The Things I Didn’t Have Time to Say About Orphan Identity

In this special edition episode of The Higher Pursuit Podcast, Cecily shares the “behind the scenes” revelations, study notes, and biblical insights that didn’t make it into the four messages she is ministering this weekend at the Monadnock Renew Women’s Conference.

This conversation dives deep into orphan identity, striving, sonship, healing, and the Father’s heart.

Through powerful biblical examples like the older brother in Luke 15, Esther, and Psalm 73, Cecily explores what it looks like to live as sons and daughters of God instead of spiritual orphans trying to earn love, approval, and belonging.

If you’ve ever struggled with:
• insecurity
• comparison
• striving
• performance-based identity
• fear of not being enough
• or difficulty receiving God’s love

—this episode is for you.

In This Episode:

• The older brother and the orphan mindset of striving
• Why many believers serve FOR love instead of FROM love
• The deeper meaning behind crying “Abba, Father”
• The courtroom language of Romans 8:16
• Esther as an orphan who carried courage, wisdom, and identity
• Psalm 73 and how comparison distorts identity
• The difference between living like a servant and living like a son or daughter

Key Takeaway

You are not fighting FOR sonship…
you are learning to live FROM it.

Scriptures Mentioned

• Luke 15
• Romans 8:15–16
• Deuteronomy 19:15
• Psalm 73
• Book of Esther

A New Place to Go Deeper

If this conversation resonates with you, Cecily is now sharing additional reflections, teachings, and spiritual insights on Substack—a space dedicated to helping believers pursue a deeper, more vibrant walk with God.

There you’ll find both short reflections and longer teachings that expand on many of the ideas shared in the livestream.

You can follow along here:
Cecily Lachapelle on Substack

Connect with Cecily

Podcast: The Higher Pursuit Podcast
Website: Higher Pursuit Ministries
Substack: Cecily Lachapelle Substack

If this episode encouraged you, be sure to follow the podcast and share it with someone who might need this message today.

