Close Enough to Hear God Breathe: The Great Story of Divine Intimacy [Audiobook, Unabridged] [Audio CD]

 

 

Create your own review

Greg Paul's book 'Close Enough To Hear God Breathe' tells intimate stories of the author's life illustrating God's great intimate story of Creation, The Fall, Redemption and Consummation. He talks about his family, children, failure and success in marriage, sex and street ministry.

I read this book with a lump in my throat ready to shed tears on any given page. The great themes of God are manifest in our mortal existence. Greg reminds us of that.

Greg Paul is not a haphazard writer. He writes brilliantly and is too provocative to avoid an enduring legacy.

Greg Paul is a pastor and member of Sanctuary (Toronto), an inner-city church where saints and sinners worship together. It is a church without the protective, social insulation more prevalent in 'nice' safe suburban communities. It is the church Jesus frequents when He is in Toronto.

Get this book.

I was first introduced to Greg Paul through his book 'God In The Alley.' Greg is a pastor at Sanctuary, in Toronto, a community that loves and includes the least of these.

Greg is a story teller. In "Close Enough To Hear God Breathe" Greg tells stories about God, about family, about people who live at street level, about love and brokenness. He tells stories from his life and ministry. In this book he paints a picture of God as father, and us as his children. He develops this theme by telling stories about his family and other relationships with others to show what it means to be in relationship with God and feel his love. He gently draws into understanding God as Father and not as judge. He makes the connection between his relationships and God's relationship with humanity. He does an excellent job of keeping his 'little' story, as he calls his life, in perspective with the great divine story that is God and man striving together.

"Close Enough to Hear God Breathe" is about more than life with the poor in the city. It draws us into intimacy with God, into that close place that sounds like a soft puff of air, an almost inaudible exhale or a quiet heartbeat deep in the chest cavity your head is resting on.

His stories are rooted in the theological story of Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Consummation, not in an abstract or academic sense but from the perspective of what God's desire to be close to us means in a world that is broken.

Here's a couple of excerpts:
"The Fall, and my own willful disobedience, has broken the image of my Father in me, like a mirror shattered into a thousand shards. Yet each jagged piece still in some small way reflects an aspect of his being, and he will not dispose of it. The Fall is not the utter ruin of my relationship with him, but the proof of its ultimate inviolability. He is not sweeping those shards into a duty pile to be thrown into the trash, cursing the inconvenience. He is gathering them, every sparkling sliver. Assembling them into a new mosaic of his identity uniquely reflected in mine."

'Two things are necessary for me to be able to hear someone breathing: I must be quiet and I must be close. Paul is telling me that when I learn to hear God breathing in Scripture, it will be rest to my soul. Not merely an academic exercise or a dogmatic wrangle. And I will know that God is very near, perhaps particularly when I'm stumped by a mystery I cannot penetrate. Amazingly, I find that when I listen carefully enough to the sound of that breathing in Scripture, it echoes also through the stories of my own life.'

"Close Enough to Hear God Breathe: The Great Story of Divine Intimacy" is not a how to book on how to have divine intimacy, it's the story of Greg's journey into intimacy with God along with some of the people who make up the Sanctuary community.

"Book has been provided courtesy of Thomas Nelson and Graf-Martin Communications, Inc. Available at your favourite bookseller from Thomas Nelson".

I knew this was going to be a challenging book when I was crying as I read the prologue the day before Thanksgiving. Greg Paul's writing is itself an artistic masterpiece and his ability to draw the reader into the description is amazing. (Admittedly, the fact his daughter's name, Rachel, is also my daughter's name, helped draw this reader in. Later, in chapter 1 I discovered he also has a son named Caleb.) The author masterfully weaves personal stories illustrating the idea being presented in each chapter.

After an introductory section ("The Heart of the Matter"), Paul goes through the four acts of the Great Story - Creation, the Fall, Redemption, and Consummation - offering words God is trying to communicate to individuals in each part of the Story. Without being presumptuous, Paul compellingly shares the stories in a way that is full of theology and thoroughly consistent with evangelical doctrine. Each chapter begins with a Scripture passage, addressed to "my child," "my beloved," and " my pleasure," in each section (hence 15 chapters plus prologue and epilogue). Likewise, each chapter concludes with a suggested phrase that God whispers to individuals.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough, whether to a young person looking to understand their place in the Great Story and how to hear God better, or to a long-time Christian looking for a fresh and moving challenge to the way they've always thought about the Gospel message. Without diminishing His sovereignty and awesomeness, the book presents an intimately personal God in a way unlike any other book.

Book has been provided courtesy of Thomas Nelson and Graf-Martin Communications, Inc. Available at your favourite bookseller from Thomas Nelson.

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all 9 customer reviews on Amazon.ca

 

1.0 out of 5 stars Book Review - 'Close Enough to Hear God Breathe' by Greg Paul
There comes a time when reading a few good books that you come across a bad apple, despite the expectations of a good read. Read more

Published 5 months ago by Steven Martins

1.0 out of 5 stars Avoid this Book at All Costs
In "Close Enough to Hear God Breathe", we are told that we will "encounter a rich message that recounts the story of a God who has been inviting all of humanity, and each... Read more

Published 6 months ago by Matthew Kratz

4.0 out of 5 stars Great reminder.
I needed this book. The title grabbed me instantly, as I imagined myself so close to my Father, my head against his chest, listening to Him draw in and exhale out. Read more

Published 7 months ago by Chelsey

4.0 out of 5 stars Needing His voice
The words written on the back cover of Close Enough to Hear God Breathe The Great Story of Divine Intimacy by Greg Paul could have come from my own heart:

"There are a... Read more

Published 7 months ago by Karin F. Fendick

4.0 out of 5 stars Close Enough to Hear God Breath by Greg Paul
Greg Paul believes that the 'heart of the matter', the important center as we consider our relationship to God, is that we are His beloved children and we need to be in a close,... Read more

Published 7 months ago by Andrew Demoline

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully written picture of God's love
Greg Paul has been one of my favorites for a while now. I first read "God In The Alley" when I was working in a Christian bookstore and it woke me up to what it means to love the... Read more

Published 7 months ago by Blair Roberts

Search Customer Reviews
Only search this product's reviews

› See all 9 customer reviews on Amazon.ca

Search Listmania!