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The Father's Business Podcast
The Father's Business Podcast
Summer Series: Safe in the Father's Heart-No Longer Orphans
What happens when our hearts operate from a place of abandonment rather than security in God's love? This episode delves into the concept of "living from an orphan heart" – that desperate longing to be attached to someone or something that will provide worth and security.
The conversation explores the parable of the Prodigal Son through a fresh lens – not just as a story of rebellion and return, but as a profound illustration of two sons (one who "got busy" and one who "got lost") who both struggled to grasp their father's unconditional love. Most revealing is how the father continually addresses both as "my son," emphasizing relationship over performance.
For those wrestling with trust issues, control tendencies, fear of abandonment, or performance-based identity, this episode offers both insight and hope. The journey from orphan mindset to secure sonship begins with awareness of these patterns and an invitation to hear God's persistent voice calling us back to our true home in His heart.
The Father's Business was founded by Sylvia Gunter to encourage people to a deeper relationship with God. I'm Elizabeth Gunter Powell.
Speaker 2:And I am Kimberly Roddy. Welcome to the Father's Business Podcast. We are so glad that you've joined us. Hey friends, welcome back to the Father's Business Podcast Today. We are so glad that you're with us and we are bringing you a special summer re-release. It is one of our most listened to and personally meaningful episodes from the series Safe in the Father's Heart. It's part two in the series and it's called Living from an Orphan Heart. This one hits deep. Trust us on that right, elizabeth.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely. And as I've been reviewing this episode again, I realize how much of it still speaks to me and how much I need to be aware of when I am living from an orphan heart rather than the heart of a covenant daughter. So, even though we first recorded a while ago these themes of belonging and identity and the deep need to know that we are loved, they never stop being relevant. We talk a lot on this podcast about how our identity as sons and daughters of God is so foundational to everything that we do, but we also know that, even though we believe that, there are times we still live from a place that feels very far from the Father's heart.
Speaker 2:Everything we're walking through in this series the weariness, the questions, the desire to truly be deeply known it points us back to the Father. So when we feel far from the Father's heart, the truth is that we are never orphans, even if our lives or our emotions tell us otherwise. Our deepest need is not more hustle, more control, more approval, working harder. It's actually more of Jesus, more connection to the God who formed us, who sees us and calls us his own. Romans 8.15 says the spirit you received does not make you slaves so that you live in fear again. Rather, the spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship, and by him we cry Abba, father.
Speaker 1:Kimberly. When we forget that truth, when we forget who we are, we scramble for worth, but that ache under the striving, it's an orphan heart trying to find home. So this conversation helps us name those places where we're living from an orphan heart and invite Jesus to meet us there. And here's the beautiful thing we don't have to earn belonging. God doesn't wait for us to get it all right before he runs to embrace us. It's like the father in Luke 15, the story of the prodigal son. God sees us from a distance and he comes running before we can perform, before we can explain, before we can even say sorry. He embraces us, just like the father and the prodigal son did for his son.
Speaker 2:So today, as you listen again, or as you listen for maybe the first time we pray that something in this episode leads you back to the father's arms. We prayed for that last week. If you haven't listened to last week's episode, go back and check that out. We don't want to shame you for your struggle. That's not what we're here to do. We don't shame each other in our struggle, but we want to remind you that the door is always open to the Father heart of God. Healing is possible. You're not alone in this journey. So again, settle in, listen well, open up your heart and your ears, take a breath, ask the Holy Spirit to highlight whatever you need most in this moment through this episode. Here you go. Welcome back to the Father's Business Podcast. Thanks for joining us today.
Speaker 2:We are in our series Safe in the Father's Heart. We are thinking today about things in our lives that happen to us, that kind of cause, these deep reactions sometimes in us. So situations will hit us and we'll have this deep reaction that's somehow linked to a past pain or an old pain. Maybe someone doesn't help us or do what we ask, or we're not able to find things, or we're not chosen for positions these things can cause us to feel a sense of rejection, a sense of deep hurt, and I think for all of us. I think we at times struggle with feeling empty, feeling alone, feeling like we're just surviving. We don't have a sense of peace, we can see God is distant or uncaring, we're defensive, feel like we have to prove ourselves. We just sometimes feel really empty and so in Safe in the Father's Heart. When we talk about these things in chapter two, we're looking at them as defining someone who lives with an orphan heart. Elizabeth, could you take a minute and talk about what it means to have an orphan heart?
