Hope, Healing & Freedom Podcast: Episode 162
TRANSCRIPT
Have you ever thought about firing your parents? I remember a season in my life when I realized that I might never get my father’s approval, and I emotionally fired him. Oh, I still lived under his roof until I got married, but I quit looking to him for approval. In other words, I began to live my life as an Orphan. In this podcast, and in the next podcast, we are going to look at a very common stronghold that is probably affecting your life in some way, and you might be so used to it, you don’t recognize its power over your life. Come along as we look at the stronghold of orphan lifestyle, performance, and anxiety.
I’m Lee Whitman from Restoring the Foundations and I welcome you into this Hope Healing and Freedom Podcast. Feeling like an orphan is a very common experience. Most of us live life as orphans to one degree or another. Many people we talk to say things like, but I had parents, I am not an orphan. We are not talking about being a physical orphan who has no parents, but rather we are referring to living life as emotional and spiritual orphans. In this podcast, I will describe some of the characteristics of living life as a spiritual orphan.
This orphan lifestyle is much more common than many of us would admit. Most people have been taught that you can’t count on anyone else; if something is going to happen it is up to you. Especially here in the USA, we have been led to believe that independence is king. In fact, we have a theme song written to our independence, Frank Sinatra’s song, “I did it my way.”
To understand this orphan lifestyle, we have to begin with what happened in the Garden of Eden. God created man for fellowship with Him. They had an amazing arrangement in the Garden. Adam and Eve walked together with God in the cool of the evening, face to face with God. God wanted intimacy with His new creation so He gave them everything in the Garden they could ever need. They could eat from any tree they wanted EXCEPT the fruit from one tree: the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. They had all the food they would need or want. It appears that they didn’t have to work for their food because the sweat of their brow didn’t come into play until after sin entered the world. They didn’t need to worry about clothes since they didn’t wear any.
Then the Slimy Snake in the grass came with a very specific temptation.
The serpent tempted the Man and woman by saying in Genesis 3:5, “For God knows that on the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will become like God, knowing good and evil.”
This was, of course, a lie. Genesis 1:26 says “Let us make mankind in Our image, according to Our likeness.” Man was already created in the image and likeness of God. The temptation from the snake was that you have to do something to become like God. You can’t trust the goodness of God; you have to earn your way. #1 thing that keeps us from experiencing intimacy with God is feeling like and orphan. That is why the snake in the grass attacked our image of Father God.
We know our own story better than other people’s stories, so I tend to tell pieces of my story on these podcasts. Hope you don’t mind. When I was 30 years old, we were on a church staff as the youth minister and associate pastor. Associate pastors get to do all of the things the senior pastor doesn’t want to do. Cindi and I were in charge of the youth of the church, the children’s department, which was children from birth until they got in the youth group, we were in charge of the religious education of the entire church, children through adults, I oversaw the maintenance of the building and church grounds, plus I was the director of an 8 team church softball league that played on our softball diamond. Get the picture. We were involved in most every aspect of the operation of the church. I am drawing a picture to tell my story. I woke up one night with incredible pain in my lower chest and upper abdomen. I thought I was having a heart attack. We lived out in the country about 4 miles from the nearest hospital, so Cindi drove me to the hospital because that was faster than waiting for an ambulance. After some very uncomfortable tests, they determined that my gallbladder needed to be removed. This was back in the day before the new laparoscopic surgery, so they cut a six-inch long hole in my belly and removed my gallbladder. I was told that I needed to do nothing but rest for six weeks. This was in late spring, and my grass was growing rapidly. I was such an orphan that I tried to mow my grass myself because I was too much of an orphan to ask someone to help me. I got about halfway finished with the lawn and almost could not carry myself back to bed. Being an orphan is not always the smartest way to live. After that experience, Cindi called one of our friends from church to come and mow my yard. He was more than glad to help. To my shame, I laid in my bed as my friend mowed my grass and cried because I could not do it myself. I was a major orphan.
People will often ask why can’t you just cast out an orphan heart? The answer is that an orphan heart needs to be displaced or replaced with a heart of Sonship as God originally desired. The Orphan heart is not a demon that you can cast out. The Orphan heart opens the door to the orphan lifestyle that we are talking about in this podcast. The orphan lifestyle is made up of demonic influences that lead to certain behaviors. These influences are demons that put pressure on a person to operate out of their orphan heart. For example, the orphan lifestyle is made up of demons that cause disconnectedness. They make it hard for a person to connect with others. Other demons that are associated with the orphan lifestyle are demons that cause fatherlessness and motherlessness, so we act as though we have no parents. They also cause things like a lack of identity or a lack of having a place to belong. These demons cause one to constantly feel restless and they are continually searching.
