Product Description

This beautifully written book provides a fresh perspective for people who long for a richer experience with the presence of God and deeper meaning in everyday life.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #61828 in Books
• Published on: 1996-04-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780310203971
• Condition: USED - LIKE NEW
• Notes:
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From the Back Cover
Within our hearts is a longing--a profound cry of the soul for something our theologies can only point us to, never replace.

Intimacy with God.

Something that has no human or earthly substitute.

Yet, if we pause to listen, we will discover how often God speaks to us through human and earthly means. He stands at the windows of the easily overlooked and the unlikely, tapping at the pane. He beckons us to places of encounter where we learn how well he understands the language of our hearts.

At unexpected windows of the soul, we hear the voice of God.

Windows of the Soul is a rare book, resounding with the cry for communion that is both ours and God’s. With passion, honesty, and beauty, Ken Gire calls us to a fresh sensitivity to God’s voice speaking through the unexpected parables that surround us: a child’s need for significance . . . the misunderstood sadness of a van Gogh masterpiece . . . the eloquence of sunlight dancing on water . . .

Gire points to a world infused with the voice of the One who can transform our backyard shrubs into burning bushes lit by his presence. His voice penetrates the raw material of our daily lives, speaking through Scripture and prayer, a painting or a poem, the remark of a friend or a night sky filled with stars.

Windows of the Soul will open your eyes to a fresh way of seeing, hearing, and enjoying the presence of God in your life.

About the Author
Ken Gire is best-selling author of the Intimate Moments with the Savior series of devotional books and of Windows of the Soul. He lives in Monument, Colorado, with his wife, Judy. They are parents of four children.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Windows of the Soul A glass window stands before us. We raise our eyes and see the glass; we note its quality, and observe its defects; we speculate on its composition. Or we look straight through it on the great prospect of land and sea and sky beyond. Benjamin B. Warfield "Some Thoughts on Predestination" God stretched out the heavens, stippling the night with impressionistic stars. He set the sun to the rhythm of the day, the moon to the rhythm of the month, the seasons to the rhythm of the year. He blew wind through reedy marshes and beat drums of distant thunder. He formed a likeness of Himself from a lump of clay and into it breathed life. He crafted a counterpart to complete the likeness, joining the two halves and placing them center stage in His creation where there was a temptation and a fall, a great loss and a great hiding. God searched for the hiding couple, reaching to pick them up, dust them off, draw them near. Though they hardly knew it at the time. After them, He searched for their children and for their children’s children. And afterward wrote stories of His search. In doing all this, God gave us art, music, sculpture, drama, and literature. He gave them as footpaths to lead us out of our hiding places and as signposts to lead us along in our search for what was lost. Shaped from something of earth and something of heaven, we were torn between two worlds. A part of us wanted to hide. A part of us wanted to search. With half-remembered words still legible in our hearts and faintly sketched images still visible in our souls, some of us stepped out of hiding and started our search. Though we hardly knew where to look. We painted to see if what was lost was in the picture. We composed to hear if what was lost was in the music. We sculpted to find if what was lost was in the stone. We wrote to discover if what was lost was in the story. Through art and music and stories we searched for what was missing from our lives. Though at times we hardly knew it. Though at times we could hardly keep from knowing it. The German poet Rilke tells of one of those times in a fable where the sculpting hands of Michelangelo "tore at the stone as at a grave, in which a faint dying voice is flickering. ‘Michelangelo,’ cried God in dread, ‘who is in the stone?’ Michelangelo listened; his hands were trembling. Then he answered in a muffled voice: ‘Thou, my God, who else? But I cannot reach Thee.’ " We reach for God in many ways. Through our sculptures and our scriptures. Through our pictures and our prayers. Through our writing and our worship. And through them He reaches for us. His search begins with something said. Ours begins with something heard. His begins with something shown. Ours, with something seen. Our search for God and His search for us meet at windows in our everyday experience. These are the windows of the soul. In a sense, it is something like spiritual disciplines for the spiritually undisciplined. In another sense, it is the most rigorous of disciplines — the discipline of awareness. For we must always be looking and listening if we are to see the windows and hear what is being spoken to us through them. But we must learn to look with more than just our eyes and listen with more than just our ears, for the sounds are sometimes faint and the sights sometimes far away. We must be aware, at all times and in all places, because windows are everywhere, and at any time we may find one. Or one may find us. Though we will hardly know it . . . unless we are searching for Him who for so long has been searching for us. When we look long enough at a scene from a movie, a page from a book, a person from across the room, and when we look deeply enough, those moments framed in our minds grow transparent. Everywhere we look, there are pictures that are not really pictures but windows. If only we have eyes to see beyond the paint. If we look closely, we can see something beyond the two dimensions within the frame, something beyond the ordinary colors brushed across the canvas of our everyday lives. What do we see in those windows? What do we see of who we are, or once were, or one day might become? What do we see of our neighbor living down the street or our neighbor living on the street? What do we see about God? Windows of the soul is a way of seeing that begins with respect. The way we show respect is to give it a second look, a look not of the eyes but of the heart. But so often we don’t give something a second look because we don’t think there is anything there to see. To respect something is to understand that there is something there to see, that it is not all surface, that something lies beneath the surface, something that has the power to change the way we think or feel, something that may prove so profound a revelation as to change not only how we look at our lives but how we live them.

Customer Reviews

Feed your Soul; Fill your Spirit
I purchased this book off the shelf as its artistic references in the description attracted me to it. I soon discovered the value of Mr. Gire's wisdom, compassion, and his own personal knowledge of an intimate relationship with God that evolved through his own personal experiences. This book came at a time in my own life when, a few months earlier, I had suffered a sudden tragedy that resulted in the death of my husband of 11 years. This book, and its quiet reflective nature, brought me peace during many sleepless nights. I found the thoughtful wisdom inspiring, and appreciated his knowledge of literature and history. I have purchased several of his books since, and have been blessed by each one.

enjoyable reading!
Christ came to give us life, not religion, and Ken Gire expounds on this concept. He offers reflective "windows" in his own life that he has observed and encourages us to look for our own. Since we all don't share an audible Moses experience, learning to hear, see, and experience God comes in all shapes, sizes and colors of our lives. Gire points to these practical areas, such as art, movies, stories and more. Learning to reflect and ask questions helps us to see God and experience Him in new ways. This book was a treat that spoke to my soul. I hope Gire follows it up with another!

Can you say, 'Everywhere I go I see You'?
Ken Gire challenges us all to slow down the busy-ness of our hearts and stop and look when God gives us a window. With beauty and grace, Ken shows us the moments God has given him. Moments when God gives a glance of the spiritual side of life. Buy this book. It's a must read and a must read again.