with our, not my. Even alone in your room you are praying with the whole family of God. Then Father. Jesus could have started anywhere, and He started with a relationship. Pause here. Say the word Father and let it be true.

In heaven reminds you that this Father is not small. The words “hallowed be Your name” (Matthew 6:9) are the first request, and it is not about you. You are asking that God’s name be treated as holy, in the world and in your own heart. A good way to pray this line slowly: name one place today where you want His name honored, and ask for it.

Your kingdom come, Your will be done

Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

— Matthew 6:10

Two requests that are really one. You are asking for God’s rule to arrive where it is not yet felt: in a broken situation, a hard relationship, a corner of your own will that has not surrendered. The phrase “on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10) gives you the measure. In heaven, God’s will is done gladly and completely. You are asking for that here.

To pray this slowly, hold one specific place before God and say, “Your kingdom come here.” Then, harder, “Your will be done in me.”

Give us this day our daily bread

Give us this day our daily bread.

— Matthew 6:11

Only now, after God’s name and kingdom, does the prayer turn to your needs, and it asks for something modest: bread, for today. Not a stockpile. Enough.

This is the line where you bring the ordinary things: the bill, the meal, the strength for the afternoon, the work you need. Jesus put them in the prayer, so they belong there. Pray it slowly by naming what you actually need today, and then stopping, since tomorrow’s bread is tomorrow’s prayer.

And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors

And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

— Matthew 6:12

Here the prayer gets uncomfortable, on purpose. You ask for forgiveness, and in the same breath you say that you have forgiven others. Jesus adds a comment right after the prayer: “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you” (Matthew 6:14). Forgiveness received and forgiveness given are meant to flow together.

Churches say this line differently. Some pray “forgive us our debts” (Matthew 6:12), following Matthew. Some pray forgive us our trespasses, an old English rendering that took hold in the church. Some pray “forgive us our sins” (Luke 11:4), following Luke. All three are faithful; they are looking at the same reality from slightly different angles. Use the words your church uses, and mean them.

To pray it slowly, confess one specific thing. Then name one person you need to forgive, and ask for the grace to do it.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’

— Matthew 6:13

The last line is honest about weakness. You are asking not to be led into a place where you will fall, and to be rescued from a real enemy. God does not tempt anyone, but He does lead, and this is a request that He lead you around what you cannot handle.

Many churches add a closing line, For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever, Amen. It appears in some ancient manuscripts and in the footnotes of many translations, and it has been prayed for centuries. Others end where the earliest manuscripts end. Both are faithful. The added ending is a fitting way to finish, because it hands everything back to God.

The same prayer in Luke

One day in a place where Jesus had just finished praying, one of His disciples requested, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”

— Luke 11:1

So Jesus told them, “When you pray, say: ‘Father, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation.’”

— Luke 11:2–4

Luke’s version is shorter and comes in answer to a request. It begins simply with Father, asks for bread each day, and says sins where Matthew says debts. The differences are not a problem. Jesus almost certainly taught this prayer more than once, and the two Gospels preserve it in two settings. What you learn from putting them side by side is that the prayer was never meant to be a formula recited exactly. It was meant to be a pattern, prayed from the heart.

How to keep praying it

Pray it once a day, slowly, for a month. Morning is good, because the bread line and the temptation line both look forward. Say each line, pause, and add one sentence of your own underneath it. Some days that sentence will be long. Some days it will be a name.

When you have no words at all, the prayer is there for you. You can say it in a hospital corridor, at a graveside, in the car. On the days when you cannot make it your own, it is still the prayer Jesus gave, and it still reaches the Father.

Pray it with others when you can. It begins with our, and it was given to a group. Most churches pray it together every week, and there is something in saying these words alongside other voices that you cannot get alone. Let the prayer carry you back to Scripture, to your church, and to the Father who knows what you need before you ask.