As I have been in a season of self-examination and reconsideration, I found this quotation from the puritan author Thomas Watson (among my favorites) to be very encouraging.

“Make up your spiritual accounts daily; see how matters stand between God and your souls (Psalm 77:6). Often reckonings keep God and conscience friends. Do with your hearts as you do with you watches, wind them up every morning by prayer and at night examine whether your hearts have gone true all that  day, whether the wheels of your affections have moved swiftly toward heaven.”

Watson is encouraging us (me) to make self-examination not something that we do in seasons of change and reflection, but something we do as a regular part of our day. Much like reading scripture and prayer should be a regular discipline that we don’t grow out of, so should self-examination be something that is a disciplined part of our daily lives.

For me, this is something that I realize has always been clearly missing from my regular prayer times. Not that self-examination is something missing from my life altogether. In fact, I feel in general, I’m fairly good at it. Rather, it’s missing from my discourse with the Father.

When I pray, I pray for myself, for friends, family, social issues and anything else that may graze my mind at the time. But a conversational examination of self with God isn’t something that I habitually work into my prayer times.

I would like to see this change. And I hope that when I do, I will see me change as well.