When the Labels Come Off

Who are you when everything you normally use to describe yourself is stripped away?

That question has been sitting with me because, if we are honest, most of us have learned to identify ourselves by the things surrounding our lives. When someone asks who we are, we often answer by talking about what we do, the people we belong to, what we have accomplished, or the roles we carry. We are mothers and fathers, husbands and wives, pastors and teachers, writers and business owners. We have careers, ministries, homes, degrees, relationships, reputations, and things we have spent years building.

There is nothing inherently wrong with any of those things. Many of them are gifts from God. Some are assignments He has entrusted to us, while others are relationships He has graciously woven into our lives. The problem begins when something temporary becomes the evidence we use to establish something eternal.

What happens when the title disappears? What happens when the career ends, the children grow up, the ministry changes, the relationship is no longer there, or something we spent years building no longer looks the way it once did? If those things have been answering the question of who we are, their loss can leave us wondering whether we know ourselves at all.

This is one of the reasons the story of Job is so powerful.

When Scripture introduces Job, we learn that he had seven sons and three daughters, thousands of livestock, numerous servants, tremendous wealth, and considerable standing within his community. Job 1:3 tells us that he was “the greatest of all the people of the East.”

Those things told us a great deal about Job’s life, but they did not tell us who Job was.

Before Scripture ever describes what Job possessed, it tells us something much more important: “That man was blameless and upright, and one who feared God and shunned evil” (Job 1:1).

Then, in an incredibly short period of time, nearly everything surrounding Job changed. His livestock was taken or destroyed. His servants were killed. His children died. Eventually his health was affected as well. Everything someone might have pointed toward and said, “That’s Job. That’s his life. That’s what he has built. That’s what makes him who he is,” was suddenly stripped away.

But Job was still Job.

More importantly, Job still belonged to God.

That distinction matters because there is a difference between what belongs to us and who we belong to.

Our possessions may belong to us for a season. Our assignments may belong to us for a season. A position, career, business, ministry, or reputation may be part of our lives for many years. They can become so familiar that we struggle to imagine ourselves without them, but none of them was ever meant to carry the weight of our identity.

Job’s losses did not erase the man God knew before any of those possessions were mentioned. The circumstances surrounding Job had radically changed, but God had not suddenly forgotten who Job was.

Neither does He forget who we are when our circumstances change.

I wonder how often we unknowingly attach our worth to things that were never designed to hold it. We may not recognize it while everything is going well. As long as the career remains, the relationship remains, the money remains, the ministry remains, or people continue affirming us, there is little reason to question what has been holding our identity together.

Sometimes it isn’t until something is removed that we discover how much we depended upon it to tell us who we were.

If losing my position makes me believe I no longer have value, perhaps that position had become more than an assignment.

If losing someone’s approval causes me to question my worth, perhaps their opinion had been carrying authority it was never meant to possess.

If a season of decreased productivity makes me feel useless, perhaps I had begun confusing what I produce with who I am.

If something I built disappears and I believe I have disappeared with it, perhaps I allowed my creation to become evidence of my identity.

These realizations are not invitations to condemn ourselves. They are opportunities to recognize where something temporary may have quietly taken a permanent seat in our hearts.

There is tremendous freedom in allowing the labels to come off.

Without them, I am still someone God created.

I am still someone Christ died for.

I am still known by God.

I am still loved by God.

I am still His.

Those truths do not increase when life is going well, and they do not decrease when circumstances change. They existed before the title, before the accomplishment, before the relationship, before the ministry, and before anything I could point toward as evidence that my life mattered.

Perhaps that is one of the things seasons of stripping can reveal. They show us the difference between what has been added to our lives and what has always been true underneath it all.

Job eventually received restoration, but the greatest truth of his story was never found in what he possessed before his suffering or what he received afterward. Beneath everything that could be gained, lost, or restored stood a man whose life was ultimately held by God.

The same is true for us.

We can be grateful for the things God allows us to build. We can treasure our relationships, fulfill our assignments, work diligently, celebrate accomplishments, and steward what He places in our hands. We simply cannot ask those things to tell us who we are.

They were never created to carry that responsibility.

What can be taken from me should never be responsible for telling me who I am.

Reflection

If everything I normally use to describe myself disappeared tomorrow, would I still know who I am?

Perhaps an even deeper question is worth asking: What have I been using as evidence of my worth that God only intended to be part of my life, rather than the definition of it?

When the labels come off, what remains is not an empty person searching for a new identity. What remains is the person God knew before any of those labels were ever attached.

And that person still belongs to Him.

Much Love

~Gayla~