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The Echo Within: Finding Your True Calling
“I can remember the words people said that meant so much to me and my own sense of who I was and who I might become…. You know you have heard such a sentence when you hear inside a corresponding Yes. The Yes is an echo of sorts, or at least it is the same voice as is the Echo that you have come to count on. Such a sentence takes your breath away…. It tells you something about yourself that you suspected or hoped, something you glimpsed but were too shy or uncertain to name aloud.”
To Hear and Live Your Calling
When one day a friend wondered if he was being called to a certain field of work, he asked Robert Benson, “Do you think I am?”
The Echo Within is Robert’s illuminating answer, a thoughtful, honest, profoundly-affecting account of his own search and failings and eventual discovery of the Yes he describes–what it is one truly is called to do and be. Written out of a lifelong search and response to the callings on his life, The Echo Within
•how to love the work you do, and the process of doing it.
•ways to sense God’s pleasure in your pursuits, both in the pursuits and in you.
•whether you fall into your vocation as a destiny or you chart that course.
•how to begin living with added dimensions of meaning and purpose.
Through the ups and downs of the changes inherent in family life, professional choice, and spiritual experience, Robert shares with wisdom, humor, and heart what he’s learned–and how you can discover your calling too.
To Hear and Live Your Calling
When one day a friend wondered if he was being called to a certain field of work, he asked Robert Benson, “Do you think I am?”
The Echo Within is Robert’s illuminating answer, a thoughtful, honest, profoundly-affecting account of his own search and failings and eventual discovery of the Yes he describes–what it is one truly is called to do and be. Written out of a lifelong search and response to the callings on his life, The Echo Within
•how to love the work you do, and the process of doing it.
•ways to sense God’s pleasure in your pursuits, both in the pursuits and in you.
•whether you fall into your vocation as a destiny or you chart that course.
•how to begin living with added dimensions of meaning and purpose.
Through the ups and downs of the changes inherent in family life, professional choice, and spiritual experience, Robert shares with wisdom, humor, and heart what he’s learned–and how you can discover your calling too.
192 pages, Hardcover
First published December 24, 2008
14 people are currently reading
100 people want to read
About the author
Robert Benson
93 books34 followersRobert Benson has written more than a dozen books about discovering the Holy in the midst of our everyday lives. He is a lifelong churchman, a graduate of the Academy for Spiritual Formation, a member of the Friends of Silence and of the Poor, and has been named a Living Spiritual Teacher by Spirituality and Practice. Benson lives and writes, pays attention and offers prayers at his home in Nashville, Tennessee.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
November 17, 2025
Wow so good!!!! This changed my whole perspective on career and calling! One of those books that right after you finish, you want to start it again
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March 8, 2020The Echo Within is a short book about discerning your personal calling by listening to and responding to messages that are encoded into your being. I first read this book four years ago, and decided to re-read it this year because my personal circumstances have significantly changed. I wanted to get some fresh insights in hopes of refining my understanding of my own calling as I contemplate the future direction and focus of my life. Although I am officially “retired” and done with “going to work,” I am by no means done living. My understood calling is “Enabling Others,” but I’m always on the lookout for new arenas and ways in which to do that.
Benson breaks the book down into ten chapters, each with a one-word title. They are Listening, Waking, Hearing, Being, Looking, Waiting, Living, Knowing, Choosing, and Dreaming. Reading the book again, I found it to be even more relevant to my own needs and interests than when I first read it. I do a lot of highlighting and underlining when I read a book I own, and discovered even more useful ideas to mark up in my copy the second time through.
An interesting suggestion in The Echo Within is to “connect the dots” in your life to see how the linkages between people, places, jobs, and events form discernable patterns over time, which when viewed retrospectively depict the flow of your entire life. He also speaks of being “born again” (not religiously) each time your life goes off in a new direction. He asks the reader to identify people who spoke essential messages into your life that triggered new phases of development or even led you to new careers or locations during your life journey. Looking back over one’s entire life, it becomes possible to pick out the key roles, experiences, triumphs, and disappointments that made you into the person you are today.
There is also a spiritual side to the book. Benson quoted a speaker at a retreat he once attended who said, “The plan is for you to become the person God intended. However,” he said with a twinkle in his eye, “the details are up to you.” This markedly differs from some religious leaders who insist that every moment of your life is specifically scripted and controlled by the Deity. Benson advises, “Watch yourself closely to see what you love and what you do not. You look for signs of your own wonder. You look for the things that make your spirit quicken and your pulse race.”
In the Being chapter, Benson asked a question that really resonated with me: “How many of us end up doing work that does not suit us, in environments that do not nurture us, around people with whom we are not comfortable, doing things we do not believe in.” When I look back upon my own years in the workplace, that question hit me right between the eyes. Life is like an ocean wave, and I’ve had many deep troughs between the exciting crests.
