Review: Mystically Wired

I recently read the book "Mystically Wired" by Ken Wilson and was pleasantly surprised. It's not often that you are able to find a book that takes prayer and makes it something completely approachable. Prayer is something that most people are intimidated by, so by making it approachable Wilson does something powerful for millions of people looking to get closer to God.

Wilson breaks the book into what I think are two basic sections: how God wired us to pray and relate to him, and then how we can actually go about doing that. The way that he breaks this down is key I think - first understand how it works, then understand how to make it work. Since this is a basic approach to most things that we encounter and tackle in our daily lives, it makes coming to God in prayer a completely realistic thing for someone who may have previously been nervous, intimidated, or just avoided prayer thinking it's too hard. By demonstrating that we're all wired to pray, explaining that we're all uniquely wired, and giving several practical ways to step into the shallow end of the "prayer pool", Wilson removes the barriers that most people have to engaging with God in prayer.

I was truly amazed by how incredibly practical this book was. There were several points at which I agreed with the author, appreciated his challenges, and felt encouraged to take simple steps to come to God in prayer. As someone who found my faith relatively recently, prayer is not always something that comes naturally to me. What Wilson does that I really appreciated was recognize that a lot of people are coming from this position of discomfort and present ways to get past and challenge those barriers. The thing that Wilson does that I found really handy was that he not only give several steps and tools with which to approach God in prayer; at the end of the book he provides an appendix of 10 steps for the reader to use as an easy reference. A month from now I won't remember every single thing that he spelled out in the book, but having an appendix certainly helps with that issue.

Something that may turn a person off to this book is that in the first chapter or two he heavily references the mystics in his discussion of how we are wired to pray. A lot of people may be turned off by this, but I would encourage anyone deciding to read this book to be patient with Wilson as his points are incredibly relevant if you hear him out with an open mind. I personally don't have any problem with the concept of mystics and mysticism, but I understand where this may be a put-off to some.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone looking for practical tools and understanding when it comes to prayer. Again - I caution that some may be turned off by the first chapter or two, but I encourage anyone who gets this book to seriously get past that and hear out the author. His points are valid, they make sense, and the fact he offers simple things that we can do to become more engaged in prayer on increasingly deep levels is great. The reviews on the back of the book all basically state that this was the best book on prayer that they had ever read - and on a lot of levels I would agree. If you struggle with prayer or are just looking to explore new/deeper areas of prayer - get your hands on this book.


Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze.com <http://BookSneeze.com> book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”