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“Practice: Awareness Examen The Awareness Examen helps us look for the traces of God’s actions in our daily life. It is usually done in the evening looking back over the day, but you may also use it to pray about any other meaningful period of time (such as a week or a year), or discrete event (such as a meeting or a class). Allow between five and fifteen minutes for this spiritual exercise. This prayer is very flexible. You may use only the roman or italic lines, or you may use the entire prayer.”
― The Way of Discernment: Spiritual Practices for Decision Making
― The Way of Discernment: Spiritual Practices for Decision Making
“the most central, the most important, the most attractive, the most full of energy. Select one that, for now, seems most central, and bring it back directly into your attention. 6. Without judging it (or yourself), ask, “And what is underneath this desire? What desire is even more basic than this one?” 7. Gently repeat this question for each subsequent desire that surfaces. Ask each one, “Is there an even more basic desire underneath this one?” 8. When you come to the deepest desire, honor it as central to who you are. 9. Finally, offer it back to God, just as it is, as an expression of who you are at this moment.”
― The Way of Discernment: Spiritual Practices for Decision Making
― The Way of Discernment: Spiritual Practices for Decision Making
“Practice: Framing Your Discernment Question Clarifying the scope and content of your discernment can simplify the subsequent steps of your discernment process. This exercise sets that clarifying and winnowing of your issue or question within the context of a prayer that God will help you see clearly where you should focus your discernment. 1. Let the silence deepen around you. Enter into it. Ask God for the desire to follow God’s call in and through the decision you will be making. Do not rush. Simply turn your attention to God, as you experience God, and address your desire to God. 2. Describe the decision that you wish to discern. 3. Elaborate in your discernment journal the aspects of this decision that seem important to you at this point. 4. State as concisely as you can the decision before you. It will be helpful if you can formulate your issue in a question that can be answered yes/no (for example: “Should I begin to work outside our home?”). 5. Bring the issue and the process you’ve engaged in thus far to God and attend to any thoughts or feelings that arise in you. Note these stirrings in your journal. Your first statement of the decision before you may shift; if so, repeat steps 4 and 5 until you sense that you have as clear and concise a statement as possible at this point. STARTING”
― The Way of Discernment: Spiritual Practices for Decision Making
― The Way of Discernment: Spiritual Practices for Decision Making
“PULLING IT ALL TOGETHER: SEVEN STEPS FOR DISCERNING A DECISION How does one go about making a decision by means of discernment? I propose that discerned decision making proceeds in seven interwoven steps, which represent the components of a decision made by way of discernment. The steps represent a logical progression from the beginning to the end of a decision arrived at through discernment. Events in real life, however, can be less of a straight line and more of a circle; with discernment, you may expect to find that the progression of these steps is less linear than I suggest here. More importantly, some steps must be repeated regularly (1, 4, 6, 7), and some can change midstream (2, 3). Nonetheless, as you’ll discover, these seven steps will always be part of your discernment: 1. Seek spiritual freedom, the inner disposition upon which discernment rests and which creates the climate for discernment. Indeed, without this basic intention of seeking spiritual freedom, discernment collapses into self-assessment, self-improvement, or decision-making techniques—all of which can be good and helpful, but they are not discernment. The”
― The Way of Discernment: Spiritual Practices for Decision Making
― The Way of Discernment: Spiritual Practices for Decision Making
“Practice: Seeking Your Heart’s Desire Desires play a key role in discernment; they help us bring our whole selves to God. Here you will begin to identify your heart’s most basic desires. Prepare yourself to pray by attending first to your body, to any tensions, fatigue, lightness, or energy that it carries. Then attend to your mind, with its busy humming and noisy chatter, its naming, judging, and planning. Invite your body to relaxed attentiveness and invite your mind to take a break for the next few minutes. Paying gentle attention to your own breathing, without trying to change it, may assist your efforts regarding both your body and your mind. 1. Dedicate this time to God. Ask for the light of the Holy Spirit to notice your deepest desires, to name them accurately, and to respond appropriately to what you find. 2. When you are ready, ask yourself, as you sit quietly in the presence of God, “What do I want, right this minute?” 3. When you recognize what it is that you want, give it a name and jot it down in your journal. Return to the relaxed attentiveness. Ask again: “What do I want, right this minute?” 4. Again, notice, name, and jot it in your journal. (Repeat this process, until no more desires surface. After each, return to your relaxed attentiveness.) 5. Now look at all the desires you have named. Notice which seem to be”
― The Way of Discernment: Spiritual Practices for Decision Making
― The Way of Discernment: Spiritual Practices for Decision Making
Amos Kim’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Amos Kim’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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