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a lot of people kind of push back on that phrase because they're like I'm not an orphan, I have parents, or you know an orphan sounds like a very hard word, but having lived in Romania, where there are a lot, or were when I was over there in the 90s, a lot of orphanages and we did a lot of ministry in there what I mean by living from an orphan heart is this just drive, this longing to be attached to someone or something.
Speaker 1:Because when we would go to those orphanages we'd take ministry teams there, groups of Americans in, and these kids don't know your name, they don't know who you are or where you came from, but they would immediately run up to you and want to hold your hand and drag you off to play with them because they were just so hungry for someone to connect to.
Speaker 1:And so in a lot of ways, when we're talking about living in an orphan heart because obviously you know it's like I have a home, I have parents, whatever what I'm talking about is when my heart is so desperately trying to find fulfillment somewhere, anywhere, or when I have decided I'm not going to let you hurt me and I'm going to keep you at arm's distance, because I can't handle you not wanting to be connected to me. So it's really more an attitude of the heart where you are longing for something and all of us long for things. But I'm talking at such a core level that it causes an over exaggerated response when something doesn't go your way. It's this feeling of abandonment and rejection that is just overwhelming and at different seasons and in different ways in all of our lives, I think we deal with that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think because we were all created at our core with a desire to be truly seen, to be really known, to be unconditionally loved. We feel these things because the pathway to being seen and known and love is, it's risky and at the end of the day, we've really lost touch. It's easy to lose touch of of who God is and who we are in Him. We talk about that so much from the very beginning of this ministry and our conversations. It's knowing who God is and who we are as a result of who he is, and so it's a small view of Christ, it's a small view of the gospel and it's not understanding that as believers we have rights as heirs and sons and daughters, and so we forget that mindset, right yeah?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think it shows up a lot. Where I see the orphan heart in myself and where I see it in other people is when you feel somewhat threatened, like you were just saying it's risky to live with an open heart. It's where you feel like you have to protect yourself.
Speaker 1:And we all have ways we protect ourselves. Some people protect themselves by controlling relationships through anger, some through manipulation, some withdrawal, like if I feel threatened by you, I'm just going to withdraw from the relationship. And so there's some common things that we may not say out loud, but I think we all think some of these at some point like I can't trust you to help me, so I have to handle everything myself. I fall on that one a lot Like, and part of it, I'll be honest, is also I think I'm the one who knows how it should be done. Therefore, I will do it myself. But there is a level of sometimes I'm not sure you're going to come through for me, so I have everything's on me. If I don't do it, it doesn't get done. Or some people say I can't trust your decisions, so I second guess everything you do For others. I can't trust that you won't hurt me. So I'm going to hold back and not let you see the real me, because if you just reject the facade I put out there, that's not going to hurt as much as if I reveal who I truly am and then you don't like that and then a lot of people struggle with this one. I can't trust that you won't leave me, so I will do whatever it takes to keep you here, whether that is manipulation, whether that is losing your own voice because you're so afraid, if you speak up and use your voice, they're going to leave you.
Speaker 1:We all have these themes that are running through our lives, and if you take some time to look at your story, you'll start to see just how young you started believing these things, and we talk a little bit about it in the book. There's a few examples of people in work situations or whatever. They are based on true stories that we changed enough of the information that you'll never figure out who it is, but where something small happened and there was this huge response to that, and some of that I chalk up to just having a bad day. Some of that, I would say, is spiritual warfare and the enemy is trying to cause conflict between people, but a lot of it is actually a biological function of our brain, and that's something we also talked about in this chapter, which is our brain is constantly trying to make sense of everything that's going on around us. Brain is constantly trying to make sense of everything that's going on around us and so when something happens happy, sad, whatever, mad your brain is at rapid pace trying to say okay, where have we had this experience before? So I can file this experience in the same place with all the other ones.