In ministering to the orphan lifestyle, we break the hold these individual demons have on a person’s life and kick them out. We do that by dealing with the lies the person believes about themselves, others, and God. We bring healing to their wounded heart and cut off the generational pressure to continue to walk as an orphan that goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden.
Orphan Lifestyle and performance and anxiety are often tied together. In this podcast we are going to talk about orphan characteristics. In next week’s podcast we will describe how performance and anxiety go hand in hand with orphanness. The Orphan believes they have to perform in order to receive anything in life. Then they are anxious wondering if they have done enough. When Orphans don’t feel safe, they protect themselves by performing or withdrawing.
Let me give you some characteristics of orphans so you can recognize if you are operating out of these yourself. In order to make this a little lighter, I will talk about these in Jeff Foxworthy fashion.
You might be an orphan if:
- You feel like there is only so much to go around, so if others get some, then there is less for me. Not just pizza either. Everything. If others get recognition, then you believe there is less for you. If someone gets a raise, then, yep, there is less for you. Orphans fight for everything they can get because it might not be available in the future.
- You can’t rejoice when others prosper because it is taking something away from me. Similar to the one above this, the orphan believes that if others prosper, it is taking something away from them.
- If you have a hard time, asking others for help. Orphans have learned the hard way that they can’t rely on others, so they don’t even ask for help. “No one would want to help me anyway.” Orphans don’t feel worthy of asking others to help them. That was me about asking someone to help me mow my grass when I was recovering from major surgery.
- You are independent and self-reliant. They can’t rely on others, so they feel like they have to do everything themselves, which makes them very self-reliant and self-sufficient. We know a woman who would love to be married, but because she is so self-reliant, she accidentally scares men away.
- You view God as Master and yourself as a slave. I have to serve Him, or He might leave me like all others have. I have to earn my way by serving the master.
- Seek the praise of man, which leads to striving and anxiety.
- You are motivated by a need for personal achievement, which leads to performance.
- You are constantly comparing yourself to others because you are in competition with others for recognition which leads to jealousy of others’ success and positions. An orphan is more likely to look at another’s promotion and success believing that they should have been the one to get the promotion.
- You lack identity, which makes it hard for you to find your place in life. An orphan goes around constantly looking for a place to belong yet believing that they will never find a place to belong.
- You feel like you must be holy. Orphans are driven by an ever-increasing condemnation and shame. I should have known better, or I should have done more, are words that are often spoken.
- You lack personal identity and live their lives without being able to connect with others. Having been rejected by their earthly parents, they believe that others will not want to have a relationship with them without them having to earn that relationship.
- You see authority as a source of pain, and you distrust them. Authority is seen as wanting to correct them, control them, and humiliate them, not help them succeed in life.
- Love of the Law – The orphan lives by the notion that “please tell me what I need to be doing to meet the standard”. I have to earn my way, so I need to know what the law says I need to do in order to be right with God. This is opposed to the son’s relationship with His Father which is motivated by the Law of Love.
- Your motivation behind Christian disciplines is duty and obligation. I ought to pray more. I need to give more. I must serve even when I don’t want to.
- You constantly compare yourself to others, which is a form of self-rejection. If I could only be like so and so, then I would be acceptable and lovable.
- You feel that God is like their earthly parents. He is absent, distance, does not communicate well with them. Leaves them guessing about what is needed in the relationship. Or they feel like God will help others, but not them. They have to earn everything they do get.
The good news is that Jesus came to give us identity. John 14:18 “I will not leave you as orphans, I am coming to you.”
PRAYER
Father God thank You for not leaving us as orphans, but You have adopted us into Your forever family. Now You are our Abba Father. Would You help us know any ways we are living as orphans and not as Sons and Daughters? Please help us experience being Your children rather than just knowing that intellectually.
Please join us on next week’s Hope Healing and Freedom podcast as we look at how performance and anxiety team up with orphan lifestyle to create a very strong yet very common stronghold designed to keep you from experiencing an intimate relationship with Father God.