To many, the thought of self-examination sounds about as pleasant as standing earlier than the mirror and slowly surveying your bodily imperfections. Who has heard, “Let’s spend a while analyzing ourselves,” and smiled?
For some, self-examination might even recall recollections now we have tried exhausting to neglect. Possibly, in some depressing previous, we spent untold hours digging inwardly, desperately attempting to root out hidden sins. Within the course of, we found simply how darkish and hopeless — how Christless — life underground could be.
I can sympathize. I bear in mind occasions once I felt locked in my very own soul like Christian within the fort of Big Despair. I’ve lived by means of lengthy seasons with out non secular sunshine. Morbid introspection nonetheless tempts me in the present day.
“In Scripture, wholesome saints look outward primarily, however they don’t look outward solely.”
However alongside that dismal previous and current hazard, I’ve additionally found one thing surprising: the treatment for unhealthy introspection isn’t merely to consider your self much less, however to consider your self higher. Sure, self-examination can turn into a jail cell of introspective gloom — but it surely needn’t. Executed rightly, self-examination can turn into a pathway to non secular well being, a pal who leads us inward solely to guide us additional outward, who reveals us self so we’d see extra of Christ.
Search Me, O God
However why, some might ask, do we have to look at ourselves in any respect? If God transforms us as we behold Christ (2 Corinthians 3:18), why would we spend any time beholding self? We modify by the outward look, not the inward, don’t we?
Certainly we do. We’re crops who develop by the rain of self-forgetful worship, the solar of Christward reward. However, even well-watered, well-lit crops want to look at for thorns. Equally, self-examination doesn’t develop us by itself, however it could clear the bottom for development — and preserve us from getting choked.
In Scripture, wholesome saints look outward primarily, however they don’t look outward solely. Like Timothy, they preserve a detailed watch not solely on the gospel however on themselves (1 Timothy 4:16). Like David, they love to think about God’s glory in sky and Scripture, however additionally they permit that glory to light up self (Psalm 19:11–14). Because the writer of Hebrews exhorts, they commit their finest consideration to “seeking to Jesus,” however every so often additionally they think about the weights and sins that gradual their tempo (Hebrews 12:1–2).
The clever know that non secular progress yesterday doesn’t assure non secular progress in the present day. Judases turn into traitors and Demases turn into worldlings one small, self-deceived step at a time. And as each historical past and expertise testify, it’s all too attainable to stay a half-life as a Christian, bearing tenfold fruit when one hundredfold could possibly be ours — if solely we might cease to drag the thorns that block our means.
“The unexamined life isn’t price residing,” Socrates famously stated. And we justly add that the unexamined soul is not going to go on residing — or will limp as an alternative of run.
Methods to Study Your self
How then may we look at ourselves with out changing into imprisoned by introspection? How may we draw water from the soul’s effectively with out falling in?
Wholesome self-examination can take many types, and what helps one soul might assist one other much less. As with prayer and Bible studying and different non secular disciplines, Scripture provides us rules however leaves loads of room for private software. Contemplate, then, some fundamental pointers for self-examination and the way you may make them your personal.
1. Plan to look at your self.
Typically, self-examination turns into morbid when it turns from a non secular follow to a non secular environment: a imprecise cloud of condemnation that follows you round, a crippling sense of self-consciousness.
Scripture by no means counsels such a continuing interior gaze. The lifetime of a saint is a self-forgetful, Godward, others-oriented life. “Love God” and “love neighbor” are the dual priorities of our days (Matthew 22:37–39); “look at your self” is a follow meant to serve these higher loves. And surprisingly sufficient, a method we’d reclaim wholesome self-examination is by giving it a considerate, well-defined spot in our schedule. As a substitute of perpetually analyzing your self, plan to look at your self.
“Solely the Searcher of hearts can expose our hearts; solely God could make us identified to us.”
Such a plan will embody a selected when. Many saints throughout church historical past have benefited from a short time of self-examination each night, a couple of minutes after we can bear in mind the day’s mercies and confess the day’s sins. However for rising within the follow of self-examination, particularly for these vulnerable to morbidity, I would counsel one thing somewhat longer however much less frequent — say as soon as per week (maybe rather than a traditional devotional time).
As essential because the when is the what. The place will you focus your consideration? For many of us, “look at your self” gives too broad a cost. However “look at your prayer life,” “look at your friendships,” “look at your parenting,” “look at your relationship with cash” — these we are able to get our arms round.
I discover it useful to suppose in two broad classes for self-examination: callings and issues. By callings, I imply the areas of accountability God has given you: disciple of Jesus, husband or spouse, mom or father, church member, pal, neighbor, worker, and so forth.
