Results

That same New York Times article on “The Boss in the Machine” also reminded me that now more than ever I need to work at scheduling my time with God… until it becomes a genuine habit… what I would call an “unconscious competence.” My friend Jim says exactly the opposite thing! He says now more than ever he is nurturing an ongoing conversation with God that’s more notable when it’s interrupted than when it’s in progress.

I think it’s time I dug out the old Bellmatic and got back to business with God.

Perhaps we’re approaching the same problem from different directions. If I am to “know Him”… integrating God into every aspect of my life… including my business and daily work life… then I need to have a daily dialogue with Him… not just a “moment” sometime during the day. If technology is allowed to interrupt me moment-by-moment throughout the day… then why don’t I use technology to interrupt myself moment-by-moment throughout the day to spend time with God?

What would that look like? Early in my Christian life I saw at Psalm 119:164 that David said “Seven times a day I praise you for your righteous laws.” It sounded to me like David praised God every hour on the hour through the workday. I wanted to do that! I happened to be in Hong Kong at the time so I went out and bought an inexpensive Seiko watch—I think it was called a Bellmatic—that I could set manually to ring an alarm. I set the alarm to the top of the hour… and it rang… I said a brief praise to God… and then reset the alarm for the next hour. It was that simple… and it was extremely effective at creating a routine for staying in dialogue with God in the middle of my daily work.

Sad to say I lost that habit… probably when I upgraded to an expensive and technologically sophisticated timepiece. I think it’s time I dug out the old Bellmatic and got back to business with God.