Sometimes the simplest invitation can change more than we realize.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Many Christians have thought this way. They serve, they volunteer, they keep their nose clean, they work hard, they do all the right things, but deep down, they only feel valuable when they're productive. And you know what that means? It means we're not resting in love. It means we're performing for love. And that, my friends, is orphan thinking. An orphan mindset measures its worth by performance, productivity, recognition, comparison. It believes if I do enough, maybe I'll feel secure. But sons and daughters don't serve for love. They serve from love. And one of the saddest lines in this whole parable is when the father says to the older brother, Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours. In other words, you've been living like a serpent in the house when you were always a son. And honestly, some of us do that too. So if this resonates with you tonight, if you've ever felt like you had to earn God's love instead of resting in it, just put a simple heart or me too in the comments.com. You can also find me on YouTube at Cecily LaChapelle with Higher Pursuit Ministries. Okay, now let's dive into the podcast. Well, hey, everybody. Welcome in tonight. For those of you who are just joining or who are new here, welcome. This is the Higher Pursuit live stream and podcast, a place where hungry hearts gather to know God more, experience his love, and walk closely with him every day in our everyday, real life, messy lives. So I'm super excited about this live stream because this is going to be different than what I normally do. In this episode, I'm actually going to share with you some of the material that didn't make it into the messages that I'm going to be sharing at the upcoming Renew Women's Conference in Jaffrey, New Hampshire next weekend. And there's still sign time to sign up if you want to go. So I put the QR code up there in the corner. And you can either stay on site. They have large bedrooms that have like bunk beds and private baths, or there are local hotels if you prefer the local, you know, the cushy hotel bed kind of thing. So the QR code is right there for the conference registration. You can just uh grab that. So, anyway, talking about tonight and and how I got to this place of the decision that I wanted to share some snippets. When I teach, I obviously have to stay within a time limit because we're not in Africa where people preach for like two hours and everybody just sits there. The American um hind end does not have the tolerance for pretty much anything over 40 minutes. So I try to come in around the 35-minute mark max. And therefore, when I'm studying, there's a lot of really great information that I study and I research because hey, Deb Mattis is here. Good to see you, Deb. Um, so I try to study around the topic much wider than I'm gonna share. So I want to know way more about whatever the topic is than the bit I'm gonna say. And so, as the Lord is showing me so many things, I know that I can't fit them all in the message. So I know I've been doing this long enough that I know my process. And just a little window into the mishigas of Cecily. Generally, what happens is I get this great idea, usually when I'm exercising or sometimes in the shower or drying my hair, but I'll get a great idea for a message. And in my mind, it's very clear. I know exactly what I want to say until I sit down to figure out how I'm gonna say that. And then all of a sudden, it all sounds really stupid. And I start writing ideas down. I'm like, what was I thinking? This is like the dumbest thing ever. Nobody's ever gonna want to hear this. But I know the process, I know that that's just part of what I go through. So I just go through it. Lisa Demurs is here. Awesome. Good to see you, Lisa. So I just get pushed through that part where I think this is so dumb, nobody's ever gonna want to hear this or get anything out of it. And then I start researching it because I love research. I used to hate research papers. How many of you hated research papers when you were in school? Just give me a thumbs up in the chat if you absolutely if your teacher said, Oh, I've got a research paper and it's due at the end of the quarter, you knew your life was going to be hell for the whole quarter. I hated the three by five note cards. I hated all of it. Linda Hawkins, listening. Good to see you, girl. So glad you're here. So if you hated research papers, let me know if you hated those. Oh, Stephanie hated them. Yes, it was so boring. Mandy hated them. And I mean, I creative writing, I could do that all day. Yes, tell me to write a poem or do a creative writing piece on my feelings or something. Totally down with that. But research paper on, I don't know, Abraham Lincoln or the state of Oregon, Delisa Silk also hated research. Yes, I think we all did, but it was a necessary evil. And here's why it was a necessary evil for me. Now that I study the Bible, it's a dang good thing that I learned how to do research that I actually like now organizing my thoughts. I don't use three by five cards, but now I use Google Docs. Kind of the same thing. I can still move things around and chop it all up. And so I go through this process where I get the idea. It seems amazing. I start writing about it. It totally seems stupid, banal. Nobody's gonna like this. Then I start researching, and that's where I geek out. That's the part, the kind of like teacher-y part. Linda Hawkins liked research papers. Weirdo. Well, we love you anyway. But uh anyway, you you are very, you are a very smart woman. So I can see why you would like them. But I'm glad now that I like to research. And I think maybe because I like the topic. I like the Bible, so the research part does not seem so uh mind-bendingly boring. Linda Nardell is here. Fantastic. Good to see you. This is awesome. Can I have a party up in here? So the moment that I um