Lady Colquhoun Did WHAT??!!

Self-examination.

Is that word even in our vocabulary today? J.I. Packer says it is a greatly neglected discipline in the church. Paul calls us to it when he says “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves,that Jesus Christ is in you? — unless indeed you fail to meet the test!” Puritan John Flavel wrote a small powerful book on Proverbs 4:23: “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.” Self-examination is a means by which to faithfully do the difficult, weighty work of keeping the heart. The neglect of it, says Flavel, blasphemes the name of God, makes us hypocrites, produces bad fruit, and rightfully calls our salvation into question.

If you are a believer, you do some self-examination. Otherwise you would have no sins to confess. But perhaps you are not as intentional as you could be. Let me clarify that the end of self-examination is not to muck around in your sins and stew about how bad you are. Every look at ourselves should be accompanied by repentance and 10 looks at Christ who came for sinners.

If you decide, like Lady Colquhoun, to use questions as helps to self-examination, your questions may well differ. I offer her list as an example of a godly woman who intentionally pursued self-examination. It was a means of grace in her life. Her journal entries are sweet; surely the fruit of such keeping of the heart.

HELPS TO SELF-EXAMINATION

1. Did I awake as with God this morning?

2. How were the secret devotions of the morning performed?

3. Did I offer my praises of thanksgiving and renew the dedication of myself to God with becoming attention and affections?

4. How did I read the Scripture or any other useful book? Did they do my heart good?

5. How have the mid-day devotions been attended to?

6. Have I pursued my common business with diligence as unto the lord?

7. What time have I lost this day, and for what cause?

8. Have I seen the hand of God even in little mercies and afflictions?

9. Have I received my comforts with thankfulness and my afflictions with resignation?

10. Have I guarded against passion and vanity?

11. Have I lived by the faith of the Son of God?

12. Have I governed my thoughts well, especially in solitude?

13. What subject of thought was chosen this day, and how was it regarded?

14. Has my heart this day been full of love to God and to all mankind?

15. How have I profited this day by the negligences I observed in last night’s examination?

16. How did I pray last night?

Lady Colquhoun would especially practice self-examination before taking the Lord’s supper. Here is an entry from her journal:

“This being the fast before our Sacrament, rose earlier and thought over my sins with penitence. How constantly do I sin in neglecting God –that God who is giving me so much to be grateful for!….My most self-denied labors for the good of others are sometimes rendered unworthy in the sight of God by pride…..Oh! vanity, how doest thou defile my almost every thought! And have I not been envious? Am I clear of doing injury to the souls of my dearest friends, and of all around me, by neglect? These are a few of innumerable sins. ’Woe is me! for I am of unclean lips, and dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips’; but let a coal from thine altar touch them, and take my iniquity away.”

Self-examination is a kind of daily returning of the prodigal. If that sounds dismal, remember that the return was crowned with feasting. It is precisely because our sin is grievous, that Christ is precious.