David G. Benner > 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

“Learning to desire God's will is not something we can accomplish by resolve and willpower. It occurs only when we live so close to God's heart that the rhythm of our own heartbeat comes to reflect the divine pulse”
― David Benner

“Rather than be content with the circle of love within the Godhead, God reached out to create so that others could enter this sphere of intimacy and be warmed by divine love . . . Creation was God's plan for friendship. We were not brought into existence simply so that we could worship God. Nor were we created simply for service. Human beings exist because of God's desire for companionship. ”
― David Benner

“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

“Growth in love is not an accomplishment but the receipt of a gift.”
― David G. Benner, Surrender to Love: Discovering the Heart of Christian Spirituality

“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

“Prayer is easily ruined when we make it a project - part of a spiritual self-improvement plan. Rather than pushing yourself forward by resolve, allow God to lead you by desire. The most typical evidence of grace at work within us is not awareness of duty but awareness of desire.”
― David G. Benner, Opening to God: Lectio Divina and Life as Prayer

“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

“Watch particularly for traces of God in other people. Since humans are that part of creation most directly reflecting the divine image and likeness, it should be here that we most readily sense traces of God. Cultivate the spiritual habit of looking through Spirit-filled eyes at those you encounter and watching for Jesus. Recall that he said that he is there - particularly in those most broken and least likely to be suspected of bearing the Christ within their being. Watching for the presence of God in others will change the way you relate to them as you begin to see yourself surrounded by bearers of our Lord's presence in the world.”
― David G. Benner, Opening to God: Lectio Divina and Life as Prayer

“Spiritual friends help us most when they make clear that their job is to point the way, not to lead the way. And the Way to which they should point is Jesus.”
― David G. Benner, Sacred Companions: The Gift of Spiritual Friendship Direction

“In its most basic terms Christian spirituality is a relationship with God. Perhaps the most remarkable thing to notice about this Christian God is that is it he who has sought us out, not we him. In fact, anything that we experience as desire for him is simply the result of his Spirit's calling us to himself. Spirituality is the response of spirit to Spirit.”
― David G. Benner, Sacred Companions: The Gift of Spiritual Friendship Direction

“Teresa of Avila says that the important thing in prayer is not to think much but to love much. The head is not a bad place to start our prayer journey. But if prayer stays there too long and does not begin to sink to the heart, it will inevitably become arid and frustrating.”
― David G. Benner, Opening to God: Lectio Divina and Life as Prayer

“The only thing we should seek in prayer is God. When we focus on how we are doing or what we are getting out of prayer, we have taken our eyes off God and put them back on our self.”
― David G. Benner, Opening to God: Lectio Divina and Life as Prayer

“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

“We do not pray so that we can get God's attention. We pray so that God will get our attention.”
― David G. Benner, Opening to God: Lectio Divina and Life as Prayer

“I accept Augustine's maxim of solvitor ambulando - things are solved by walking.' Sometimes when I walk, I think of God, and sometimes I explicitly direct worded thoughts to God. But my walking prayer is in no way limited to these times when I specifically speak to God. The whole experience is prayer when I walk with openness before God.”
― David G. Benner, Opening to God: Lectio Divina and Life as Prayer

“Paying attention is being open and awake - ready to be seized by whatever is present to us in the present moment. This is why it is a foundation of prayer. Attentiveness is prayer because attention paid to anything is a doorway to the self-transcendent. It moves us beyond our self-preoccupations and opens us to that which is beyond our self. Regardless of how insignificant the object may seem, being truly aware of anything has enormous potential to aid our spiritual awakening. Prayerful attentiveness is not, therefore, reducible to thinking about God.”
― David G. Benner, Opening to God: Lectio Divina and Life as Prayer

“Love reconnects us to life. The truth of Christ's life is that life is love and love is life. There is no genuine life without love. Self-interest suffocates life. Life implodes when self-interest is at the core. This is why the kingdom of self is based on death. Ultimately, taking care of Number One takes care of no one. For the only way to truly care for myself is to give myself in love of others. There I will find my truest and deepest fulfillment.”
― David G. Benner, Surrender to Love: Discovering the Heart of Christian Spirituality

“Contemplative prayer is not so much a type of prayer as something that should be a component of all prayer. It is the silence and space for stillness before God that supports genuine presence and openness to God . . . Sadly, it is this contemplative dimension that is most lacking from prayer. Communal prayer seldom leaves sufficient space for stillness before God in silence. Even liturgical prayer often leaves inadequate space for silence, and nonliturgical worship experiences are, of course, usually infamously devoid of silence. Intentional times of personal prayer are often rushed and reduced to the basics of petitions, intercession and possibly an expression or two of gratitude. All this is certainly worthy of being called prayer. But lacking the contemplative dimension, it is not holistic prayer and it will not be transformational.”
― David G. Benner, Opening to God: Lectio Divina and Life as Prayer

“Meditating on God's love has done more to increase my love than decades of effort to try to be more loving. Allowing myself to deeply experience his love - taking time to soak in it an allow it to infuse me - has begun to effect changes that I had given up hope of ever experiencing. Coming back to God in my failures at love, throwing myself into his arms and asking him to remind me of how much he loves me as I am - here I begin to experience new levels of love to give to others.”
― David G. Benner, Surrender to Love: Discovering the Heart of Christian Spirituality

“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

“Earth’s crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God; But only he who sees, takes off his shoes, The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.”
― David G. Benner, Soulful Spirituality: Becoming Fully Alive and Deeply Human

“If we are honest, most of us have to admit that prayer is often more of an obligation than something arising spontaneously from desire . . . the core of the misunderstanding lies in thinking of prayer as something that we do. Understood more correctly, prayer is what God does in us. Our part has much more to do with consent than initiative.”
― David G. Benner, Opening to God: Lectio Divina and Life as Prayer

“Simple being is a deep sigh of relief that comes from letting go of pretense. It is also the sigh that comes from releasing a heavy burden that results from creating and managing the false selves that are substitute centers for the truth of our being. It is the sigh of release as we exchange complexity for simplicity. It is the sigh of release as we let go of preoccupations, inordinate attachments, and disordered passions. Things in the depths of our beings get aligned when we let go of these things.”
― David G. Benner, Presence and Encounter: The Sacramental Possibilities of Everyday Life