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Is there any habit in your life you have practiced 1000 times?
Think about it. If you live 365 days per year (and you do if you’re reading this), is there anything—mentally, emotionally, or physically—that you have done at least once per day for at least three years?
Whatever comes to mind, you’ve practiced it at least 1000 times. This has solidified the thought, the action, or the pattern in your life.
You’ve actually become someone, become a certain type of person, because you have been formed by that thought or action.
If you’ve been formed by a good habit, a helpful way of thinking or acting, then you are better for it. You are flourishing.
If, however, you’ve been formed by a bad habit, an unhelpful way of thinking or acting, you are worse for it. You are deteriorating.
That is why I talk about spiritual practices so much.
Spiritual practices are like perpetual virtue machines—automated systems that keep us on track in becoming the Christlike person we want to become.
N.T. Wright put it this way: “Virtue, in this strict sense, is what happens when someone has made a thousand small choices…to do something which is good and right but which doesn’t ‘come naturally’—and then, on the thousand and first time, when it really matters, they find that they do what’s required ‘automatically,’ as we say” (Wright, After You Believe, 20).
Spiritual practices are good habits that make us into a type of person over time. For we who follow Jesus, they make us like Him—and that is our goal.
Remember: The goal of the Christian life is to come into complete union with God in Christ.
I am such a proponent of the Daily Examen because I didn’t realize how much fuller my sense of my union with Christ would become, and how transformative it would be to practice thankfulness an average of 3-5 times per day.
Some days I’ve done the Examen up to ten times per day!
For me, that comes out to 3300-5500 pauses, in just the last three years, to become aware of Jesus’ presence, turn my overheating brain toward thankfulness, get honest with my emotions, take one concern or joy to Jesus, and to look forward with hope to the next hours of the day.
I do it when I wake up. I don’t allow myself to get out of bed until I have completed the steps.
I do it when I go to sleep. I usually fall asleep in the thankfulness stage.
Then I do it all day—in my office, in the car, on planes—everywhere.
Life can be hard. But I think I’m better able to walk through it in companionship with Jesus because of the Daily Examen.
Many of you have emailed me to tell me its now the same for you.
Here’s Wright again: “But these character strengths don’t happen all in a rush. You have to work at them. …The long, steady program of working on the character strengths, the virtues, will enable you to live in a way you would never have thought possible, avoiding moral traps and pitfalls and exhibiting a genuine, flourishing human life” (Wright, After You Believe, 35).
As the next months come and go, kids will be going back to school, while others will be starting new jobs. Loved ones will be born, while others pass on.
Life will be both predictable and utterly surprising. For those of us in the US, we will be in the midst of a challenging political season once again.
We need a practice like the Daily Examen to keep us on track, in heart, in mind, in body.
So…would you join me in a 40-Day Daily Examen Experience?
If you’ve never done it, it will change you. I believe it with all my heart. If you’ve done it before, this will continue to reinforce the habit.
I call it, “Your Daily Examen,” and for 40 days you’ll receive a link to my audio leading you in the Daily Examen, and a readable version (set up for phones).
You can subscribe to the 40-day experience here. It’s completely free.
It’s our next step in Christian habitus formation. Let’s enter a season of thankfulness together, once again.
Join me for the 40-Day Your Daily Examen experience.
Cheering you on, into the Heart and Way of Jesus,
Dan +
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Cover Photo by Erol Ahmed on Unsplash
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