Speaker 1:So in your brain, every happy moment you've ever had is along the same neurological chain and also every traumatic thing that's ever happened to you is stored in the same string of neurons. Every shameful thing that has ever happened to you is stored in the same place. And there's a good reason for this. God created our brain to protect us in a lot of ways, because think about it Kimberly If I approach a hot stove, I don't have the time to logically think through the process of. I remember once before I touched a hot stove and I burned myself. Therefore, I should not touch this hot stove again. But because the brain stores all those types of memories on the same chain and lightning flash, I instinctively pull my hand back from something that's hot, because I remember the last time I touched something hot, I got burned and it was painful. So that's a good thing about the brain.
Speaker 1:But when you were talking about, things happen in our life and a trauma or a rejection happens.
Speaker 1:It may not be that big of a moment by itself, but the brain pulls up. All the other times you felt that same kind of rejection and you feel the emotion of all of those times, and so a lot of what allowing God to refather us is allowing him to come in and heal those broken places in us, so that when someone rejects me in 2023, I don't go back and feel the emotions of all the other times I've been rejected in my entire life. In that moment Easy to say, hard to live but as I was rereading these chapters and thinking through this, I was thinking that is why we are commanded to have the mind of Christ, because if we have the mind of Christ, then we are going to be able to tap into who Jesus is in that moment, as you were just saying, who we are and who we are in him in that moment. So I don't have this explosion of emotion over something that is, yes, frustrating, but doesn't need a volcano of anger coming out.
Speaker 2:You know, a lot of this is linked to fear and control, like you were saying earlier, and so you can think about the question is it better to pull the rug out from under myself than to have someone else do it to me when I least expect it? Yeah, like that, that guarded, controlled position that is. That is living from a place of I don't want to be rejected, I don't want to lose control, I don't want to lose my sense of self or whatever. You feel that, and it's coming from a very, very, really felt place. Yeah, but in essence it it's living out of an orphan heart, it's living out of a heart that doesn't trust, and trusting is hard right yeah, it is hard, especially in the lives that we've all lived, where there's a lot of things I mean kimberly.
Speaker 1:Why do we keep going back to the phrase the moon is round, unless there's a lot of things in this world that our human minds just can't understand? Why God would do what he has to, why he did what he did or what? Why? Why has this happened in my life? And so, yeah, there's a lot of opportunity to not trust the goodness of God. And, yeah, I know people and have been in relationship with people who it's like okay, you can watch the pattern, things are going well. Okay, they're enjoying life. Okay, it's starting to feel a little too safe, it's starting to feel a little too good and sometimes, with not even realizing what they're doing, they will pick a fight or they will withdraw Because, like you said, I'm going to pull the rug out from underneath this before it gets pulled out from underneath me, because, in some way, if I control how the withdrawal or rejection happens, then it's not as painful as if I trust that you're going to still be there for me.
Speaker 2:Right. So how does all of that affect our view of God?
Speaker 1:Wow. I mean I think you, whatever relationship patterns you have in your human relationships, obviously is going to be the lens through which you relate to God. So if I am of the belief that I'm not sure you're going to come through for me, god, I'm going to walk around with a huge it's all on me to make it happen and I am going to be very much consumed with worry and fear and not willing to go. You know what I can trust that God is going to come through for me, even if it looks nothing like what I defined. God coming through for me looks like and that's the other hard part of it is we all have in our minds, I have in my head if you are there for me whether that's my husband, my kids, friends, whoever, my church, if you are there for me.
Speaker 1:Here's my criteria of what there for me looks like and, as you know, kimberly, you're a mediator and family specialist and you deal with this all the time, nine times out of 10, I don't communicate that to my friends and family that this is what I expect there for me looks like. But there's an internal expectation, and so I also have that same internal expectation on God, and so when I pray for something and he doesn't answer the prayer that I thought he was going to answer it, that's where I can feel like, well then, god's not there for me and it's up to me and I have to do it on my own and I'm an orphan and I don't have a loving father who's looking out for me.
Speaker 2:Right and, as you were saying earlier, a lot of this can point back to your own story of your own personal relationship with your earthly father.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it definitely can, because I look back on my relationship with my dad, he was, as I've said before, very introverted, worked really, really hard, and so when he came home from work there wasn't a lot left of him and so I would say he was very emotionally distant, especially in my younger years. That kind of changed as we grew and learned to appreciate each other for who we are. But I, you know, it's kind of like after dinner dad went in his, his study area to read and be quiet, and it was kind of like you it's almost like you don't go into the Holy of Holies, like that is Sean Gunter's space and he wants to be quiet, and so the kids need to go do something else somewhere else and be quiet. There are times when I feel like God doesn't really want to hear from me, and I've had to fight through that in my relationship with God.
