In Puritan New England, pastors often connected New Year's Day to a time of self-examination. In the Handbook of Spiritual Disciplines, the following questions are used to help jump start this discipline:
- What was the most life giving part of my day? What was the most life-thwarting part of my day?
- When today did I have the deepest sense of connection with God, others and myself? When today did I have the least sense of connection?
- Where was I aware of living out of the fruit of the Spirit? Where was there an absence of the fruit of the Spirit?
- Where did I experience "desolation"? Where did I experience "consolation"?
David's prayer at the end of Psalm 139 is highly appropriate for the practice of The Examen: "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."
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