What Remains When Everything Else Is Gone

There comes a point in seasons of stripping when the question begins to change.

At first, we ask what has been lost. We notice what is missing, what has changed, what no longer looks the way it once did, and what we can no longer depend upon as we did before. Then, as the dust begins to settle, another question emerges.

What remains?

That may be one of the most important questions we can ask because eventually we discover that stripping does not remove everything.

God remains.

His character remains.

His Word remains.

His love remains.

His purposes remain.

And our identity in Christ remains.

Perhaps that is what makes seasons of stripping so revealing. Once everything we have used to support our identity, security, confidence, or sense of worth becomes uncertain, we begin discovering what was underneath it all along.

Paul understood something about this.

Before encountering Christ, Paul had an impressive list of reasons to feel confident about who he was. In Philippians 3, he describes his heritage, religious credentials, zeal, and obedience to the law. He had the kind of résumé that would have earned respect among the people around him.

If anyone could have built an identity around accomplishments, Paul could.

Yet after encountering Christ, Paul began looking at those things differently.

He writes, “But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ” (Philippians 3:7).

Paul was not pretending those accomplishments had never existed. He was recognizing that they could no longer tell him who he was.

Something greater had taken their place.

He continues by saying that he counted everything loss “for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord” (Philippians 3:8).

Paul had discovered something that achievements could never provide.

Relationship.

Knowing Christ became more valuable than everything Paul had once used to establish his standing.

That takes us all the way back to the beginning.

Before Adam had anything we would recognize today as an accomplishment, he had God.

There was no résumé in Eden.

There was no career ladder.

There was no audience to impress.

There were no social platforms measuring influence, no bank account measuring security, no list of accomplishments proving that Adam’s life mattered.

Before Adam built anything, produced anything, accumulated anything, or proved anything, God had already created him in His image.

And there was relationship.

God walked with humanity in the garden.

Before all the things we have learned to use as evidence that our lives matter, there was simply the Creator and His creation in relationship with one another.

Perhaps we have complicated identity far more than God ever intended.

We spend years accumulating things around ourselves that help us answer the question, “Who am I?” We point toward our families, careers, ministries, possessions, accomplishments, abilities, influence, or plans.

Then something changes.

The career ends.

The money becomes uncertain.

The relationship changes.

The ministry looks different.

The plan we thought would carry us into the future disappears.

And we can feel as though pieces of ourselves are disappearing with them.

But what if they aren’t?

What if what is disappearing is not our identity, but some of the evidence we had been using to prove it?

There is a profound difference.

When something external is removed, God does not suddenly have to determine who we have become.

He already knows.

The person God loves is still there.

The person Christ redeemed is still there.

The person He called His own is still there.

The relationship remains.

That does not mean loss doesn’t hurt. It does not mean we should pretend that things we valued were meaningless. Some losses change the landscape of our lives forever, and Scripture never asks us to deny grief in order to demonstrate faith.

But grief over what has been lost and confidence in what remains can exist at the same time.

We can mourn something that mattered while refusing to allow its absence to redefine us.

We can acknowledge that life looks different while still knowing that God has not changed.

Hebrews tells us that there are things that can be shaken and things that cannot.

Hebrews 12:27 speaks of the removal of things that can be shaken “that the things which cannot be shaken may remain.”

There is something incredibly comforting about that.

Because eventually every human life encounters things that shake.

Circumstances shake.

Finances shake.

Relationships shake.

Plans shake.

Our bodies shake.

Our understanding of the future can shake.

But God does not.

His faithfulness is not dependent upon favorable circumstances. His character does not change when our plans do. His love does not fluctuate according to our productivity. His Word does not become less true because we cannot see what He is doing.

And His presence is not something life can strip away from us.

Maybe that is what remains when everything else is gone.

Not emptiness.

Not nothing.

Him.

And perhaps we discover that underneath everything we thought made us who we were, the most foundational truth had been there from the beginning.

We belong to God.

This week’s question began with, “Who are you when everything has been stripped away?”

Perhaps now we can answer it differently.

I am not merely what I possess.

I am not merely what I accomplish.

I am not merely what I produce.

I am not merely the roles I carry or the recognition I receive.

Those things may be meaningful parts of my life, but they are not the foundation beneath it.

My foundation is relationship with the One who created me, knows me, loves me, and remains when everything else changes.

Paul discovered that knowing Christ was worth more than everything he had once counted as gain.

Adam began with God before there was anything else to measure.

And perhaps seasons of stripping invite us to rediscover the same truth.

Before everything else, there was God.

After everything else, there will still be God.

And somewhere between the two, He is teaching us that He was never simply another part of our lives.

He was the foundation holding them all along.

Reflection

If God were all I had left, would I discover that He was the One thing I could never actually lose?

Maybe that question frightens us because we immediately imagine everything being taken away.

But perhaps it is not really a question about losing everything.

Perhaps it is an invitation to discover what can never be taken.

“When everything that can be shaken has been shaken, what remains reveals what was holding us all along.”

Much Love

~Gayla~