Speaker 1:But I'm one of those people that I almost swang the other way because my dad was not as emotionally warm and fuzzy as I wanted him to be. Somehow and it's God, it wasn't me, I don't know but I kind of went the other way where I felt very much connected to God as father after I got over this belief in my head that God doesn't want to hear from me. So through my teenage, college years, twenties and on, I've really enjoyed finding creative ways to connect with him and enjoy him and bring him into my, into my day. But there's a lot of people you know you and I both had these kind of conversations where someone's like I really don't feel like I can hear from God and he just feels really distant.
Speaker 1:And what's the number one question? We ask them Tell me about your relationship with your earthly dad. And nine times out of 10, here comes a story of an earthly dad that hurt them, was not there for them, whatever, and they are now projecting those feelings of this is what a father's like, because this is the only one I've ever known, so it has made it harder for them to see God as father the only one I've ever known, so it has made it harder for them to see God as father.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think the other side to that is true as well. Like one of the one of the stories I have is my dad was a very good provider for our family and so it's been easy for me to see God as provider throughout my life. And there's things that are hard too, and we can talk about those. But I was just thinking of that example. Like there's been times in my life and there's things that are hard too, and we can talk about those. But I was just thinking of that example. Like there's been times in my life there will always be still to this day are times in my life where it's like, okay, how am I going to make this work financially, or what's this going to look like over here, and there's fear and there's concern and there's frustration under that and ultimately there is still this voice that's very real to the is an outflow of seeing that in my earthly father. There's a definite connection there, yeah.
Speaker 1:And I think in my mom's story she mentioned it in what she shared in the episode last week while her earthly father was not present, she had a grandfather and uncles, like she had father figures that were very much present in her world and thought, you know, she was the first grandbaby.
Speaker 1:So of course you know, imagine, first grandchild gets spoiled, rotten right, and so she had older men in her life that took on that fatherly role and yet there was still that ache in that hole because her earthly father, the one that she shares DNA with, chose to leave the family. So it's a complex thing as we approach the issue of the father heart of God, and I'm very mindful of the fact that there are lots of people who have been abused by their father and so the idea even thinking of God as father it may disgust them because of what they someone who said I am your father has done to them. How do you then get over that and translate into what a healthy, heavenly father looks like? And that is quite a journey that many people that we know have had to walk through.
Speaker 2:One of the things that you guys talk about in the book is that with our earthly fathers we can develop coping mechanisms that relate to God. That's what we're talking about here and you say in the book most of the time we choose one of two reactions we either get busy or we get lost. Can you talk about that a little bit? One of two reactions we either get busy or we get lost. Can you talk about that a little bit?
Speaker 1:more and when we say we get busy or we get lost, for some of us, if we grew up thinking our father was not interested in us or we were somehow a burden, like a lot of people, when your mom got pregnant with you, your father was not excited, and part of that is actually part of my story. When mom first told my dad I think I'm pregnant, his reaction was not oh boy, we're having another child. It was like, oh my gosh, we just got the other two civilized and now we're going to have to go through sleepless nights and diapers and all that stuff again. Now he reconciled it and came to a place where he was super excited the day I was born. But there was just always this sense because I knew of that story that somehow I'm a burden.
Speaker 1:And so when you talk about getting busy or you get lost, if we feel like in any way we're a burden or we have to win approval, we exchange relationship with God for doing things for him. So I'm going to serve him, I'm going to be in ministry full time, I'm going to do all this stuff, I'm going to pray, I'm going to read my Bible and we have this list of to-dos, and so we get busy trying to earn the love of God, rather than just knowing that I'm a beloved child and it doesn't matter what I do. God's going to love me because of my relationship through Jesus Christ. So we can get busy or we get lost, and it's basically that's where you're like. You know what I've seen enough and what a father-child relationship looks like on the earth, and I'm not interested in having a relationship like that with you, god. And so we turn to other people, we turn to other things, we turn to the Broken Cisterns the podcast that we did last fall where we try to run to every other thing we can find to find that fulfillment instead of coming to God. So those are broad categories, but I think, if you look at the scriptures, a very familiar passage the prodigal son, which you can find in Luke 15, if you want to read the whole story there. But the basic synopsis of it is is there's two sons, one of them gets busy and one of them gets lost. So for those of you maybe not familiar with the story you don't have your Bible where you can read it it's about a father who has two sons.
