Over the years I have had a great deal of difficulty in being obedient to Paul's dictum to be constant in prayer, Romans 12:12. No matter what scheme I tried, the result was always the same; I would come to the end of the day and have to hang my head in shame with the lame excuse—I forgot.

Yet the discipline is so important, how can I draw close to God, James 4:8, when I spend the major portion of my day ignoring Him? Have I really accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Master when I do not seek His advice and approval about my various activities that supposedly are to bring glory and honor to Him? If I had an employee like me, I would have advised some corrective behavior and if not followed, termination of employment would have been in order.

Praise the Lord, His approach is far more gentle, He keeps sending reminders through the Counselor to prick my conscience, urging me to include Him in my life. I need to go through the 119^th Psalm and count the references to constant prayer and communion with God. And then there is the rest of the Psalms, the various prayers scattered throughout the Scriptures from the Prayer of Moses to Paul's many spontaneous prayers for the communities that he is writing to.

I have tried various approaches to reminding me to pray during the day, all without significant success. Setting reminders on my wrist watch, posting Post-its prominently around the office, special software packages, even prayer itself. Being recently come to the smartphone era, (yes, I have an iPhone but have already signed the Manhattan Declaration), I explored the various apps offered for prayer support. None were quite what I needed.

All this fussing did not alleviate the the realization that I need to develop a discipline of regular prayer, a discipline that will take me out of the affairs of the day to spend some time with my Lord in a focused conversation. I must establish a habit of stopping at specific times during my day to examine where I am in relation to my main task of advancing the Kingdom of God. The Holy Spirit continues to exercise me in this regard.

However, I realized yesterday that I now have a new level of technology available to me through Google calender and an app that synchronizes my iPhone with my Google account. It has become very useful in managing my appointments, tasks, and trips but when I tried to set the task function up as a prayer list, it just didn't work. The solution was to define a separate calendar specifically for prayer that is synced with my main calendar. That calendar is currently set with seven periods of prayer, the topic associated with that period, and reminders at 10 and 2 minutes prior to the time. There is a 3^rd reminder at the actual time. The reminder is an annoying buzz, I need to find a copy of “Sweet Hour of Prayer”to use as a ringtone.

The times and topics that I am using are as follows:

1. 6AM—Prayer and meditation based on the Psalms

2. 8AM—review the plans for the day, specifically with regard to their role in advancement of the Kingdom.

3. 10AM—Evangelizing and discipling activities, praying Luke 10:2 and similar Scriptures

4. 12PM—Praise and thanksgiving with an emphasis on creational theology

5. 3PM—Intercession This is one area where I need to develop a way of managing a prayer list.

6. 6PM—Relationships. The Trinity, Church, family and friends

7. 10PM—Wrap-up. A discussion with the Lord about the day and issues before us in the next day.

I've finished 24 hours and it is working so far (mostly). I continue to wrestle with taking the 2 warning reminders as indicating that I need to prepare for prayer, not try and squeeze one more task or phone call in before the 3^rd alert.

If anyone else tries this somewhat over the top approach to managing their prayer life, or has another approach, I would be very interested to hear from you. Post your comments and keep the conversation going.