Review: Relentless Pursuit: God's Love of Outsiders by Ken Gire inclusing the outsider in all of us

Review: Relentless Pursuit: God’s Love of Outsiders including the outsider in all of us
Ken Gire
Bethany House Publishers
2012

Poignancy, insights, revelation and even humor from time to time. It’s all in Ken Gire’s Relentless Pursuit. That’s what I found in this book. Gire uses his own life as an example, along with others to be sure, to illustrate the love of God and His untiring desire to re-gather His people to Himself.

Gire makes several references to the poem The Hound of Heaven, which I had never read before and it is included in this book. It is quite a poetic endeavor and I recommend it to this reader. Gire also mentions toward the conclusion of his book a reading of this poem that can be found online that helped me appreciate it even more. Do check that out, but this isn’t about the poem, but Gire’s book.

The title confused me. Outsiders? Who is the outsider? The guy that doesn’t go to my church, the lost, the high school student that has been unfriended?

Gire has organized Relentless Pursuit into discreet chapters with a set of questions at the conclusion of each one. The book may be used in a study group or for private meditation. As the contents page reveals, he works his way through the idea of pursuit. What it is, who is pursued, and who does the pursuing and some of the whys. Along the way the reader will meet several Biblical people who were well acquainted being outsiders and pursued, but this is not a character study of Biblical persons. In fact this is not a typical Bible study. This book is about the Author and His continuing interaction with Gire, hence “relentless pursuit”.

As I read through this I kept finding myself walking with him in a common experience. The pursuit does not end for Gire when he became part of the redeemed family of God, but continues into his life as a believer, too. Although that is not a new bit of information, Gire’s treatment of how that has worked in his life is. That is the value of this book in my opinion and is the reason I will recommend it to you.

The reader may find Gire’s style here a bit scattered, but as you will learn there is a reason for that. So stay with him and then ponder what he has said. It is well worth it.


I received this book from Bethany House Publishers in exchange for this review.