Speaker 1:We mainly focus on the prodigal son A lot of people have heard that phrase before and that is the son who had everything that in his father's house. His father was a man of wealth and anything the son had wanted he had it. And he comes to his dad and says, um, I want my inheritance now and I'm leaving. And so he goes off to the far land and spends all of his money and ends up destitute, you know, and thinks pigs are eating better than he is, and he's like I've got to go back to my father's house, right? So that's one son. The other son, the older, stayed home and was faithful and didn't run off, didn't waste the money whatever, and the story is about both of them.
Speaker 1:So most of us are familiar with the prodigal son for the aspect of the father's love for the. You know, the prodigal son's been in the distant land and he comes back and he thinks he's going to be a servant in his father's home. He's like no, kill the fattened calf, bring the best robes. My son has returned. And so we focus a lot on the father's love in that story and that is part of what that story is about.
Speaker 1:But if you look deeper into that story, you start to hear some of the language of both the older son and the younger son. And the younger son is talks if you. It's really interesting if you look at the verses. He talks about needing to be a servant or a slave in his own father's home. And every time the father responds he says my son. And then from the older son he is saying on all my life I've been faithful and I've worked for you and I've done that. So you hear the busyness in that I've been busy and I've worked for you and I've done that. So you hear the busyness in that I've been busy and I've done. Now I've done all these good deeds for you and yet you've never given me a calf to so I can go celebrate with my friends. And so he's off in anger and withdrawing from his father.
Speaker 1:And then the prodigal son had gone and tried getting lost and that didn't work. And he comes back and both of them are alienated from their father's heart, just in very different ways. And so we all do that at different points in our relationship with God. I think a lot of times in your prayer life you can start bargaining with him. You know God, if you'll just come through in this situation. I'll read my Bible more, I'll pray more, I'll do whatever. And there's other times when you're like God, you're just not there for me and you bless everyone else and you care for everyone else, but you just don't care for me. So I'm going to go find my own comfort and get lost and try to do it on my own. So I think it's just a really interesting concept to look through the story of the prodigal son and realize every time they're using the language of slave and servant, that the father keeps repeating my son, my son, because he wants them to understand. Their true identity is not in what they do or don't do.
Speaker 2:They're trying to find a sense of rightness or righteousness within how they're perform or how they perform Right.
Speaker 2:And the truth is is that both sons are, were heirs to the father. They had full rights as sons, not because of their rightness, not because of what they did or didn't do, but because of who they were and how they were in relationship with their father. They were, they were both sons of their father. They chose to live out of that orphan heart which skewed their perspective, but their father saw them for who they were and he loved both of them. Like you said, it was my son, my son, and I think that calling of like, I wonder that calling of my son, just saying my son, could that have ever been a moment for them? I mean, this is a parable, but don't you think that, like in there, Jesus is saying remember, remember. He calls us back to truth by language of intimacy. Yeah, my son, he's like.
Speaker 2:There's a movie called Blood Diamond, where the son has been sold into slavery, has been taken and given a whole new identity, and his father is on a quest to find this diamond, to buy his son back. And so there's a point in the movie where the son shows up and he's pointing a gun towards his father and his father turns around and he just says to him he said he reminds him of who he is because he has forgotten. The son has forgotten, he's been lied to, he's been told other things and he doesn't believe he is who his father says he is. So his father reminds him of who he is and he looks at him. He says Dia, you are my son, my son.
Speaker 2:And I think of the prodigal son story where the father is saying my son, both of you are my sons. And I think our heavenly father wants to look at us and say remember, you're my daughter, you're my son, you're my child, you're my beloved. And it's a calling us back out into proper relationship with him, because the proper relationship is how he views us. Instead of making us the center stage, the center character. He's the center stage, he's he's the, he's the. He's the main character in the story.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, and that's why I often wonder why the story is called the Prodigal Son. I was like it really it should. It's about the father. It's about a father who, when he saw his son from a distance, just took off running so he could embrace him, and the amazing love that father has for both of his sons, one who is filled with self-righteousness and one that's filled with rebellion and, honestly, in the eyes of God, the elder brother is no better than the one who ran away.
