Stripped-off Titles for Greater Glory
July 15, 2026 | 1:47 am
Some years ago, I worked for a large multinational corporation. Life was good. I had a great job, wonderful benefits, and a passport that was collecting stamps faster than I could remember the countries. Meetings. Flights. Conferences. Deadlines. Promotions. Repeat. I thought I was climbing.
Then came two words every employee dreads. Corporate restructuring. It started as office gossip. “Have you heard?” “They’re reorganizing.” “Some departments are being dissolved.” You know how those conversations go. Everyone becomes an expert overnight. Until one day the rumors became reality!
Many of us lost our jobs. Along with them went our salaries, office access, email addresses and perhaps the hardest thing to lose was our titles.
Now what surprised me wasn’t losing the job. It was discovering how much of me had been tied to what I did. The silence afterwards was loud. No meetings. No work emails. No calendar reminders. No one introducing me by an impressive title. Just me!
That season forced me to answer a question I had successfully avoided for years: Who am I when nobody is applauding me? I soon discovered how much God enjoys asking us uncomfortable questions. Just ask Moses and David and Joseph and Jesus too!
For forty years Moses was a prince in Pharaoh’s palace. Then, almost overnight, he became a shepherd in the wilderness. What a career change! Yet it was in the wilderness, not the palace, that God prepared him to lead a nation.
Remember David? He knew something about being stripped too. One day he was playing the harp in the king’s palace, and the next he was hiding in caves while running for his dear life. The cave looked like failure, but heaven called it preparation.
Joseph wore many outfits in life from a favored son’s coat, to a slave’s garment, to prison clothes, and finally royal robes. God kept changing his clothes before He changed his position (Genesis 39-49).
Perhaps, just maybe, God isn’t nearly as attached to our titles as we are. I remembered Jesus’ words in John 15:2:
“Every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.”
Pruning doesn’t feel productive. It feels painful. The branch probably thinks it’s being punished. The gardener knows it’s being prepared. That’s the difference! The gardener never prunes because He hates the branch but because He loves the fruit.
Interestingly, when you prune a tree, it doesn’t die. It surprises you. Small shoots begin appearing in places you never expected. Branches become stronger. Fruit becomes healthier. Perhaps that’s why God allows seasons where He cuts us back. Not because we’re failing but because we’re growing.
Perhaps you’re reading this after losing something important. Could be a job, a position, a ministry role, a business, or a dream. It’s usually a dark and painful season with never ending questions of ‘why me?’ You could choose to get stressed and depressed but you could also lean in to God and seek His will for your new season. Don’t confuse pruning with rejection, silence for abandonment, loss as God’s absence. The gardener is still working.
Jesus Himself is the greatest example of this. If anyone had a title worth keeping, it was Him. King of Kings. Lord of 
Lords. Creator of the universe. Yet He willingly laid aside the visible glory of heaven and clothed Himself in humanity.
Imagine that the One worshiped by angels became a carpenter’s son. The One who owned everything had nowhere to lay His head. The One who spoke galaxies into existence allowed Himself to be nailed to a cross.
He was stripped of honor, comfort, recognition and garments. Yet the cross was never God’s final chapter. His greatest glory came after the greatest surrender. Resurrection always follows crucifixion. Glory follows surrender. Fruit follows pruning.
Looking back now, I realize God wasn’t taking something away from me. He was making room. Room for new gifts, for ministry, for writing, for family and for things that had been squeezed out by a calendar that had become far too busy. Today, I hold titles with an open hand because they expire, business cards fade, organizations restructure, companies merge and positions change. But being a child of God never goes out of date.
I learned that some friendships are seasonal, and that’s okay. Some jobs are assignments, not identities. Some doors close because God has already started building another one. God is far more interested in our fruit than our résumé.
If God has stripped away something that you once depended on, don’t lose heart. Take time to listen to His voice and instructions for you. He wants you to produce fruit in other ways that are unfamiliar to you. He wants to draw new wine out of you and it will come with crushing and pressing. He wants to dig new fallow ground in your heart and it will feel unreal. Trust Him. The results will be tangible!
2 Corinthians 4:17-18 (NLT)
17 For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! 18 So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.
I slowed down. I rediscovered me. I connected with my family. I found parts of myself that corporate success had quietly hidden. I began serving God in ways I never imagined. I stretched, grew and expanded.
God strips us of titles which are seen so He can clothe us with purpose which is eternal.
I like who I have become. I hope that you will too when God is done with you!
Shalom
Rev Anne