---
title: "The Daily Examen"
url: "https://seekabove.com/guides/the-daily-examen"
description: "A five-step way to end the day with God — replaying it with gratitude, noticing where he was in it, and going to sleep at peace. Ten minutes, no experience required."
published: "2026-06-09"
updated: "2026-06-09"
category: "Prayer"
---

# The Daily Examen

A five-step way to end the day with God — replaying it with gratitude, noticing where he was in it, and going to sleep at peace. Ten minutes, no experience required.

Most of us end the day by scrolling until our eyes give out, the day's events
left unexamined in a heap. The Examen is the gentle alternative: a short,
structured way of looking back over the day *with God* — usually ten or fifteen
minutes before bed — to find where he was in it, to give thanks, to be honest
about what went wrong, and to hand tomorrow over before you sleep. It was
shaped nearly five hundred years ago by Ignatius of Loyola, who considered it
the one prayer his companions should never skip. But there is nothing
specialized about it: it belongs to anyone willing to ask two questions of an
ordinary day — *where was God in this?* and *what do I want to say to him about
it?*

If "examen" sounds like an exam, relax — the word just means *review*, and the
mood is closer to gratitude than to grading. This isn't morbid bookkeeping of
your failures. Step two — walking back through the day hunting for gifts — is
the engine of the whole prayer, and most people find it quietly changes them:
you start *noticing* your life instead of merely surviving it. The honest look
at what went wrong comes later, briefly, and always inside God's mercy, never
instead of it.

## Why review the day at all?

Because God's presence is rarely loud. Scripture is full of people who met God
and only recognized it afterward — Jacob waking from his dream: "Surely the
Lord is in this place, and I did not know it" (Genesis 28:16); the disciples on
the Emmaus road realizing only at the table, "Were not our hearts burning
within us?" (Luke 24:32). The Examen is built for exactly that lag. The
psalmist prayed it long before Ignatius named it: "Search me, O God, and know
my heart... and lead me in the way everlasting" (Psalm 139:23–24). Reviewing
the day with God isn't navel-gazing; it's training your eyes to catch, today,
what you'd otherwise only see years later — or never.

## Feelings as signposts

The Examen takes your emotions seriously — not as the boss of the spiritual
life, but as evidence worth reading. Where you felt most alive and at peace may
be pointing toward where God is leading you; where you felt persistently
drained, resentful, or hollow may be pointing at something that needs his
healing or your honesty. You don't analyze any of it alone — you notice it,
name it, and talk to God about it. Over weeks, patterns emerge that one night
can't show you. Many people find the Examen quietly becomes the place where the
big decisions of life first come into focus.

## Making it stick

Attach it to something you already do every night — after brushing your teeth,
or as the last thing before lights-out — because a prayer with no anchor in the
routine evaporates within a week. Keep it short: ten unhurried minutes beats
thirty ambitious ones you'll abandon by Thursday. And if you fall asleep
halfway through step two, you have it on good authority that falling asleep in
the middle of saying thank you to God is a perfectly good way to end a day.

## The Five Steps

1. **Become aware of God's presence.** Sit down, breathe, and remember
   you're not reviewing the day alone — you're looking back over it *with*
   the One who was there for all of it. Ask for light to see it honestly.
2. **Review the day with gratitude.** Walk through it from waking until
   now, like watching the day's footage. Stop at the gifts — a
   conversation, a meal, something that made you laugh — and say thank
   you for each one specifically.
3. **Notice what you felt.** Where in the day were you joyful, at peace,
   alive? Where were you irritated, anxious, ashamed, drained? Don't
   judge the feelings — just notice them honestly. They are signposts.
4. **Choose one moment and pray from it.** Pick whatever stands out most
   — good or bad — and talk to God about it plainly. If it's a gift, give
   thanks. If it's a failure, say sorry and receive his mercy. If it's a
   wound, show it to him.
5. **Look toward tomorrow.** Glance at what's coming. Ask for what you'll
   need — patience for that meeting, courage for that conversation — and
   end simply: *"Thank you. Stay with me. Amen."*

## A short version for tired nights

Three questions, prayed in bed if that's all you have:

**Thank you** — what was today's best gift?
**Sorry** — where did I miss the mark?
**Please** — what do I need for tomorrow?

## Reflect

The Examen is built on a simple conviction: God was present in your ordinary Tuesday, and ten honest minutes are enough to start noticing him there.

1. The Examen assumes God can be found in an ordinary day — not just in church. What would you look for differently tomorrow if you really believed that?
2. Step three asks you to notice your strongest feelings without judging them. Which feeling from today would you bring to God tonight, and what might it be pointing to?
3. What would it take to try the Examen for five nights this week — even just the three-question short version before sleep?