begin to write the first draft of my document, I open another Google Doc at the exact same time with the same title. So let's just say the title, uh, for instance, Friday night's message for the women's conference. The title is Strong but Striving. So I had the title on one Google Doc. I open another Google Doc, same name, except I put in all caps, deleted parts, because I know as I start writing, I want to have that document that's going to be the uh receptacle for all the deleted parts ready. I don't even delete a comma without putting it over in my deleted docs. That's a little bit of an exaggeration, but I really will put everything in that deleted parts doc because I found that so many times I will delete something from a message saying it's not pushing the needle forward on, you know, getting my point across, or it's too wordy, or um, I just didn't like that, how that came out. And so I'll delete it and then find that I need to go back for it because as the draft is going along, I'm like, you know what? That actually really was a good thought. I think that is important. And I kind of can't handle this message without it. So I'm gonna have to put it back in. And um, if I didn't have a deleted doc to go with it, then when I decided I wanted to put that back in, what would I do? I wouldn't remember how I said it, I wouldn't remember how I organized that thought. How frustrating would that be if I didn't have it? Additionally, I always imagined that someday I'd want to go back for some of that good stuff. And maybe it's a whole nother message. When I teach people um to in communication, when I teach people how to teach, that's one of the things that I say is when you're putting a message together, it all kind of feels like your baby. You feel like, oh, well, it's all good. And I wouldn't want to like cut an arm off and just be like, oh, we I don't need that. But but just think about it. If you're cutting something out of a document, it's not gone. It's still there. You can go back for it and it can become its own separate message another time. But what I notice a lot of people do when they are writing a sermon, writing a message, or even maybe writing a presentation for work. You have so much knowledge, you know so much, you want to share it all. You think this is all good stuff. Everybody needs to know all of it. So you want to do this massive elephant-size brain dump, and nobody gets anything out of it. They don't get anything out of it at all because it's too much information. It doesn't make sense, it doesn't have a nice, clean, specific point. So if you know so much about a topic, but you can only share this teeny tiny pinpoint of it, then what do you do with all the other stuff? You put it in your deleted parts doc. And it can become other messages, other teachings. So that's what I do with those. But here's the thing: it breaks my heart to have to come to cut some of that amazing material. I guess I kind of feel like an NFL coach who has to make those last cuts before they finalize the roster at the beginning of the season. But honestly, sometimes those cut parts are the things that impact me the most personally. They're what deepen the message for me in a really profound way. And sometimes those cut parts are actually where the Holy Spirit has just done the biggest work in me. But because they don't push the needle forward in making the point of my message, they get cut. So tonight, I thought it would be cool to share some of the behind-the-scenes revelations from my recent messages on orphan identity, sonship, walking as a son or daughter of the king. So if you have a Bible or Bible app on your phone, iPhone, iPad, i whatever, um, let's talk about the difference between living like an orphan and living like a son or daughter of God. But before we jump in, let me know in the comments where you're watching from tonight. Some of you I know where you're probably watching from. And also tell me if this topic of identity and belonging is something that God's been dealing with you in your life lately. Just type that's me in the chat. I've been talking with a lot of people who listened to my last podcast on orphan identity, and they went, wow, uh, John La Chapelle is walking, watching from the backyard. Fantastic. It's probably feeding the birds. So, you know, many people listened to that last episode that I did. Well, not the last one, but the one that I did on the orphan identity. And they said that it really, really struck a number of chords. So I think a lot of people are thinking about the orphan identity versus the identity that we're called to have as sons and daughters of God. So we're gonna start in Luke 15. And this is the story of well, verses 11 to 32. This is the story of the prodigal son. And most people focus on that guy, the younger brother, the prodigal son, the rebel, because his sin is so obvious. He rebels, he demands his inheritance, he leaves home, he wastes everything, he hits rock bottom and you know, comes home, he's welcomed by the dad. You know, we love that part, either because we were a prodigal that came home and found our heavenly father with open arms ready to take us in, or we're praying for a prodigal. But honestly, the older brother fascinates me more and more every time I read this story. Because the younger brother acted like an orphan through rebellion, but the older brother acted like an orphan through striving. And I think that there are many more believers who relate to the older brother than the younger brother. The Bible says that when the older brother came in from the fields, he heard music and dancing. And instead, this is what really, really this is the part that didn't make it into the message right here. Instead of going into the house to find out what was going on, or just looking for his father to ask him, he asked one of the servants what was happening. So I want you to just picture the scene. There's this big celebration going on inside, I