How is your prayer life going? Have you found it challenging to develop a good, consistent, and healthy prayer life?

How much of your prayer life involves you talking at God versus how much of your prayer life involves being with God?

If the answer to the last question is more bafflement than anything else, A.J. Sherrill would not be surprised.

And all Christians would do well to consider his Being With God: The Absurdity, Necessity, and Neurology of Contemplative Prayer.

The author presents a well argued and reasoned introductory encouragement into the world of contemplative prayer. He began by considering its absurdity: the oddity, especially in modern culture, of sitting just to be in God’s presence; how our technology hijacks our attention and continually distracts us; and our challenges in actually hearing with all the noise all around us. For most of the book he explored the necessity of contemplative prayer: a lot of practical hints about creating the space and time of silence with God; how to cultivate stillness; aligning with and heeding the Spirit in His groaning; and diving and gazing into the Presence of God in contemplation. In the final part of the book the author explored the scientific basis for contemplation: the way our breathing works and how we do not take time to breathe deeply and well; how stressed out we are and how we do not sufficiently relax; and the importance of a quality sleep regimen for a healthy spirituality.

Every chapter ends with a guided experience for practice to be able to better cultivate and develop in one’s contemplative prayer life.

This is definitely an introductory level guide to contemplative prayer, aware of and connected to the deeper tradition without explicating much of it. Yet it represents an excellent introduction; in many respects, I wish I would have had access to it and read it at the beginning of my (more intellectual than experiential, I confess) explorations into contemplative prayer.

Thus I highly recommend this work for all Christians in order to develop a healthier, more well-rounded prayer life than just spending certain times talking at God.

This book teaches us how to be with God and the power of contemplative prayer.

Here are my three biggest takeaways from this book.

Being empowers our doing. We are better at our doing when we learn how to be with God on a daily basis. We partner with God on our daily decisions. Jesus modeled this for us.

As we awaken to who we are and the actions we should take we become more and more aware of how we can meet the needs of others. We learn how to best serve others.

As we go to sleep each night we surrender to God. We let God heal and transform us. Sleep is a powerful rest in God.

The basis of the book, Being with God, defends the benefit of meditation into your daily walk with God. To avoid the stigmatism associated with mediation, the author, AJ Sherill, refers to meditation as contemplative prayer. Being with God rebukes Western belief that meditation/contemplative prayer is associated with Buddhist or New Age views. On a side note, I don't know why we say New Age; it's pagan beliefs that have been around since the Old Testament. God has provided several scriptures in the Old and New Testament warning His children from following these beliefs. The following chapters offer its readers scientific proof on the benefit of meditation and comments from Christian leaders who have already incorporated meditation into their walk with God. In addition, Being with God provides its readers' tips to integrate meditation into your daily practice. I would not recommend this book for new believers. I would advise that you pray to God and surround yourself with Scripture; before incorporating any spiritual exercise. If God is calling you to increase your prayer time, ask Him to show you? Is He asking you to keep a list of people to pray so that you can pray for these individuals daily, or is He asking you to be silent? If it's to be in silence with God, Being with God will help you embrace that practice into your daily walk.