The 500-Year-Old Prayer Practice That Finally Made Sense to Me
Ignatius of Loyola wasn't building an app. But the practice he designed in the 16th century solves the exact problem most modern Christians face with their prayer life.
Most days end the same way. Busy until you weren't, then too tired to think straight. You know you should pray. You want to. But the gap between "I should" and actually sitting down with God keeps getting wider the more depleted you are.
I spent a long time blaming that on my discipline. Then I found out there's been a structured practice for this exact problem since the 1500s.
What the Daily Examen Is
Ignatius of Loyola, a 16th-century soldier-turned-priest, developed a short daily prayer practice called the Examen. It's been used continuously by Christians for 500 years — primarily in Catholic and Jesuit traditions, but the underlying structure is about as universal as prayer gets.
The core idea is simple: once a day, usually in the evening, you review your day through the lens of God's presence. Not a performance review. Not confession. Just an honest look back — where you were grateful, where you were off, what moved through your day that you might have walked right past.
It takes 10 to 15 minutes. And it solves the problem I had: showing up to pray when I don't have the mental energy to generate the prayer myself.
The Four Movements
There are several versions of the Examen, but the core structure collapses to four movements:
1. Gratitude. What are you genuinely thankful for from today? One specific thing is enough. Start here before anything else — it resets the posture before you review anything harder.
2. Awareness. Looking back over the day, where do you sense God's presence? A conversation that shifted something, a moment of unexpected peace, something that stopped you. He was in it. Where?
3. Honest review. Where did you miss the mark? Not a guilt spiral — just honesty. Where did you react badly, disengage, or act out of fear instead of faith? Bring it without drama.
4. Tomorrow. One thing you want to carry into the next day. A resolve, a prayer, a posture. Close the day with a forward lean.
That's it. Four movements. The same four every day.
If you want a version of this built into a 10-minute daily practice, Reflect does exactly this — a structured prompt each day based on what's actually going on in your life, covering gratitude, awareness, and resolve. It's the same structure Ignatius figured out, adapted for where you actually are right now. Try it free for 7 days at reflect.forgedagents.io/welcome.
Why This Works When You're Not the Praying Type
I'm not a mystical person. My prayers aren't long or eloquent. I forget to pray more than I'd like to admit. But the Examen has stuck for me in a way that open-ended prayer never quite did — because it meets you exactly where you are.
If you're grateful, it starts there. If you're frustrated, that goes into step three. If you don't feel much of anything — fine. You still move through the questions and you still end up having talked to God about your actual day. That counts.
You also don't need to be walking closely with Jesus for this to be useful. The Examen is essentially asking: what happened today, and what do I make of it? That question is available to anyone, wherever they are with their faith.
Lamentations 3:40 says it plainly:
Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the Lord.
Examine. Test. Return. That's the Examen in three words.
What Happens After a Few Weeks
The obvious thing: your days start getting closure. Naming what happened — even briefly — keeps it from following you to sleep.
The less obvious thing: you start noticing God's presence during the day because you know you'll be looking for it in the evening. The practice creates the attention it asks for. That's why it's lasted 500 years.
It isn't complicated. It doesn't require a lot of time. It just requires showing up with honesty, once a day, and asking: where was God in this, and where was I?
Start there. See what happens.
If you want a structured daily practice that walks you through this, start a 7-day free trial at Reflect. No decisions at the start. Just show up and engage.
reflect.forgedagents.io/welcome
Trent Jones is the author of the Forged Agents blog and builder of "Reflect", a daily reflection companion for living in the present, in peace, with joy.