imagine, like the big house where the father and the family live. And the older brother has come in from the fields and he's with the servants. And as a son in the house, where do you think he should have gone to go get information? The house. But he doesn't. He turns to his cronies, the people he feels most comfortable with. Now, the issue isn't that he spoke to a servant. That is not the point. The deeper issue is that although he was a son, he related to the household more like a worker than a child. So listen, what I'm about to say could be totally misinterpreted. So please, I might have to go back over it. If you don't understand, tell me in the comments. Say, Cecily, that sounds awful. Please explain. But who you hang out with and identify with speaks volumes about how you see yourself and the value that you place on yourself. For instance, when a beautiful young girl starts hanging out with the bad boys, the ones with reputations of using women and tossing them, then you know that even though she's beautiful and precious, she doesn't see herself that way. She doesn't see herself with value, like worth protecting or preserving. And back when I was one of the youth leah, one of the youth leaders at our church, we would always say to the parents at the parent meetings that we'd hold, show me who your teens are hanging out with, and I can predict with almost 100% accuracy where they're gonna be in one year. We saw it all the time. How does the phrase go? Birds of a feather flock together. Well, what if those one of those birds is an eagle and the rest are chickens? What you know, what if the eagle sees himself as a chicken? That's when the way you see yourself becomes more impactful in your life than even the reality of who you are. It doesn't even matter if this is an eagle if he doesn't see himself that way and if he acts like a chicken, if he never soars like an eagle and just pecks around on the ground, who cares what he was born as, how he sees himself is more important, and it's going to have more impact on his life. And in this case, with the elder brother, he's a son in the house. He's an heir of the father and a brother to this lost boy who just returned home. But you wouldn't know it by the way he's acting. Instead of seeking the information that he wanted from his own father, he turns to the people he feels the most comfortable with. And the point is made even clearer by what he says. When he finally does approach the father, he says, Lo, these many years I've been serving you. That word serving in the Greek actually is a verb that carries the idea of slave-like labor. So the NLT, I think, actually gets it right where it says, All these years I've been slaving for you. Listen to that language. He doesn't say, I've been with you, I loved you, I've enjoyed being your son. No, he defines his relationship to his father by performance. I've slaved, I've obeyed, I've earned, and suddenly you realize this son does not act or think like a son. So tell me in the chat if you've ever had that kind of a relationship with God where you worked your tail off for God or for someone else, you maxed yourself out, you sacrificed, and then you felt like you didn't get what you deserved for all the work and all the burnout that you experienced. Tell me if you've ever felt like that. I think a lot of Christians are feeling like that. And that's why they experience exhaustion. That's why they get a negative attitude about God, about the church. Because instead of engaging in an intimate relationship with God, they're trying to earn approval. Stephanie goes, me. Yeah, I mean, this son he thinks like a slave trying to earn approval. The younger brother in his rebellion, he says, give me my inheritance. Rude. Well, the older brother says, I deserve my inheritance. Whoa. Different behavior, same broken identity. Neither one of these sons understood the father's heart. But here's the thing that's really scary that really struck me as I was studying this time. The older brother thinks something, and it's it's almost something you you well, you would never want to say this out loud, especially to God. He's thinking and acting like he's earned more than he has received. So he's working for his relationship with his father. He's working for his inheritance. And he feels like he has earned more than he has received. Can you hear the in the time? Many Christians have thought this way. They serve, they volunteer, they keep their nose clean, they work hard, they do all the right things. But deep down, they only feel valuable when they're productive. And you know what that means? It means we're not resting in love. It means we're performing for love. And that, my friends, is orphan thinking. An orphan mindset measures its worth by performance, productivity, recognition, comparison. It believes if I do enough, maybe I'll feel secure. But sons and daughters don't serve for love, they serve from love. And one of the saddest lines in this whole parable is when the father says to the older brother, Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours. In other words, you've been living like a servant in the house when you were always a son. And honestly, some of us do that too. So if this resonates with you tonight, if you've ever felt like you had to earn God's love instead of resting in it, just put a simple heart or me too in the comments. I think a lot more people struggle with this than we realize. So thank you for bringing that up, Linda, because that was going to be my next quote next question. If you've overcome aspects of an orphan identity, what did you do? And how did you replace lies with truth? And what truth did you? Cling to. I know that's a lot to ask, but some of us have overcome certain aspects of an orphan identity. An orphan identity is like layers, so we don't usually conquer it all at once. It usually is in phases where the Holy Spirit will say, okay, now it's time to address this aspect. And then a little