Seeds for 07/26/2024 - Examen - Psalm 139:23-24
In this series on prayer and scripture, we are following the acronym P.R.A.Y. as a guide for prayer. We are considering scriptures throughout the Bible on each theme. My prayer is that studying scriptures on these themes will give us biblical words to use as our own and simple insights for our praying.
Scripture:
23 Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
Observation:
Simple math—there are five weekdays and four letters in the acronym P.R.A.Y. But there are more frontiers to prayer than any simple format can contain. Today, I’d like to share a classic prayer from Christian spiritual history called the “Prayer of Examen,” like examination. This might prompt us to think of a test at school, but the real comparison is a doctor’s exam.
In the Prayer of Examen, we are welcoming the Great Physician to give us a look over, root out what needs dealing with, and send us forth with inner healing, restorative repentance, and/or with a reset of our priorities. Let’s look at how these verses from Psalm 139 guide us.
Search me, God, and know my heart…
We welcome God to search us and uncover the state of our heart. Yes, the Lord knows us already—better than we know ourselves. I might otherwise prefer ignorance of my heart’s true state over insight. This movement of the prayer in inviting God’s knowledge of our heart to become our knowledge.
test me and know my anxious thoughts…
Next, we are inviting God into the worries that occupy our minds. What are we stewing on? We know in part, but we do not know fully—we need the Great Physician to take a look. The worries we know, we may have been reluctant to release to God, but the prayer unbars the door and grants Him access to our mind.
See if there is any offensive way in me…
We have invited God to rummage through the contents of our hearts and minds. The Prayer of Examen is gentle in that up till now, we have merely invited Him in. The Prayer of Examen is hard in that it gives God permission to shine a light where we may have been content to remain in darkness. Now it is time to ask Him to reveal where we have a problem.
and lead me in the way everlasting.
Having allowed the Great Physician to examine us, we are ready for the healing touch. Perhaps it will involve repenting of some sin. Maybe it consists of laying down some burden. Possibly, it requires forgiveness to deal with a festering wound. Whatever it is, it has obstructed our walking “in the way everlasting.” Let’s get back to that way. Better than the way we’re on. God our Great Physician has done a work. Now we are ready for God our King to lead us forward.
Praying the Prayer of Examen can be a fifteen or thirty minute exercise during set-aside time in which we listen to God raise up things we need to lay down before Him. It can also be a two-minute prayer at the end of the day in order keep ourselves fully open and vulnerable with Him.
I invite you to try the two-minute version this weekend. Take an easy breath between each line. Repeat twice. If you sense a prompt, lay it before God. If you don’t, trust that the Lord honors your vulnerability and may be doing a work you do not yet perceive.
Application:
When might you practice this prayer in the next day or so?
What else might the Holy Spirit be speaking with you about in the text today?
Prayer: Lord, grant me a willing spirit to welcome your work in me through the Prayer of Examen. Amen.
“But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” (Matthew 13:23)
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