In the Looking chapter, he asks, “To whom am I being given for this season of my life, for this stretch of my days? And who is being given to me?” He added, “To be called is to be sent. And we are being sent to someone as much as we are being sent by Someone. To be called is to keep looking for those to whom we are being given.”
Many of the chapters in the book begin with a quote from Thomas Merton. The Waiting chapter begins with this quote from Merton: “A man knows when he has found his vocation when he stops thinking about how to live and begins to live….” Benson writes, “...people work for a while, and then something happens. There is a moment of clarity for them, and they suddenly see what they are on the planet to do, and they go and do it.”
In the Living chapter, Benson builds upon this point, stating “Living is very often what happens when we think we have God’s plan for our lives all mapped out. The choices we make, the curves we are thrown, the chances we take, the hunches we follow are all part of our mysterious journey in the direction of who we were whispered into being to become.”
As the book nears its end, in the Choosing chapter, Benson mentions that new people can come alongside us in our journey. “We discover we are surrounded by new faces; we discover we have been given to some new people, or at least people who are new to us.” He goes on to say that “...calling is not always only about who we are or what we do. It is not always strictly about our work. Sometimes it is about who is beside us. And who we are beside.”
The final chapter, Dreaming, starts with another Merton quote: “The things that we love tell us what we are.” Benson then reprises one of the main messages in the book: “What better place to hide the mystery of who we are to become than within our own selves?” He continues: “Sometimes we are nudged a bit at a time in the direction of our dreams even though it is not clear to us for years and years. Guess Who is doing the nudging?”
The final words in this powerful little book are, “Our journeys begin with a whisper, a word spoken by the One Who has spoken and is still speaking all things into being. We live in the hope of discovering and articulating and reflecting the incarnate word that echoes within. And in the hope of becoming the someone we were spoken into being to be.”
###
Benson breaks the book down into ten chapters, each with a one-word title. They are Listening, Waking, Hearing, Being, Looking, Waiting, Living, Knowing, Choosing, and Dreaming. Reading the book again, I found it to be even more relevant to my own needs and interests than when I first read it. I do a lot of highlighting and underlining when I read a book I own, and discovered even more useful ideas to mark up in my copy the second time through.
An interesting suggestion in The Echo Within is to “connect the dots” in your life to see how the linkages between people, places, jobs, and events form discernable patterns over time, which when viewed retrospectively depict the flow of your entire life. He also speaks of being “born again” (not religiously) each time your life goes off in a new direction. He asks the reader to identify people who spoke essential messages into your life that triggered new phases of development or even led you to new careers or locations during your life journey. Looking back over one’s entire life, it becomes possible to pick out the key roles, experiences, triumphs, and disappointments that made you into the person you are today.
There is also a spiritual side to the book. Benson quoted a speaker at a retreat he once attended who said, “The plan is for you to become the person God intended. However,” he said with a twinkle in his eye, “the details are up to you.” This markedly differs from some religious leaders who insist that every moment of your life is specifically scripted and controlled by the Deity. Benson advises, “Watch yourself closely to see what you love and what you do not. You look for signs of your own wonder. You look for the things that make your spirit quicken and your pulse race.”
In the Being chapter, Benson asked a question that really resonated with me: “How many of us end up doing work that does not suit us, in environments that do not nurture us, around people with whom we are not comfortable, doing things we do not believe in.” When I look back upon my own years in the workplace, that question hit me right between the eyes. Life is like an ocean wave, and I’ve had many deep troughs between the exciting crests.
In the Looking chapter, he asks, “To whom am I being given for this season of my life, for this stretch of my days? And who is being given to me?” He added, “To be called is to be sent. And we are being sent to someone as much as we are being sent by Someone. To be called is to keep looking for those to whom we are being given.”
Many of the chapters in the book begin with a quote from Thomas Merton. The Waiting chapter begins with this quote from Merton: “A man knows when he has found his vocation when he stops thinking about how to live and begins to live….” Benson writes, “...people work for a while, and then something happens. There is a moment of clarity for them, and they suddenly see what they are on the planet to do, and they go and do it.”
In the Living chapter, Benson builds upon this point, stating “Living is very often what happens when we think we have God’s plan for our lives all mapped out. The choices we make, the curves we are thrown, the chances we take, the hunches we follow are all part of our mysterious journey in the direction of who we were whispered into being to become.”
As the book nears its end, in the Choosing chapter, Benson mentions that new people can come alongside us in our journey. “We discover we are surrounded by new faces; we discover we have been given to some new people, or at least people who are new to us.” He goes on to say that “...calling is not always only about who we are or what we do. It is not always strictly about our work. Sometimes it is about who is beside us. And who we are beside.”