Speaker 1:You know, and it was like, oh well, he ran away and prostitutes and gambled Okay, the one who stayed home but was so full with pride and self-righteousness and all these other kind of you know easier to hide sins because they're not as flagrant out there as someone who's drinking, gambling, prostitutes, that kind of stuff. They were both far from the father's heart, even though one of them was right there in the same house with him. So, Kimberly, you know, I think one of the things we got to do first in our own lives is kind of recognize. What are those thoughts, what are those statements that we're believing and I'm not going to ask for true confession time right here from us, but going back to the parable of the prodigal son, what do you think are some of those underlying statements that the younger son and the older son were saying that may go back to their childhood?
Speaker 2:Well, I think the younger son had a heart of rebellion. I think he was clinging to I can't trust your decisions because he was the younger son and so he wanted to take control on his own. I think he also maybe felt like he couldn't measure up because he was the younger son, or maybe he just wanted to have a I-can-do-it-myself attitude. I think I'm probably.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry probably also some of that you're holding out on me. You're not like, because you can imagine, the father has all of this money and yet the son wants to have the control of it Cause maybe in some way he questions the goodness of his father towards him.
Speaker 2:Right, right. I think the older son had a grumbling spirit, a critical spirit right Like he.
Speaker 2:It's that attitude of look at what I've done, yeah, a sense of laboring out of obligation and wanting to be rewarded for that, trying hard to please the father by doing the right thing and then getting angry because it's not seen as better than the younger Right, right. So, yeah, there's a excessively self-confident piece there, self-righteous piece there, needing to be good and right and again having that also also having that attitude of I can do it, I can do it on my own, I can do it my way, I can earn it. I can earn it, yeah. And, and maybe that one you mentioned earlier, I can't trust you to help me, so I'm going to. I got to handle everything myself.
Speaker 2:And then the resentment that comes from that of look, I've handled it all myself and then you still. It's still not good enough, because there was an idealistic perspective of what good enough looked like Right.
Speaker 1:And I know these aren't real people and it is a parable, but I just I can. I can just hear and probably because I have one too you can almost hear the inner critic just screaming in that older son and that nothing he did was ever good enough. He probably thought nothing his dad did was ever good enough. And it's just. It's a really hard place to live when you have that mechanism inside of you that is just always wanting it to be done better. You know, some people would call it perfectionism. I don't think it's quite perfectionism, but it's just this. I could have done that a little better than I did it, you know. Or you know this 75% was great, but I focus on the 25% that didn't go so well. So just a lot of shame and fear and control in both of these.
Speaker 1:And then you know, kimberly, you know family systems. As you said, older, older brother versus younger one. There there's always some jealousy between who has more of the attention of the parents and I mean I feel sorry, kimberly, you're a firstborn. I feel sorry for all firstborns because parents are just trying to figure stuff out and I know they were with my brothers and I'm a baby and the only girl and so I know I got away with a lot of stuff and so I can understand just some of that feeling of you never would have let me do what this guy did and you never would have treated me that way.
Speaker 1:And so there's just so much. I love how Jesus is telling a simple but profound parable, with a lot of different layers to it of things, knowing that he totally understands. As you said at the beginning, we want to be known, we want to be seen, we want to be understood, and no one. It's impossible for another human to fully understand the motives of someone else, but so grateful that God does. But sadly, so often I rather find that from people I can see, rather than just leaning into who God says I am and knows I am and understands me deeper than I understand myself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think being able to understand that we all tend to have an orphan heart at times is kind of the first step toward dealing with it. Right, like, yeah, let me actually evaluate and look at my life and say, wow, I do that, I have that perspective, I live that way Since I've become aware of this teaching and this understanding. There's a couple of different places that teach about being a son or a daughter or living out of an orphan spirit, orphan heart. I can see this more readily. I don't always catch it and I don't always deal with it, but sometimes, upon reflection of a scenario in particular with my family or my friends or God, I'll start to think, oh, you were totally doing that because you don't believe the goodness of God and who he really is and who he has declared you to be, because you're in Christ.
