Book Review: Synced - Living Connected to the Heart of Jesus by Jennifer Kennedy Dean

About the Book: Prayer can become extraordinary when we live connected to the heart of Jesus.

Synced encourages you to emulate the way Jesus lived His life. With real-life stories of people walking closely with Jesus, finding themselves in the right place at the right time, readers are challenged to examine what staying in step with the Spirit looks like. National best-selling author and known prayer expert, Jennifer Kennedy Dean, uses the familiar passage of the Lord's Prayer as anchor points to present the way Jesus lived His life in step with the Father through prayer.

Every moment is pregnant with purpose. Every moment is drenched in power. Prayer is no longer the means by which you attempt to get God to perform for you and becomes, instead, the means by which you connect with His heart and mind. A praying life is a life of peace and soul-rest. A praying life is lived in sync with the heart of Jesus.

Purchase a copy: http://bit.ly/1U7102O

My Thoughts: Prayer is one of the spiritual disciplines that many believers struggle with, myself included.  We often don't think we're praying often enough, long enough, effectively enough, but are at a loss of exactly how to improve our lacking prayer lives.  I was hoping this book would be helpful in that regard, but it wasn't quite as much as I had hoped.

I did appreciate the somewhat unique twist of using the Lord's Prayer to discuss how we can become synced with God, connected to the heart of Jesus.  However, I found it a bit simplistic in parts.  With the suggestion that if we could only be synced with God, blessings and ministry would just flow effortlessly, it smacked a bit of prosperity gospel to me at times.

I definitely believe that God does miracles, and that sometimes heaven's power reaches through our earthly circumstances at the exact time we need it.  But it doesn't always.  And it's not due to a lack of faith or a lack confidence that God can come through for us.  Sometimes faithful believers lose their homes when the money doesn't come in at the eleventh hour.  I do think that the author realizes that, I just wished it would have been stated specifically, and that she would have explained what it means when we don't see heaven's power in our earthly circumstances, despite our fervent prayers.

I did, however, really enjoy her focus on obedience as well as her chapter on forgiveness, and found that particularly insightful.

Thank you to Litfuse Publicity for organizing this tour and providing me with my complimentary review copy.