The Examen Prayer
The examen prayer is a prayer practice developed by Saint Ignatius nearly 500 years ago. This prayer is a practice for reflecting on your last and next day and seeing where God was and where He is guiding you. This practice walks you through the past 12 or 24 hours of your life and seeing where God was during your day. During this time, you reflect on anything He wants to say to you about something that happened during your day. This practice also walks you through the next 12 or 24 hours of your life and invites God into it, asking Him for guidance and direction. This prayer was intended to be done once every 12 or 24 hours. There are 5 main steps to the examen prayer.
- Become aware of God’s presence. Take a few deep breaths. Invite God into this time and start thinking about the events of the day with the Holy Spirit. Let Him bring clarity and understanding to your day if it was confusing.
- Review your day with gratitude. As you are going through your day, don’t come to any judgements about yourself yet. First, thank God for where He showed up during the day, how prayers were answered, and the people you interacted with. Give Him thanks and be grateful for the small things.
- Pay attention to your emotions. One of Saint Ignatius’ insights was that we can detect the Holy Spirit’s presence by our emotions. When reviewing your day, if certain feelings come up when remembering events, ask God to reveal to you what He is saying through those feelings. The feelings can be both positive and negative. What is God showing you or telling you through your emotions?
- Choose one feature of the day and pray about it. As you review your day, ask the Holy Spirit to show you something from your day that God wants to focus on. Whatever it is, spend time in conversation with God about it. Talk to Him about your experience and let Him speak about it.
- Look forward to tomorrow. Go through your day tomorrow. Invite God to join you during your day. Walk through your day with God. Ask Him how you can do better about inviting Him in. Ask Him about how you can grow.
Traditionally, the examen prayer ends with the Lord’s prayer in Luke 11:2-4 and Matthew 6:9-13.
He said to them, “When you pray, say: 'Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation.'
The examen prayer typically takes 15-20 minutes, but you can make it shorter or longer.
To complete this step
- Meet with your Growth Partner and discuss a time and place for you to practice this prayer daily.
- Do the examen prayer every day for 30 days. Journal what God has been doing and saying to you.
- Meet with your Growth Partner again and discuss what God has been saying to you and what He has been doing.
Think this might be the next step for you?
Have a Growth Talk conversation about it! A Growth Talk is a chance to discuss with someone else the step you are preparing to take. For more information on Growth Talk and for help finding the right person visit the Growth Talk Page. You can use the “Growth Talk” button to visit the page and begin the conversation.
