A Time for Reflection

Throughout this plan, we are reflecting on the year just gone and looking forward to the new year ahead, using an ancient method of prayer known as the Examen. So far, we have noticed where God was present and what we were grateful for in the past year. Today, we reflect on what the events of this year have provoked in us.

Loving Father, please help me to be still. I open my ears to hear You now, and I quietly prepare my heart for all that You have for me as I approach the new year.

Read: Psalm 86:6-7 (NLT)

Pause and pray

Today, I’m reflecting on a familiar passage from the book of Ecclesiastes…

Read: Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 (NIVUK)

There is a time for everything, including every emotion. There are times when I feel on top of the world, and other times when I feel as if I’m in a deep, dark valley.

The third stage of the Examen involves becoming aware of my emotions and asking God to speak to me about, or even through, them.

And so, I take a few moments to think back over the year once more. What activities, relationships, or conversations carried the most emotion for me? If helpful, I take a minute or two to note down each memory and emotion that comes to mind.

I listen carefully for anything that God wants to say to me about or through these feelings.

Pause and pray

As I reflect on the events that have taken place in my nation and around the world this year, what have I felt particularly sad or angry about?

Lord God, I intercede about this situation, especially on behalf of those who continue to suffer. I ask You to intervene and make things right.

Pause and pray

‘Prayer helps us stand in the presence of God with all we have and are,’ writes Henri Nouwen. ‘Our fears and anxieties; our guilt and shame... our greed and anger; our joys, successes, aspirations, and hopes; our reflections, dreams and mental wandering… in short, all that makes us who we are. With all this, we have to listen to God’s voice and allow God to speak to us in every corner of our being.’*

Loving Father, I yield all that I am - all that I felt during the last year and all that I am feeling right now as I prepare to enter the new year. Help me to love You, not just with all my mind, but with all my heart and all my soul, too.

Amen.

* Henri Nouwen, Spiritual Direction - Wisdom For The Long Walk Of Faith (London: SPCK, 2011), pp. xvi-xvii.