Features
Write. Plant scripture. See the pattern.
A journal built for spiritual growth — slash commands and contemplative rituals right in the sentence, the Lamp to show where your heart has been leaning across the whole Bible, the Ascent to climb the long view of your seasons, and the Altar to gather the prayers you keep carrying.
The editor
A page worth returning to.
The editor is the soul of Dayspring. If it isn't a joy to write in, nothing else matters — so this is where the most care went.
- Slash commandsType `/` for scripture, prayer, a sense, a ritual, or an inline photo. Inline glass panels, keyboard-native, dismissible. The spiritual life captured where it actually happens — in the middle of a sentence.
- Focus modeEverything but your words disappears. Typewriter scrolling keeps the line you're writing at eye level; the lines above quietly dim. Just you and the page.
- Six voices, light and darkA voice is the whole page, not a colour swap — its own typeface, its own paper, its own headings. Each comes in light and dark and follows your system; Vigil is dimmed all the way down for dark rooms. Then set your own size, line height, and measure.
- Nothing between thought and wordMarkdown-first, with no perceptible input lag and continuous autosave. Keyboard-first throughout. You'll never lose a keystroke, and you'll never wait for one.
Dawn — Sunrise on paper. The one that welcomes.
Rituals
Forms that carry you in.
Not a prompt of the day — contemplative writing forms drawn from two thousand years of the praying church, opened with `/ritual`. Browse the library, read the threshold, and write into a structure that knows where to begin.
- Thirteen forms, one libraryThe Daily Examen, Lectio Divina, The Round, The Morning Offering, Luther's Garland, Psalmic Lament, Ignatian Discernment, and more — each with its origin, tradition, and intention named before you begin.
- The Round — your own week, walkedA weekly ritual built from what you've already written: one movement for each part of your life Dayspring has noticed — work, family, the things you're carrying — asking only, what's true here this week?
- Scaffolding, not scriptEach section renders a label and a guiding question in the editor — display-only. Only what you type is saved. When you're done with the form, dissolve it into plain prose with one click.
- Finds you, doesn't wait to be foundSearch by name, tradition, or a line that's stuck with you. Or open the library empty-handed — it opens on the morning's rituals at 6am and the evening's at 9pm, and says why.
The Practices
How will you draw near today?
It's early — the rituals to begin the day come first.
Thirteen forms today — Examen, Lectio, SOAP, Luther's Garland, The Round, and more.
In the editor
The Round
Frontier Church
What is true here this week?
Tired going in, glad I stayed for the whole meeting.
Trading
What is true here this week?
Patient, or chasing again…
Prompts stay as scaffolding — only your words are saved.
Your pages
Everything you've written, and a way back to it.
Press ⌘1 and there it is — not a list of dates, but every entry laid out as a page. This is where most of the finding happens, so it's where most of the finding tools live.
- Zoom from a decade to a lineContinuous, not three fixed sizes. Far out, the shape of your writing life is visible — the dense months, the silences. Close in, the near end reads like an open book. Hit Return on a page to open it two-up, with room in the margin.
- Filters that combineOnly entries with scripture in them. Only prayers. Only the pages you set apart. A filter you have nothing for never appears, so you're never offered an empty one. There's a plain-English box too — it sets the filters; it doesn't decide what matches.
- Search on your device, instantly⌘K searches everything you've written as you type. No network, no spinner — it works offline. Hit Return on a question instead and it goes looking for what you meant, then hands back counts, the span of time, and the sentences you actually wrote.
- Anniversaries, folded inAs you scroll, pages from this date in earlier years appear in the flow — not as a notification, the way you'd come across an old letter in a drawer.
The Altar
A place of remembrance.
Not a prayer to-do list. The prayers and senses you plant while writing gather here on their own — and when God meets you in one, however He moves, you mark the place.
- Gathered by what you carryThe names you keep bringing to God, the places and callings your prayers are spent on, the matters He keeps tending in you — each one kept before Him, with how long you've held it laid plainly alongside.
- However He moved — not a checkboxNo answered / unanswered toggle. You name what happened in honest words: answered, redirected, surrendered, or He changed me. And still carrying is a posture of faith, not a missed deadline.
- Thus far the Lord has helpedSwitch to the Over-time view and the altar becomes a testimony — where God has met you across the years, stones of remembrance to carry back into prayer, not requests to file away as closed.
Altar
A place of remembrance
Lately your prayers have circled around esther, family.
Names you keep bringing to Godthe people you carry
- estherkept before Him · across 14 years
- familykept before Him · across 14 years
Places & callingswhere your prayers are spent
- workkept before Him · across 11 years
- the churchreturned to again and again · over 10 months
What He keeps tending in youthe matters that recur
- patiencekept before Him · across 15 yearshe changed me
- presencekept before Him · across 14 years
Some He answered. Some He redirected. Some you're still carrying.
The Lamp
Where your heart has been leaning.
The feature we kept reaching for and never found. Not coverage — returns. The whole Bible, lit by your journal.