while later, all right, now we need to address this aspect. So if you've overcome an aspect of orphan identity, what did you do? Did some sort of revelation come to you? And even when revelation comes, I think there's still something we have to do to assimilate that into our lives, especially with orphan identity. We have to give ourselves permission to believe the truth, permission to believe that we are truly loved, permission to believe that we don't have to perform for God, permission to believe that we are never going to be unadopted into the family of God. So I'd love to hear what anybody did, what you have, what you have found, what truth really resonated with you that was kind of like a light bulb moment for you. And while you're typing, because that could be a lot, I'm going to move on to snippet number two that didn't make it into a message. And it is what Abba Father does to the heart of God. So this next part absolutely wrecked me emotionally when I was studying. The Bible says in Romans 8 that we cry out, Abba Father. And that's kind of repetitious because Abba means father. And so it's there, it's just kind of like almost like an interpretation. And while I was studying that passage, I started thinking about something personal in our own family. John and I have, well, I won't even say the number, but we have a number of in-law children. Ah dad Matt has put a heart. And over time, three of them have transitioned from calling us John and Cecily to calling us mom and dad. We never asked them to do that. There was no pressure, but when they did, something in my heart shifted. Not because I needed to be called mom, but because those words communicate to me that that in-law child wants to belong to me. They want me to be a mom to them. It communicates that they trust me, that they want a relationship with me, that they desire to integrate into my family. And every single time that my in-law children call me mom, it actually impacts me more than my biological children calling me mom. Because I have no other name to them. If they called me anything, else they'd be in trouble. Any of my kids ever called me Cecily, they would be in the doghouse. But my in-law children have a choice. And I started thinking if that affects my human heart that deeply, what must happen to the heart of God when redeemed people cry out, Abba, Daddy, Father? That word Abba is deeply relational. It is not cold theology. That's family language. And I think one of the hardest things for people with an orphan mindset is receiving God as Father. Because orphans often feel more comfortable with God as you know, master, high, lofty, sovereign, judge, authority, rule maker, holy than father. Sons approach the throne boldly, and approach daughters approach their father with open arms. An orphan would say, I hope he accepts me. And a son says, I belong to him. So here's what's beautiful. When believers cry out, Abba Father, heaven hears the language of sons and daughters instead of strangers. And hell is reminded that people who were once outsiders now carry the name, the authority, and the inheritance of the Father. One of the things that did make it into my message, spoiler alert, is a whole section on Roman adoption. And what is really interesting about Roman adoption is that a son or a daughter who was adopted could legally never be unadopted because their adoption was sealed by the father. But children born into the home, they could actually be sold off into adoption. That's pretty terrible. But adopted children were in the family forever. And there's a scripture in Romans 8:15 that says, we have been called sons and daughters. We've been brought into adoption as sons by the Holy Spirit. It is so powerful. So when we know that we have been adopted, it's sort of like my in-law children. We have a choice. We can just continue to call God God or the man upstairs or the big guy or whatever. Or we can call him father and mean it, mean Abba from our heart. So let me ask you this. Tell me in the chat. When you pray, which relationship feels most natural to you? The servant or the son or the daughter? And you don't have to explain it all in the comments, but I think simply becoming aware of that can be healing. And if this part is ministering to you already, just hit the share button and invite somebody into this conversation. Because I really believe that there are people who are silently battling performance and insecurity and people who want to draw near to the presence of the Lord who need this tonight. Linda said, daughter, I love that. That's so great. All right, snippet number three. We're going to be talking about Romans 8:16. Says the Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God. This is something that I didn't have time to unpack in the message, but I thought that it really carried weight, that it was fascinating. That phrase bears witness is Jewish courtroom language. Under Jewish law, according to Deuteronomy 19, 15, legal matters had to be established by two or three witnesses. It's one of the reasons why Jesus' trial was completely bogus. He was tried at night. They weren't supposed to be tried at night. They were supposed to be tried during the day. None of the witnesses could agree. They couldn't get two or three witnesses to agree about it. I mean, there were just so many things in Jewish law that was done wrong. But, you know, so back to this. So think about what God does in our adoption. He doesn't leave your identity hanging on your emotions. He established it legally. So despite how you have thought about it, God did not make your adoption something fuzzy or like a fairy tale or fragile. Those were all F-words. That was pretty cool. Didn't plan that. Huh, interesting. It's heaven's legal declaration that you're not trying to earn your place every day. You're not on probation in the kingdom. You're not going to be unadopted. You're not almost accepted. If you belong to Jesus, you have been adopted and