Built around the day, not the app
Prayer Lock sits on the same rhythm as the rest of Declare Bible — morning, noon and night — so the hours it holds and the hours you declare are the same hours.
Put Prayer Before the Scroll
Choose the apps. Choose the hours. They stay shut until you have said the day's declaration — then they open until the next checkpoint.
The first thing you touch sets the day
Most of us reach for a phone before we reach for anything else, and whatever is on it gets the first and clearest part of our attention. Not because we decided it should — because it was there and prayer was not.
Prayer Lock changes the order. It does not ask you to use your phone less. It asks the apps to wait their turn.
How it works
You pick the apps you want held back and the hours you want them held. At those hours Declare Bible shields them: opening one shows a reminder rather than the app.
Saying the declaration is what opens them. Not a timer running out, not a button that dismisses the screen — the word, said. They stay open until the next checkpoint on your schedule, and then the shield returns.
It runs on the operating system's own controls: Apple's Screen Time on iPhone and iPad, and an accessibility service on Android. Declare Bible cannot see what you do inside another app, and it does not try to.
A shield, not a punishment
The point is not to make your phone unpleasant. It is to put one thing in front of another, so the first words of the morning are ones you chose in advance rather than ones an algorithm chose for you.
You set the schedule and you can change it. A lock you cannot live with is a lock you will turn off by the second week, which helps nobody.
What Prayer Lock gives you
- You choose exactly which apps are held back — nothing is decided for you
- You choose the hours, and change them whenever the week changes
- Saying the declaration is what opens them, so the habit is the key
- Uses Apple Screen Time on iOS and an accessibility service on Android
- Declare Bible never sees what you do inside another app
- Works alongside your phone's own screen-time settings rather than replacing them
Questions about Prayer Lock
What is Prayer Lock?
Prayer Lock holds the apps you choose shut at the hours you choose, until you have said the day's declaration. Opening a held app shows a reminder instead; saying the declaration opens them until the next checkpoint on your schedule.
Can I choose which apps are blocked?
Yes. You pick them yourself from the apps on your phone, and you can change the list at any time. Nothing is blocked that you did not choose.
Does Prayer Lock replace Screen Time?
No. On iPhone and iPad it uses Apple's Screen Time controls rather than standing in for them, and on Android it uses an accessibility service. Your own screen-time settings keep working exactly as they did.
Does Prayer Lock work on iPhone and Android?
Yes, on both — though the permission each platform asks for is different, because the two operating systems provide different controls. Declare Bible asks before it needs either one and explains what it is for.
Can Declare Bible see what I do in other apps?
No. Prayer Lock can hold an app shut and let it open again. It cannot read what is inside one, and nothing about your use of other apps leaves your phone.