I really like Richard Foster’s book Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home. He talks about different kinds of prayer. Chapter titles are: “The Prayer of the Forsaken,” “The Prayer of Relinquishment,” “Simple Prayer,” just to name a few. This is definitely not a “How To” book, but rather probes the depths of how prayer establishes our relationship with God.
Here is an exceprt from the chapter “The Prayer of Examen.” Foster defines examen: “Examen comes from the Latin and refers to the tongue, or weight indicator, or a balance scale, hence conveying the idea of an accurate assessment of the true situation.”
He discusses two types of examen: examen of consciousness and the examen of conscience:
In the examen of consciousness we prayerfully reflect on the thoughts, feelings, and actions of our days to see how God has been at work among us and how respond. We consider, for example, whether the boisterous neighbor of last night was more than just a rude interruption of a quiet evening. Maybe, just maybe, he was the voice of God urging us to be attentive to the pain and loneliness of those around us. Perhaps in the glorious sunrise of this morning God was shouting out to us in his love of beauty and inviting us to share in it, but we were too sleepy or distracted to
participate.
In the examen of conscience we are inviting the Lord to search our heaats to the depths. Far from being dreadful, this is a scrutiny of love. We boldly speak the words of the Psalmist, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.” (Psalm 139:23-24). Without apology and without defense we ask to see what is truly in us. It is for our own sake that we ask these things. It is for our good, for our healing, for our happiness.
This type of prayer, for me anyway, leads quite naturally to journaling. I like to journal about lots of things, and prayer is one of them. Writing down a stream consciousness kind of entry, reviewing the events of our day is a good tool for reviewing how we have responded to others, or to God during the course of the day.
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