Our job in this lifetime is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it. – Steven Pressfield
My first thought is that sounds like some New Age, pop-psychology, mumbo-jumbo. Or is there something to it?
If I said the same kind of thing about spiritual gifts, how would it sound?
Our job is not to pursue some spiritual gift we imagine we ought to have, but to discover the gift we’ve been given and develop it.
If you’re familiar with the Bible, you might have no problem with that as an orthodox statement.
Did God create all of you, or just the spiritual gift part?
Did He know you in the womb? If you have children, did you notice they were different right from the beginning?
Was He in control of the parents you have, and the experiences you had growing up? Or was all that random?
Do you know anyone else just like you? Or just like anyone else you know? Why are there not many others exactly like you?
Are you good at some things and not so good at others? And are others good and not so good in different ways than you? How did that happen? Where did that come from? Is it coincidence? Is that an area God is not sovereign over?
Have you ever heard someone say they felt like they were born to do some certain thing they were doing? Have you ever felt that way?
Just as the Bible says spiritual gifts fit a person into the body of Christ for a particular role, could your whole self also be divinely shaped to be and do certain things? And if so, wouldn’t it be good to cooperate with God in His shaping—that you might find out who you already are in His purposes, and become it?