sealed by God Himself. There's a whole part in the messages that I'm doing for the women's conference on the importance of the seal and what that means. And super cool. The messages maybe they'll be up on YouTube at some point. I don't know. But I think the people watching tonight need to hear this. Your insecurity does not cancel your sonship. So how you feel about it doesn't change it. Your struggle doesn't cancel your sonship. And your emotions don't override God's declaration. God chose you. God sealed you with the Holy Spirit. It is a done deal. He has marked you with the blood of Jesus. And he will never, no, never turn away from you. So if you needed that truth tonight, I just want you to type in the comments, I belong to him. It's just such a great thing. And just take a breath. Just think about it. I belong to him. So that means that if everything you do tomorrow backfires, it doesn't change the fact that you belong to him. If you go out and you are just the worst example of a Christian tomorrow, it doesn't change the fact that you belong to him. You might get a little fatherly correction at the end of the day. You might have some repenting to do, but your identity and your adoption are never in question because of your behavior. There's just something powerful about meditating on that truth. Amen, girl. Amen. All right. Snippet number four. We're going to be talking about Esther, the orphan who didn't think like one. Stephanie, I belong to him. Amen. All right. Well, let's talk about Esther for a minute. Nice, Linda. You belong to him. So good. So good. So this part fascinated me. Obviously, you can tell that there is a theme for the messages that I'm going to be speaking on. We're talking about the orphan identity on Friday night. We're going to be talking about how daughters of the king live and walk in our real life, not just in some sort of like theological of, you know, we walk in love and we walk in forgiveness. Like, okay, what does that really look like? And when we say an orphan identity, an orphan feels um struggles with comparison or struggles with jealousy. Great, like how. So we're going to be talking about the nitty-gritty, getting down to how a daughter of the king really lives. And then on Sunday, we're doing marked, called, and sent, the deeper dive and talking about how who what we are are calling is out in the world, because many of us are living way below, way below who God has called us and marked us to be. And so many of us as Christians are not living sent. Lisa, yes, I belong to him. That's great. We're just not living on assignment. We're just living our own life, thinking like this is what there is, and I just need to be a good Christian in my own life, not realizing that there's God has called us to so much more. And we're gonna be talking about that on Sunday. So anyway, back to Esther. Um, because I was teaching on orphan identity, I started realizing how amazing it is that God chose an orphan girl to help preserve the nation of Israel. And then I thought, well, this is incredible. There's an entire book of the Bible just about an orphan. It's that the whole book is about an actual orphan. She was a real orphan. She had lost her parents, she lost her homeland, her culture. She even lost her Hebrew name, Hadassah. And she's now living in Persia as part of an oppressed Jewish people that had been kidnapped out of their land. Dead Mattis, I belong to him, so grateful. Amen, girl. And so she's not only an orphan, she's also a minority and a woman in an empire where she has very little power or protection. Then she swept into the king's selection process for his beauty pageant for his new wife. Now, ladies, we're gonna have to get a little honest about this. So it is gonna get like a little PG 13 for a minute. She had no ability to refuse. This wasn't some glamorous fairy tale for her. I think a lot of times the story of Esther is glamorized, where we think, well, she had a year of beauty treatments. I mean, how bad could that be? You know, she's all these scented oils and massages and rubbing all this beautiful scented oil until she, you know, smells like a walking myrrh or aloe or frankincense bush. But that was only one part of it. Let's just say that 300 women from Persia were taken into this farm team for this beauty pageant. Esther has a one in 300 chance of being chosen. Let's just say there's only a hundred. She still has a one in a one hundred chance of being chosen. So, what is her life gonna be if she's one of the 99 that doesn't get chosen? Does anybody ever talk about that? I don't think they do. Can she just go back to her uncle Mordecai? No. Here's why. This is where it gets PG 13. What is the tryout for being a queen? Just going and walking in front of the king and seeing, you know, I I have a really lovely figure and clothes look good on me. No, he was literally taking them for a test drive. Yeah. And so if you have been with the king, you can't go be with anyone else ever again. Because there can't be some dude out there, some shepherd who says, Oh, yeah, I had the same woman the king had. That can't happen. So all those 99 women who had their night with the king had to go into a harem where they would never marry, they would never have children, and they would just be there, away from family, away from everything, just discarded. So that's not a great beauty pageant to lose. She's taken away from the only family she has left, and Esther is placed into a system she can't control. And yet what amazes me is the strength, the wisdom, and the restraint that Esther has. She doesn't collapse emotionally, she doesn't spiral into panic. She doesn't manipulate the situation. She listens, she learns, she uses discernment. Eventually later on, she's fasting, she seeks God, and she moves with courage and wisdom. And I found myself thinking, how does an actual orphan behave with such security? What in the world could she have based that type of character of