The Gift of Being Yourself Quotes

“Some Christians base their identity on being a sinner. I think they have it wrong—or only half right. You are not simply a sinner; you are a deeply loved sinner. And there is all the difference in the world between the two.”
― David G. Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery

“Christian spirituality involves a transformation of the self that occurs only when God and self are both deeply known. Both, therefore, have an important place in Christian spirituality. There is no deep knowing of God without a deep knowing of self, and no deep knowing of self without a deep knowing of God. John Calvin wrote, “Nearly the whole of sacred doctrine consists in these two parts: knowledge of God and of ourselves.”3”
― David G. Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery

“Self-acceptance always precedes genuine self-surrender and self-transformation.”
― David G. Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery

“Genuine self-knowledge begins by looking at God and noticing how God is looking at us.”
― David G. Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery

“Paradoxically, as we become more and more like Christ we become more uniquely our own true self.”
― David G. Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery

“Richard Rohr reminds us that “we cannot attain the presence of God. We’re already totally in the presence of God. What’s absent is awareness.”
― David G. Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery

“Paradoxically, we come to know God best not by looking at God exclusively, but by looking at God and then looking at ourselves—then looking at God, and then again looking at ourselves. This is also the way we best come to know our selves. Both God and self are mostly fully known in relationship to each other.”
― David G. Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery

“The self that begins the spiritual journey is the self of our own creation, the self we thought ourselves to be. This is the self that dies on the journey. The self that arrives is the self that was loved into existence by Divine Love. This is the person we were destined from eternity to become—the I that is hidden in the “I AM.”
― David G. Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery

“Identity is never simply a creation. It is always a discovery. True identity is always a gift of God.”
― David G. Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery

“If God has come in the flesh, and if God keeps coming to us in our fleshly existence, then all of life is shot through with meaning. Earth is crammed with heaven, and heaven (when we finally get there) will be crammed with earth. Nothing wasted. Nothing lost. Nothing secular. Nothing absurd.... All are grist for the mill of a downto-earth spirituality.”
― David G. Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery

“Created from love, of love and for love, our existence makes no sense apart from Divine love.”
― David G. Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery

“Similarly, people who are afraid to look deeply at themselves will of course be equally afraid to look deeply at God. For such persons, ideas about God provide a substitute for direct experience of God.”
― David G. Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery

“Any hope that you can know yourself without accepting the things about you that you wish were not true is an illusion. Reality must be embraced before it can be changed. Our knowing of ourselves will remain superficial until we are willing to accept ourselves as God accepts us—fully and unconditionally, just as we are.”
― David G. Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery

“We think of our attachments as anchors of well-being. We feel good when we are surrounded by what seem like innocent indulgences and think they secure a state of pleasure that would not be ours without them. In reality, however, they sabotage our happiness and are hazardous to both our spiritual health and our psychological health. Attachments undermine our freedom, making our contentment and joy dependent on their presence. If my “innocent indulgence” is being surrounded by the latest high-tech gadgetry, I feel good when I get a new toy and not good when I see a newer version on the market and am unable to get it. An attachment to style, fashion and good taste operates the same way, making my happiness dependent on external things. Attachments imprison us in falsity as we follow the flickering sirens of desire.”
― David G. Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery

“Before we can surrender ourselves we must become ourselves, for no one can give up what he or she does not first possess.”
― David G. Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery

“Leaving the self out of Christian spirituality results in a spirituality that is not well grounded in experience. It is, therefore, not well grounded in reality. Focusing on God while failing to know ourselves deeply may produce an external form of piety, but it will always leave a gap between appearance and reality. This is dangerous to the soul of anyone—and in spiritual leaders it can also be disastrous for those they lead.”
― David G. Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery

“The anthropological question (Who am I?) and the theological question (Who is God?) are fundamentally inseparable.”
― David G. Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery

“People who have never developed a deep personal knowing of God will be limited in the depth of their personal knowing of themselves. Failing to know God, they will be unable to know themselves, as God is the only context in which their being makes sense. Similarly, people who are afraid to look deeply at themselves will of course be equally afraid to look deeply at God. For such persons, ideas about God provide a substitute for direct experience of God.”
― David G. Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery

“The mystery of the Christian gospel is that our deepest, truest self is not what we think of as our own separate self but the self that is one with Christ. This is the reason that the self that embarks on the journey of Christ-following is not the self that arrives.”
― David G. Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery

“God’s intended home is our heart, and it is meeting God in the depths of our soul that transforms us from the inside out.”
― David G. Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery

“Often looking back at who we have been helps us discern who we are called to be.”
― David G. Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery

“The spiritual life of one person should never be a carbon copy of that of another. Peter and John had quite different personalities and quite different transformational journeys as they followed Jesus. Mary and Martha, two sisters whom Jesus loved deeply, each expressed their love for him uniquely. And he received both, not discouraging Martha from busying herself in service, simply encouraging her to not fret in doing so (Luke 10:38-42).”
― David G. Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery

“God sometimes calls people to a cause not born of their own abilities or most superficial desires. But his call is always absolutely congruent with our destiny, our truest self, our identity and the shape of our being.”
― David G. Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery

“Our call, like Jesus’ call, is to live out our life in truth and in dependence on the loving will of the Father.”
― David G. Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery

“Jesus’ understanding of his vocation came out of wrestling with God, himself and the devil in the solitude of the wilderness.8 Resisting the temptations to a false self based on power, prestige or possessions, Jesus chose his true identity as the deeply loved Son of God.”
― David G. Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery

“The way of the true self is always the way of humility. Pride and arrogance move us toward our false self, but humility and love allow us to live the truth of our being.”
― David G. Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery

“Calling brings freedom and fulfillment because it orients us toward something bigger than self.”
― David G. Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery

“We are all called to Christ-following and loving service of God and neighbor. But the specific call that is rooted in your unique identity, gifts and personality will be found as you come to know both God and self in Christian community.”
― David G. Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery

“Our vocation is a call to serve God and our fellow humans in the distinctive way that fits the shape of our being. In one way or another, Christian calling will always involve the care of God’s creation and people. This realigns us to the created world and to our neighbor, moving us from self-centered exploitation to self-sacrificing service and stewardship.”
― David G. Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery

“Our calling is therefore the way of being that is both best for us and best for the world. This is what Frederick Buechner means when he states that “the place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”
― David G. Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery