💀 What Remains

I’ve been visiting a friend — let’s call him Paul — who has been battling brain cancer. The last few times I saw him, he was in palliative care already.

There is something that happens to a man when he is facing death that you cannot prepare for. Even if you’ve read every sermon on suffering, memorised every psalm of lament, prayed every prayer of deliverance — you are still not prepared.

It was painful. So painful. And his young children — God, their children.

But here is what I want to reflect on, because I think it matters more than most of us realise.

When everything is stripped away, what is left is your core.

Not your resume. Not your carefully curated LinkedIn profile. Not the version of yourself you present at church or at dinner parties. All of that falls off like paint from a burning wall. What remains is the thing you are when there is nothing left to pretend.

In Paul’s case, it was praise. Thanksgiving. His sense of humour. In one word: faith. He laughed. He thanked God. He worshipped. Right up to the edge.

Now I’m old enough to know that is not the default setting of human beings.

I have sat with dying men who became something else entirely. Men whose core, when exposed, was anger. Bitterness. Poison. People who looked at God and cursed. People who looked at their families and blamed. It is one of the most terrifying things a human being can witness — to see a man’s soul laid bare and find that what glows in the centre is not love but rage.

This is why I say character is not what you do when life is easy. Character is what you are when life is ending — a courage of the soul that shows itself only when there’s nowhere left to hide.

For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.

— Philippians 1:21 (NKJV)

Paul writes those words from prison. He doesn’t know if he will live or die. And in that uncertainty, he says the most audacious thing a Christian can ever say: it doesn’t matter, because Christ is the content of both options.

I am hard pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better. Nevertheless to remain in the flesh is more necessary for you.

— Philippians 1:23–24 (NKJV)

That is Paul’s dilemma — and it is ours with our friend. If it were only him, I’d say: go on ahead, brother. We’ll see you in heaven. But his young children need a father. I am convinced that God still has work for this man to do. So I am praying. Not the polite kind of prayer. I’m talking about the kind of crying-out prayer — the kind that doesn’t whisper, it roars. The kind that grabs God by His promises and refuses to let go. I am believing for a miracle. Divine healing. In the name of Jesus. Amen.

But while we pray, let me turn this mirror on myself.

What would remain of me?

If every pretence were stripped away — if every achievement, every comfort, every distraction were taken — what would glow in the centre of me?

That is the question this post is really about. Not Paul, not even primarily cancer. Me.

The fruit of the Holy Spirit — love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control — that is not a list of nice-to-have personality traits. That is the core of a man who belongs to God. That is what remains when the fire comes.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.

— Galatians 5:22–23 (NKJV)

I want that. I want my core to be faith and thanksgiving. I want my default setting to be praise, even in the room where someone is dying. I want to be the kind of man whose last words are a prayer of gratitude, not a list of grievances.

Pray for Paul. Pray for his healing. And pray for us all — that when the stripping comes, what remains will be Christ.