For some time, I’ve tried to make it a practice of briefly reflecting on my day when I lay my head on my pillow at night – thanking God for the day. However, learning about a spiritual discipline called self-examination in a summer discipleship class my wife and I completed has allowed me to expand on my brief reflection of the day. As I apply self-examination to my life I look back at my day and focus on two things:
- How God protected me (or others) through the day
- How I sinned, and need repentance and forgiveness
Here are just a few examples from the past few weeks:
- How God protected me and others through the day. I have two examples here. First, after a recent family gathering to celebrate a birthday, I had gotten into the back seat of the car, forgetting that I needed to open the front door for my mother-in-law. Remembering this, I quickly opened the door and just narrowly missed hitting her – she walks with a cane. If the door had hit her, she would have fallen and could have been badly hurt.
Second, at a dangerous intersection near our home I pulled out to get a look around the corner at the edge of the corn field for oncoming traffic so that I could turn left. In doing so, I had pulled out too far and gone out into the intersection a bit. I didn’t see a car coming from the other direction turning right in front of me at full speed. We were very nearly in a collision.
As I reflected back on these incidents, I thought how God had protected me, my mother-in-law and my wife, and was very thankful.
- How I sinned, and needed repentance and forgiveness. My wife and I recently played a golf course that I estimate I’ve played about a thousand times in my life, but hadn’t played in several years. I was really looking forward to playing the course, and had hit the ball well on the practice range the day before. Unfortunately, I played poorly that day, but it was over the course of just two holes on the back nine that my sanctification took a hit. After a few particularly bad shots, I found myself showing bursts of anger that I hadn’t demonstrated for years, and was embarrassed and ashamed. As I reflected on my outburst on the golf course later that day, I felt defeated, but then went to the Lord asking for forgiveness.
These are just a few examples of this new (for me) spiritual discipline of self-examination – looking back on my day to see how God worked in my life. How do you reflect on your day to see God at work in it?