- Warmth where you've livedEvery chapter you've touched, glowing by how often you came back. Quiet where you haven't. No streak. No shame.
- Seasons change the pictureScrub to the hard year — Psalms and Lamentations. Spring — John and Philippians. The map remembers what you couldn't see yet.
- Your words, still thereTap a book. Read what you wrote the night that verse found you.
The Ascent
See who you're becoming.
The Lamp shows where your heart leaned; the Ascent shows who you're becoming — not a stack of reports, but the same pages seen from further back: the week, the month, the season, the year.
- Week, month, season, yearThey aren't four summaries. They're the same pages seen from further back — the lines you wrote, the verse you reached for, the prayer you kept — each resolving at a longer range as you step back.
- The further back, the less it saysAt the week it only puts your words in order. At the month it names a pattern — as a question. At the year it goes nearly silent and hands back your own marks. No verdicts, no scores, no streaks.
- Watching this seasonKeep a row of lenses in view — gain, gratitude, scripture, work, family — so the view stays anchored to what you're actually paying attention to right now.
Week
Standing in the days.
Close to the ground — your own words, in the order you lived them. The app only arranges.
Your words · in order
Monday, bracing for the worst. Thursday, the hard conversation with Marcus. Friday — I left grateful, and I'm not sure when that shifted.
What you reached for
James 1:19
“Quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.”
In order, nothing interpreted yet — you're close enough to feel them.
Month
What you kept returning to.
Step back, and the same dimensions resolve at month scale — named only as a question.
The lines you kept
Less about bracing. More about the people in front of you.
The month's recurring verse
James 1:19
What you kept asking
That I'd listen before I defend.
You started to see…
Patience, showing up in small places — the dinner table, the long call with your brother.
↑ The app names what seems to connect — tentatively. Each is yours to rename or wave off.
Season
The season, distilled.
Step back to the season, and it distills — the app holds it up and hands it back.
The phrases you circled
less bracing · more showing up · slow to speak
The season's anchor passage
James 1
The prayer, and first signs
“Soften my heart toward Marcus.”
“I went in defensive and left grateful.”
first signs
What you now hold
Patience isn't summoned. It arrives while you're busy showing up.
↑ The app asks; it never answers. These go back to you, and to God — not to a verdict.
Year
Looking back down the year.
The quietest ground — your own words and the stones you set. The app nearly disappears.
The one line of the year
I went in defensive and left grateful.
The verse of the year
James 1:19
The prayer, and the Ebenezer
“Soften my heart toward Marcus.”
“I left grateful.”
March → November
Looking back down the trail — what did He teach you this year?
Privacy as stewardship
Some things are meant to be written before they're ever spoken aloud.
Your entries are encrypted, never sold, never used for training — and never read by us. What you write here is yours alone.
It's just between you and God.
Everything in Dayspring
The small things, all the way down.
One premium plan, and a great deal of care. Here's the whole of it — the page, the tools in the sentence, the long view, and everything underneath.
All of it, one plan — $64 a year, after a 14-day trial.
The page you write on
- Full-screen, distraction-free editor
- Focus mode
- Typewriter scrolling
- Paragraph dimming
- Six writing faces — Serif to Mono
- Your own size, line height & measure
- Light & dark, follows your system
- Continuous autosave — never lose a word
- No perceptible input lag
Writing tools
- Markdown-native
- Bold, italic, inline code & links
- Selection format bar
- Headings, lists & quotes
- Task lists with checkboxes
- Inline photos — drop or paste
- First line as title (optional)
- Keyboard-first throughout
- Shortcut guide — press ?
Slash commands
- /scripture — ESV, word-for-word
- /pray — log a prayer
- /sense — a word or impression
- /ritual — contemplative forms
- /image — a photo, inline
- Scripture references, auto-linked
The Rituals library
- Thirteen contemplative forms
- From Ignatius to the Psalter
- The Round — a weekly walk through your own life
- Search, or let the hour choose
- Guiding questions, in the editor
- Optional previews before you begin
- Dissolve a form into plain prose
Looking back
- The Lamp — your whole canon, lit
- Scrub the Lamp by season
- Tap a book to reread that night
- The Ascent — week to year
- Weekly & monthly reflections
- The Altar — prayers gathered
- Altar's “over time” testimony
Finding & reading back
- Every page on one wall
- Zoom from a decade to a line
- Read two-up, like a book
- Filter by scripture, prayer, marks
- Filter in plain English
- Instant search, on your device
- Ask a question, get your own words
- Anniversaries folded into the scroll
- Weather — first page, longest silence
- Select, copy, export, delete in bulk
Your history & data
- Import from Day One
- Import from Diarly
- Import Markdown
- Your photos come too
- Parsed privately, on your device
- Export your whole journal
- First look-back ready on day one
Trust & platform
- A real Mac app, kept in sync
- On iPhone and iPad, too
- Encrypted on the way and in storage
- Never sold, never trained on
- Private reflection
- Yours alone — between you and God