The final chapter, Dreaming, starts with another Merton quote: “The things that we love tell us what we are.” Benson then reprises one of the main messages in the book: “What better place to hide the mystery of who we are to become than within our own selves?” He continues: “Sometimes we are nudged a bit at a time in the direction of our dreams even though it is not clear to us for years and years. Guess Who is doing the nudging?”
The final words in this powerful little book are, “Our journeys begin with a whisper, a word spoken by the One Who has spoken and is still speaking all things into being. We live in the hope of discovering and articulating and reflecting the incarnate word that echoes within. And in the hope of becoming the someone we were spoken into being to be.”
###
April 30, 2018
In this beautiful memoir, Robert Benson shares his own long and indirect path to finding his true calling as a writer. His story will strike a chord with readers at any stage of life who may be unsure of their calling, are still seeking it, or have found it and want to go deeper. Reading this small book was an introspective journey for me. In his soft-spoken, conversational way, the word artist Robert stirs up echoes within his readers to a God who "whispered us into being" and to the unique combination of life circumstances that have made each of us who we are and will show us our true calling if we are paying attention. The book is structured around themes of listening, waking, hearing, being, looking, waiting, living, knowing, choosing, and dreaming, each chapter introduced by a well-chosen quote from Thomas Merton's Thoughts in Solitude.
August 23, 2024
a book that helps you “find your calling” but mostly describes Roberts life as he becomes a writer. uses a lot of experience in his life to relate to what we might ourselves be going through. no bible verses are used in the book and God is references some but I was surprised he was not more of the focus of the book. the book however was an easy read altogether and had some good points in each chapter
January 16, 2021
Another beautiful book from Robert Benson. Keep a highlighter handy if you dare deface this book, or a notebook to copy down passages that will resonate with you.
July 26, 2023
Wonderful book and fantastic discussion with Robert Benson joining our book club discussion.
August 14, 2016
A quiet book. Almost like its own echo, or a voice deeply embedded in a stone maybe, or safely cocooned inside the hollow bark of a tree. If one manages to tune into the author's words, who has laid out wisdom illuminative as sunset and contemplative as dusk, it won't take long to have your eyes meditatively heavy, and a heart expansively open as the skies, to grasp the magnitude of vastness we have within us. A simple read, yet a slow one, if one chooses to stay in between gaps of his words, just like the breath. There is holiness to the heart of this author, and you'll feel it when certain passages seize your attention, filter and turn it single-mindedly into silence, rendering depth to all the work (even cleaning dishes, or guarding a building, or baking cookies) that celebrates your existence, or vice versa. A centering of a beautiful kind. An important kind.
Although may lines stayed as memorable totems I'd like to carry in my heart, somewhere marking a sense of spiritual significance, this one particular quote of the author stood out on many casual occasions of riffing through pages inadvertently:
"Your vocation is not only about the work that you do with your hands and your heart and your mind; it is about what shapes that work, about the person that you become in an around that work as well. Vocation is about the things that shape the work before the worker even begins work."
Although may lines stayed as memorable totems I'd like to carry in my heart, somewhere marking a sense of spiritual significance, this one particular quote of the author stood out on many casual occasions of riffing through pages inadvertently:
"Your vocation is not only about the work that you do with your hands and your heart and your mind; it is about what shapes that work, about the person that you become in an around that work as well. Vocation is about the things that shape the work before the worker even begins work."
August 29, 2009
I had high expectations going into this one and Benson delivered. I devoured this in one quick reading and had to immediately start over and read it again. This book is not for someone looking for quick answers but is for those who are willing to do the hard work of listening, asking hard questions, wrestling with who you are and what it means to live with others.
In this excerpt Benson describes what the book is about: "We are, said Bob Mulholland, 'an incarnate word, spoken by God, still being spoken by God.' And because we are still being spoken, the questions we have about calling are, in part, questions about listening for the incarnate word being whispered into us. They are questions about learning to open up to and becoming the word that was whispered into us. And is still being whispered into us." Benson brings together two things that are often said to be opposed - our personal desires and what God wants us to do. He describes it as a process of learning to listen to and then trusting the voice within us because the voice is an "echo" of God's voice in us. Benson gives us permission to become who we are, encourages us to pay attention to our own lives, and begs us to press deeper into the God who dreamed us into being.
