I mean to pray every day and then the week runs away with me. How do I build a habit that survives a genuinely busy fortnight?

“Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house; and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime.”

Daniel was a senior official in a foreign empire that had just made praying to his God a capital offence. He opened his windows and prayed anyway, three times a day, and the text adds three words that carry the weight: as he did aforetime. The habit was fixed long before the crisis arrived. When the pressure came he did not have to summon willpower, he only had to not stop.

“And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.”

Mark's first chapter is relentless. Jesus teaches, confronts a demon, heals Peter's mother in law, and a whole town gathers at the door until late in the evening. The next thing Mark records is that he got up while it was still dark and went somewhere empty to pray. The busiest day in the account is followed by the earliest morning. He protected the time by making it early and making it elsewhere.