Simple and Recollected

Early in George Whitefield's life, he used 15 questions each evening to examine himself:

Have I,

1. Been fervent in private prayer?

2. Used stated hours of prayer (1 hour in morning, 1 hour at noon, and 1 hour in the evening)?

3. Used spontaneous prayer every hour?

4. After or before every deliberate conversation or action, considered how it might tend to God's glory?

5. After any pleasure, immediately given thanks?

6. Planned business for the day?

7. Been simple and recollected (contemplative) in everything?

8. Been zealous in undertaking and active in doing what good I could?

9. Been meek, cheerful, affable in everything I said or did?

10. Been proud, vain, unchaste, or enviable of others?

11. Recollected in eating and drinking? Thankful? Temperate in sleep?

12. Taken time for giving thanks according to William Law's rules?

13. Been dilligent in studies?

14. Thought or spoken unkindly of anyone?

15. Confessed all sins?


(Dallimore, p. 80)


After pondering these, think of the kind of person these questions would tend to produce:

1. Devoted to prayer (Col. 4:2). See numbers 1, 2, and 3. He separated private prayer from the scheduled hours of prayer. Evidently, private prayer was done at a different time than the 3 scheduled hours. Add to that the spontaneous prayer every hour.

2. Thankful (1 Thess. 5:18). See numbers 5, 11, and 12.

3. God-ward focused (Col. 3:1-2). See number 4.

4. Others-focused (Gal. 6:10). See numbers 8, 10, and 14.

5. Redeeming the time (Eph. 5:15-16). See numbers 6, 11, and 13.