Episode 409: I’m Talkin…Examine

I’m Talkin, episode 409 for February 15th, 2026.

This is Joel from the I’m Talkin microcast, where I share my thoughts on a topic that has piqued my interest this past week.

This week we’re talking examine.

Examine is not a tough word.

It is a word that we are familiar with, and it really means to look at something objectively, maybe doing more of a thorough investigation and to look at, you know, activities or actions or words, lots of ways that we can and things that we can examine.

And I was thinking as humans, do we like to do that?

Sometimes we do.

Sometimes we like to examine what other people are doing and complain about that without really looking at ourselves.

So, you know, self-examination or using examine in a sense of objectively looking at ourselves can be quite tough.

And therein lies the challenge for those of us who call ourselves Christians.

Today’s word comes from Lamentations 3, verse 40, that says, Instead, let us test and examine our ways.

Let us return to the Lord.

Some context I think is necessary here.

The verse before paraphrasing says, why should we as mere humans complain about being punished for our sins?

And then the next verse, the Lamentations 3, 40 says, instead, let us examine our ways and return to the Lord.

So that’s a good context to think about how the word is used in this particular verse in the Bible.

And so what we need to do is be truthful with ourselves.

We need to take a tough look at our actions in comparison to where God wants us to be.

We need to be authentic about the examination and recognize where we have gone astray.

This is the intentional part of this verse going with my word for the year.

And once we do that tough, truthful, authentic examination, then we need to change and return to the Lord.

Until next week, this is Joel from the I’m Talking microcast.