Speaker 2:So I think that I think God longs to heal that orphan heart and I think it's a journey, it's, it's a process, I mean, especially on this side of eternity. And so you know, I think the first step is just starting to pay attention and in the book if you have a copy of the book, on pages 23 and 24, there's some bullet points and some questions that you can ask yourself, to think through and evaluate your own life and just thinking through what we've just talked about and being able to ask yourself do I live from that heart? Do I live from that perspective? God, help me understand who I am in you, help me understand that you gave me the spirit of sonship and I can call out Abba Father, as Roman says. And so when we can identify that, then we can start to confess it. Hear from our father, him saying my son, my daughter, and it's a journey and it's okay.
Speaker 2:You know, like Elizabeth said, I have very loud inner critic as well. There's going to be those voices that continue to speak to us, and some of that's the work of the enemy and some of that's how we're wired in our personalities and and just trusting that. This is a process. I don't have to get it right or perfect, but it's a journey and and the goal is to know who truly know who God is, that he is a good father, and yet that is hard, for I would say that's hard for all of us, whether we've had a good father or a bad father or anything in between. It's hard and so it's a journey and a process of understanding and offering and extending grace to ourselves and seeking forgiveness and receiving forgiveness and walking truly out of who God made us to be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so I think for this week, as we all kind of think and reflect on this, it'd be a great exercise for just to start to ask those questions. As, kimberly, as you said, recognizing there are times and places where I live from an orphan heart is the first step. Recognizing there are times and places where I live from an orphan heart is the first step. If you struggle with anger, don't just say well, you know, I've got a bit of a temper or I have anger issues. Spend some time with God and just kind of processing through your life and ask what's underneath that Anger is the fruit? Anger is not the problem. Is the fruit? Anger is not the problem.
Speaker 1:There's some belief statement that you have underneath that is causing that emotion to come out of you. Or maybe you struggle with jealousy, and I know some people. They can't be on social media because seeing how great everyone else's life is going makes them have feelings of envy or jealousy that God is not giving them the same things that God gave this person over here. So, okay, again, jealousy is the fruit. But what is this statement? I believe it could be as simple as God gives good gifts to other people and not me Okay, where in your story did you begin to believe that there's something that has led you to believe that there's something that has led you to that belief?
Speaker 1:So, just for all of us to take the time to understand that I know for me, when I was younger, in my 20s, I desperately wanted to be married and I watched wedding after wedding after wedding of my friends, and then even I was a youth pastor and kids that had been in the youth group are now getting married and I'm still single and I really had to struggle with and understand that just because God gave this friend of mine a husband doesn't mean that he's holding out on me, like it's not, like there's only four husbands around and if four people get married there's not going to be. God's not got the person for me when it's the right time for me, but I really had to be able to sit in that and go. God giving something to someone else is not him withholding from me.
Speaker 1:And so that I could truly be able to rejoice with those people getting married, when that's all I really wanted to do in my 20s was be married.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you've just talked about anger and jealousy and some of those things. I think another thing would be hurt and fear. Yeah, yeah, would be hurt and fear, yeah yeah. Underneath anger is typically hurt, but I think that fear too. Like when my dad passed away, there was a very long ongoing conversation between God and I of me not really believing that he would always be there for me, and that wasn't something my dad intentionally did.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:But it correlates and trusting. I prayed and asked God to heal my dad and he didn't. So can God really be trusted? Is he going to come through for me? And so those are fears and those are hurts, and so being able to look at that and look at my story and recognize that that's really there.
Speaker 1:Absolutely so great time this week just to kind of journal, maybe, or however you process best, and just kind of go okay where God show me I may not even be aware of it, but show me where I am living from an orphan heart and then help me understand what's underneath that, what, what's the deeper thing that we need to work on?
Speaker 1:and allow you to heal in me so that I don't live from that orphan heart as much. So, as we conclude this podcast, we just want you to know that we are praying for God to meet each of you where you are in your journey. He understands you, he loves you, he longs for you to know more of his father heart towards you, and so we're excited about going down this journey and what God has for each of us. I want to thank you for listening to the Father's Business Podcast. This podcast is made possible through donations by people like you. To donate, go to wwwthefathersbusinesscom. Be sure to follow us at the Fathers Biz on Instagram and Facebook.
