How would you feel if God took everything from your life—health, financial security, relational support—and gave you only himself? You lose everything, but you’re bathed in his love, thoroughly adored, and always aware of his presence. You don’t know why you’re going through a hard time, but he’s going through it with you and assures you everything will turn out all right. But for the moment, all you have is an extremely intimate relationship with him.
Now imagine the opposite—if God gave you everything, including health, wealth, pleasure, and popularity, but withheld himself. You enjoy all life has to offer, but are completely separated from his presence and have no idea if he will ever be part of your life again. Everything is coming easy, but you feel abandoned and afraid of your future. For the moment, you’ve got everything in this realm but nothing in any other.
Your emotional response to those two scenarios will tell you a lot about your relationship with God right now. Is he really your everything? Or are you rooting your hopes and dreams in other things? Is he your life or just part of it? The answers to those questions will determine whether you live in up-and-down frustration or peace and security forever. They are vital questions to resolve.
God can’t become our everything until we learn to cling to nothing. Paul expressed this in Philippians 3:8—I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. That doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy other things in life. We absolutely can, and God gladly blesses us with many of them. We just can’t afford to invest our hearts in them more than we invest them in God.
Only a life rooted in him is ultimately satisfying. And it’s worth everything else and more.