In this excerpt Benson describes what the book is about: "We are, said Bob Mulholland, 'an incarnate word, spoken by God, still being spoken by God.' And because we are still being spoken, the questions we have about calling are, in part, questions about listening for the incarnate word being whispered into us. They are questions about learning to open up to and becoming the word that was whispered into us. And is still being whispered into us." Benson brings together two things that are often said to be opposed - our personal desires and what God wants us to do. He describes it as a process of learning to listen to and then trusting the voice within us because the voice is an "echo" of God's voice in us. Benson gives us permission to become who we are, encourages us to pay attention to our own lives, and begs us to press deeper into the God who dreamed us into being.
March 8, 2013
I loved this book. I only wish it was longer. Because I bought it I was able to scribble on it, and turn the corners of pages over, and now it's a mess, but a good mess.
Here are some favourite quotes (selected from many):
'The fact that the Voice that calls to us often sounds like our own is not something to be mistrusted or feared. It is a sign of how close God is to us.'
'Within the echo of the Voice that spoke us into being is the sound of our own true voice.'
'You look for the thing that appears to be light in the midst of the dark. You venture forth; you answer the bell; you take the call; you try something new on for size. You claim you are being called to do so. And you are right, every time.'
'To be called is to be sent. And we are being sent to someone as much as we are being sent by Someone.
To be called is to keep looking for those to whom we are being given.'
'Work that grows out of what matters to us the most is the work that does the most good for those for whom it is done.'
'I can say this: What better place to hide the mystery of who we are to become than within our own selves?'
'I suspect far too many of us give up on our dreams far too soon.'
Here are some favourite quotes (selected from many):
'The fact that the Voice that calls to us often sounds like our own is not something to be mistrusted or feared. It is a sign of how close God is to us.'
'Within the echo of the Voice that spoke us into being is the sound of our own true voice.'
'You look for the thing that appears to be light in the midst of the dark. You venture forth; you answer the bell; you take the call; you try something new on for size. You claim you are being called to do so. And you are right, every time.'
'To be called is to be sent. And we are being sent to someone as much as we are being sent by Someone.
To be called is to keep looking for those to whom we are being given.'
'Work that grows out of what matters to us the most is the work that does the most good for those for whom it is done.'
'I can say this: What better place to hide the mystery of who we are to become than within our own selves?'
'I suspect far too many of us give up on our dreams far too soon.'
June 4, 2010
This book was suggested to me by a friend and I found it interesting and helpful to read. He writes about vocation and how we are called to our work and life dreams. He writes about dealing with burnout, finding clarity and wisdom about the next steps in our lives, live and work within the context of God's call and recognizing changes that may be on the horizon. He writes in the first person citing many personal experiences. The book was fun to read but realize I could more identify what has happened in my life to bring me to this stage than seeking help for a long future.
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September 26, 2012Not that deep, but had many many great points that I've been pondering. It was a wonderful prelude to Broken Open which I am currently reading. Basic premise is that sometimes we don't get that bright light/big voice from the sky telling us what we need to know-sometimes we need to understand that we have the 'echo' of that within ourselves. We just need to figure out how to learn how to trust ourselves, be quiet inside (ha ha--see My Stroke of Insight for the reasons why that kind of amuses me), and to not be afraid of change.
June 15, 2009
I LOVED this book. It reminded me of Let Your Life Speak. In summary, it is a story (and description) of how we can allow our mistakes and our triumphs- who we are-to determine what our lives turn out to be. He has a heartbreaking story that weaves a thread of writing and brings him to where he currently is, not from a place of authority, but from a place of experience.
August 18, 2009
Robert Benson is my new favorite author. Along with Living Prayer, this book rates as one of my all time favorites. His writing voice is so easy to read and relate to. He says things that I've been thinking but the way he says them, takes my thoughts to a new level of expression. I'm now on to his "Between the Dreaming and the Coming True."
July 11, 2009
First--a moment of truth. Robert Benson is my friend. I give him 5 stars because of his book, not his friendship (although he is also a 5-star friend). His books resonate on so many different levels. He has the gift of writing, faith and empathy. Buy the book--you will come back to it over and over again like a friend. I've already bought 2 copies to give away.....
July 9, 2010
A contemplative book about discovering your true calling. Unfortunately, there is no easy 3 step plan. It's more about quieting yourself and listening to the voice within and your life without. This author is coming to speak at my church this weekend. I look forward to hearing him in person.
September 14, 2009
A quick and inspiring read. I appreciated his humor and the "I don't have all the answers" approach especially helpful to read while unemployed or seeking direction.
Currently reading
August 29, 2009Another good one from Robert Benson! His writing has a way of making us stop and listen...
November 24, 2012
Very inspiring and motivational. A quick read which can be picked up and read over and over again.
November 17, 2017
Benson, through telling stories about his own life, brings deep insight into God's calling and what this means for you. It is an easy and casual read but, when meditated on, really speaks profound truths. I would recommend it to anyone considering God's plan for or calling on their life.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews