Reflect. Rinse. Repeat.

My favorite devotional app is Pray as You Go. I love it because the daily devotion is the same length as my short morning walk with the dog. There is music, a Scripture reading and questions to wander deeper into the reading. It ends with a blessing.

Saturdays are special. On Saturdays, you are invited into examen, a spiritual practice of intentionally looking back on the day or week.

Have you ever stopped to notice how fast the days and weeks can potentially move? Perhaps it’s like a counselor might say at Bible Camp: the days are long, yet the weeks fly by.

How would you estimate the pace of your life? If you were to assign a speed to how fast your life is moving these days, what might be the miles per hour? Is your life moving at a safe speed? Or is it moving so fast you can hardly keep up and you are at risk of getting a speeding ticket?

The Saturday examen is a yield sign with a mirror. Slow down here. Look back and reflect. What do you see?

Take 3 deep breaths here to yield and look back and reflect.

Each Saturday that I take time to do the examen, I am amazed at what I see in the mirror, the volume of things that can happen in one week:

• I see conversations, both the ones I had and the ones I missed out on.
• I notice that person in my family who has been quieter than usual.
• I recognize where I was my true self and where I simply tried to fit in because that was easier.
• And every time, there was Christ beside me.

This is my favorite part of the examen. The danger of speeding through life risks letting Christ become a blur, a fuzzy figure in the background instead of a passenger beside me, a companion on the way, a conversation partner at the ready.

Reflect and then rinse. Let go of whatever needs letting go. Like the waters of baptism wash away the lurking threat of sin and despair, let the gentle love of Jesus rinse away your old hurts and regrets.

Slow down. Reflect, rinse, and repeat next Saturday, or as often as needed.

Photo by Jeremy Vessey on Unsplash