EXAMINATION OF CONSCIOUSNESS
This short prayer exercise is intended to increase a person's sensitivity to God working in one's life and to provide him/her with the enlightenment necessary to co-operate with and respond to God's presence.
1.GIVING THANKS
Begin by looking over the day and asking to see where you need to be thankful. Do not choose what you think you should be thankful for; rather, by merely looking over the day see what emerges, what you notice, even slightly. How do you feel about what is shown to you? Do you see the giftedness of your life? Do you sense your own poverty? Allow gratitude to take hold of you and express this gratitude to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
2.ASKING FOR LIGHT
Pray for enlightenment from God not from your own analysis of the day. Ask the Holy Spirit to show you what God wants you to see.
3.FINDING GOD IN ALL THINGS
Look over all the events of the day. Ask the Holy Spirit to show you where God has been present in your life, either in you personally or in others, and in what God has been asking of you. Look over your interior moods, feelings, urges, and movements, and see what stands out even slightly. Look for such things as joy, pain, turmoil, increase (or decrease) of love, anger, harmony, anxiety, freedom, enchantment, presence of God, isolation. In what general direction do you think you are being drawn by the Lord? How have you been responding to these experiences or situations that draw you toward the Lord and which invite you to be more like Jesus?
4.RESPONDING TO GOD IN DIALOGUE
Is there any one area you are being nudged to focus your attention on, to pray more seriously over, to take action on? This is where your energy needs to be exerted instead of on the many other things you think are important. Discuss this with Jesus, expressing what needs to be expressed: praise, sorrow, gratitude, desire for change, intercession, etc.
5.ASKING FOR HELP AND GUIDANCE FOR TOMORROW
Ask God to give you what you need for tomorrow; e.g., you may need to pray to overcome something, or to accept the "thorn in your flesh," to persevere, to be more sensitive to God's activity in your life, to let go of something, to love more, to have a conversion in some area. Trust God to work in you.