And by issues, I imply these areas of your soul that decision for cautious consideration. Say, for instance, you are feeling a pang of envy on a Tuesday afternoon at work. You confess the pang however don’t have time within the second, or even perhaps within the day, to plumb its depths, regardless that you sense it could be useful to take action. Why did I really feel that? The place did that come from? Having a plan for self-examination means that you can say, “I’m undecided, however I don’t must determine that out now. I’ll return to it on Friday” — or at any time when you’ve deliberate.
2. Let God’s phrase information you.
So there you might be on Friday morning (or at any time when), with time put aside for self-examination. What may that point appear like? We would take some cues from David’s prayer in Psalm 139:23–24:
Search me, O God, and know my coronary heart!
Strive me and know my ideas!
And see if there be any grievous means in me,
and lead me in the best way eternal!
David is aware of that solely the Searcher of hearts can expose our hearts; solely God could make us identified to us. So, as an alternative of diving into his personal soul unaided, he asks God himself to look him.
Discover, nevertheless, that David doesn’t merely ask God to look him; he additionally locations himself within the presence of this looking God. Most of Psalm 139 travels the depths of God, not self. David stands in awe of God’s all-knowing ideas, God’s all-seeing eyes, God’s all-encompassing presence, God’s all-consuming righteousness. And then, within the context of this profound Godwardness, David says, “Search me.”
Psalm 139 (and the remainder of Scripture) provides self-examination a decidedly asymmetrical focus: we see ourselves rightly solely in relation to God. So, if you wish to look at your self effectively, observe David and place your self in God’s presence. Virtually, as you look at your self, permit adoration to play simply as important a job as confession. And all alongside the best way, deal with God’s phrase as your finest information — the phrase given for our reproof and correction (2 Timothy 3:16), the one phrase that may discern the guts (Hebrews 4:12).
To that finish, think about selecting a passage related to your current focus and utilizing it like a pathway into the soul. If you wish to look at your prayer life, linger over the Lord’s Prayer. If you wish to look at your husbanding, look into the mirror of Ephesians 5:22–33. If you wish to get beneath some persistent tug towards bitterness, stroll slowly by means of Psalm 37 or 73. And as you do, ask God himself to look you.
3. Question your soul and confess your sins.
To sharpen our self-examination, we’d look once more to David’s prayer. As he asks God to look him, he doesn’t ask God to disclose every part about him. However he does ask to see “any grievous means in me” — any unknown or half-known sin, any deepening unbelief, any creating sample that might preserve him from following “the best way eternal” (Psalm 139:24).
Equally, we don’t must deal with self-examination as an exhaustive enterprise. We can not know every part about ourselves, and even every part about one a part of ourselves. Irrespective of how self-aware we turn into, we’ll die figuring out ourselves, simply as we all know God, solely “partly” (1 Corinthians 13:12). However we do need to see something that wants our current consideration — any toxic bud that might open into grievous sin.
As we meditate on a passage, we might discover assist from asking questions like the next (drawn from web page 148 of Tim Keller’s e-book Prayer):
- Am I residing in mild of this?
- What distinction does this make?
- If I believed and held to this, how would that change issues?
- After I neglect this, how does that have an effect on me and all my relationships?
If such questions reveal sins now we have tolerated, habits we have to cease, delicate compromises which have grown over time, good — our self-examination is bearing fruit. An hour in the past, one thing troubling lay hidden within the soul; now now not. Now we are able to take it, place it earlier than the Lord who is aware of us exhaustively but loves us eternally, and say with David,
I acknowledged my sin to you,
and I didn’t cowl my iniquity;
I stated, “I’ll confess my transgressions to the Lord,”
and also you forgave the iniquity of my sin. (Psalm 32:5)
4. Overlook about your self.
Self-examination, like deep-sea diving, is an effective however occasional train. God has not given us sufficient mild or oxygen to swim all the time within the deeps; solar and air and land await us above. So, after you have queried your soul and confessed no matter sins you’ve seen, return to the floor.
“The top of self-examination isn’t self-consciousness, however Christ-consciousness.”
The prayer acronym A.C.T.S. places thanksgiving after confession for good cause: in Christ, confession of sin isn’t a room however a doorway, not a wall however a path. God wouldn’t have us sit ceaselessly in some gloomy cellar of guilt; he would have us sing below the blue sky of his kindness and stroll within the broad fields of his grace, his steadfast love our environment (Psalm 32:10). So, if self-examination doesn’t usually lead us to a fuller, deeper, sweeter style of God’s grace in Jesus, then someplace self-examination has gone improper.
The top of self-examination isn’t self-consciousness, however Christ-consciousness. Sure, now we have scrutinized our souls for a time, however solely so we’d carry our sins to Christ and obtain his power to stroll a greater means. The final step of self-examination, then, is solely this: neglect about your self. Go love your God. Go love the folks he has positioned earlier than you. Go stroll in “the best way eternal” (Psalm 139:24).
