Simply Open

"Lord, open me to release, that I may receive, become, and do..."

Are you looking for a simple, but transformative prayer that can be used everyday to help you become more aware of how God is working in your life? Author Greg Paul shows you how in Simply Open by introducing an intentional exercise of opening yourself up to God through a prayer that can be used no matter where you are or what you are doing.

Paul explains that a contemplative path is open to us even in the busyness of our everyday lives. As much as we might like to go on a quiet spiritual retreat to help us focus and hear from God, he says it can be done using our senses in our everyday life. "This path is so simple that you can integrate it into the most complex schedule and pick it up again immediately if you forget about it for weeks at a time."

The only thing required is a desire to become open to God, ourselves, and others. Actually, this prayer is really seven specific prayers focused on the five senses, the mind, and the heart. Each chapter of this book is focused on one aspect. What I love about this book is that this spiritual practice encourages us to reach out to others, it's not just inward focused. Greg Paul, who is a pastor of a church which reaches out to inner city homeless people in Toronto, adeptly illustrates that we can experience God's love through all of our senses and as we do, we move towards loving others in practical ways. This theme is woven throughout the book.

 In order to actually use what's been presented in this book, I would suggest writing the prayers on notecards and have them easily accessible, until it becomes more familiar. If you are not usually one for praying prewritten prayers, you may feel a bit awkward at first. But it may surprise you how freeing it is to read a simple prayer that states exactly what your heart's desire is.

If you are looking for a new way to become more aware of how God is speaking to you in your everyday life,you might appreciate this book. It's worth reading through quickly, then going through it slowly to really help internalize it.

Thanks to BookLookBloggers who sent me this book for free in exchange for an honest review.