As we step into a new year, many of us make resolutions about what we want to achieve or change. But what if this year’s resolution was less about doing more and more about being steeped in the grace that comes from delving into our personal relationship with God? The beauty of the new year lies not just in fresh starts, but in deepening our daily communion with the One who loves us beyond all understanding.
The Daily Examen: A Mirror for the Soul
St. Ignatius of Loyola, the 16th-century Spanish priest and founder of the Jesuits, left us with a remarkable gift: the Daily Examen. This simple yet profound practice invites us to review our day with God in five movements:
Presence – Acknowledge God’s presence and ask for light to see clearly.
Gratitude – Review the day with thanksgiving, noting moments where you felt God’s presence and peace.
Examination – Look honestly at moments of desolation, where you felt distant from God or acted contrary to love.
Forgiveness – Ask forgiveness for your failures and seek healing.
Hope – Look toward tomorrow with trust, asking God for grace to live more fully in God’s love.
What makes the Examen so powerful is its daily rhythm. It’s not an annual moral inventory or an occasional spiritual checkup. It’s a nightly conversation with God about the shape of our choices and the direction of our hearts. In just a few minutes, this daily routine crowds out the noise of the world, opening up space to commune with God, ready for both blessings and inspiration.
The Tenth Step: Continuing to Take Inventory
Alcoholics Anonymous offers a similar wisdom in its Tenth Step: “Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.” While rooted in the recovery community, this practice echoes the Examen’s spirit. It calls for ongoing self-examination throughout the day and at day’s end, an honest accounting of our actions, attitudes, and impacts on others. The goal is clear: to keep ourselves in fit spiritual condition. The Tenth Step reminds us that spiritual growth isn’t a destination but a daily discipline. We review our resentments, fears, and harms caused to others, seeking forgiveness where needed and acknowledging works well done. We recognize our mistakes without dwelling in shame, and we make amends where needed. This daily practice focuses on humility, honesty, and the awareness that transformation happens in the mundane moments of ordinary days.
Morning Offering: Emptying to Be Filled
Many Christian traditions also practice a morning surrender, often called the Morning Offering. Before the day’s demands rush in, we take a few quiet moments to empty ourselves of our own agendas and invite God to direct our steps. This ancient practice asks a simple question: “Lord, what do You want to do through me today?”
We offer God our works, our joys, our struggles, even our sufferings, asking that they be used for God’s purposes. We acknowledge our poverty of spirit and our need for divine guidance. In the Ignatian tradition, this might sound like: “Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will. Give me only Your love and Your grace; that is enough for me.” Whether we use formal prayers or our own words, the essence remains: we start the day by getting out of our own way and making space for God to lead.
A Resolution Toward Your Higher Self
These practices—the evening Examen, the ongoing inventory, and the morning surrender—form bookends around our days. They create a rhythm of awareness that gradually transforms how we live the hours in between. We become more conscious of God’s presence in ordinary moments. We notice more quickly when we’ve veered off course. We learn to distinguish between the voices that lead us toward love and those that lead us astray.
This year, perhaps our resolution could be this simple daily pattern: Begin each morning by emptying ourselves and asking God to direct our day. Walk through the hours with growing awareness. End each evening by reviewing the day with God, offering gratitude, seeking forgiveness, and looking ahead with hope.
In these small, faith practices, we journey toward our higher self, not the self we construct through achievement or appearance, but the self God created us to be. This is the person we glimpse in moments of genuine love, selfless service, and quiet prayer. Through daily review and surrender, we shed the false layers that obscure our true identity and step more fully into the image of God within us. Our higher self is not something we manufacture through willpower; it’s something we uncover through attentiveness, honesty, and grace. Give yourself the opportunity to delve into the grace that is always available: not becoming someone new, but becoming more fully who we already are in God.