security on? Because she has not had security in her entire life. She's had nothing but instability and victimhood her entire life. But honestly, I've met people raised in loving homes who still act more like orphans than Esther did. And if I'm being transparent, I have had moments in my own life where I've acted, I've spiraled more into jealousy, insecurity, anxiety, or control revealed by orphan thinking in me more than Esther, who is a real legitimate warphan. There have been moments where I felt like everything depended on me. Moments when I forgot that I was cared by God. But Esther, even after all this trauma, still carried herself like someone who believed that she belonged to Yahweh. Amen. And maybe that's the lesson. Your history doesn't dictate your identity. The future we don't know doesn't determine our identity. Our pain doesn't get the final word. And if Esther, an actual orphan, could live like a secure daughter of God, then healing is possible for us too. So tell me in the chat if you thought that that was a slant you had thought of before, if that had ever crossed your mind about Esther, or whether that was sort of new for you. And what's the thing that one thing that God has helped you overcome that once tried to define your identity? Was it shame? Was it jealousy? Was it comparison? And I know for me, one of the things that I really struggled with in my orphan identity was comparison. Looking at other people, and I can't say I do this perfectly. I'd be, you know, if I'm lying, I'm dying. I don't do it perfectly. But one of the just knowing that my calling and my purpose have been settled by God. And that if I see a woman running in the lane to my right, like when you're running in the Olympics, and you see someone passing you on your right, if she gets the gold, I can still get a gold for winning my race in my lane. I'm not competing against all the other runners in all the other lanes. So if someone does it better, if somebody gets there faster, if someone uh does it bigger and in a more wonderful way, I'm not getting judged according to her. I'm I'm gonna receive a gold for running my race according to God's leading to me. That's another thing we're actually going to be talking about in our messages this weekend. All right. Last thing that we're gonna be talking about, real quick, is Psalm 73. And that's when envy reveals orphan thinking. In Psalm 73, ASAP is so raw and honest. This guy starts out by saying, you know, God is good. And everybody goes, Yes, amen. And then he starts running straight into a spiral. He says, But my feet have almost slipped. And he starts going into all this stuff, comparison whispers. God gave them more. I'm forgotten. I'm overlooked. I'm not as valuable. ASAF does this whole spiral that so many of us do. And he's discouraged, he's lost his perspective, he's comparing himself to other people. And then he says this, he goes, Surely I've cleansed my heart in vain. In other words, what's even the point? And then everything changes with one sentence. He says, until I went into the sanctuary of God. And that's the turning point. Because identity becomes clear in God's presence. Orphan thinking grows loud in isolation, but sonship becomes clear in intimacy. And by the end of the psalm, ASAF says, Nevertheless, I'm continually with you. I love that. I love that. Oh, there's so much more that I could say, but for the sake of time, I'm just going to wrap it up here because there's some more things that didn't make it into the message, but maybe we'll talk about it another time. But in closing, I just want to leave you with this thought tonight. There are two prodigals in Luke 15. One ran from the Father through rebellion, and the other stayed near the Father. In close, close proximity, but yet he remained emotionally distant through striving. Oh, awesome. Deb said she's repurposed. She is she's repurposed that shame from the orphan mindset. That's so good. Well, the beautiful thing is that the father loved both sons. Maybe tonight you recognize yourself in one of them. Maybe you've been exhausting yourself trying to prove your worth. But the invitation of Father God is the same. Come inside. You already belong here. Well, that's it for this episode. I hope you got something out of it. And I'll be back next week for another engaging episode. But in the meantime, I do have a few challenges for you guys. Let me get over to my banners here. So here are my challenges. Identify what you have been carrying instead of surrendering, because orphans do that. They carry instead of surrender. Respond to God instead of just listening. And then create space for God's presence daily. Those are my three challenges from the stuff that we talked about tonight. Those are the things that I want you to work on this week. And before I pray, if tonight's live stream encouraged you, would you do two quick things for me? First, make sure that you subscribe or follow on YouTube if you're watching this video podcast or on your audio podcast platform if you're catching the audio version. So you don't miss future live streams. And second, share this with somebody who needs the reminder that they're loved by God, not because they perform perfectly, but because they belong to Him. All right, let us let me pray us out tonight. Heavenly Father, we love you so much. You are our Father. And I thank you so much for your presence among us tonight, and these wonderful people that joined. And for everyone who will be listening to the replay, Holy Spirit, we know that you speak in a unique and individual message to every single listener. So we say, Holy Spirit, just deliver the message that you want each person to hear. That they are loved, that they are adopted, they will never be unadopted, that they are they are a part of your family. You are our father, and that your heart is stirred when we call upon the name of the Lord and we say, Our Father, you are in heaven, but yet you are with me right here. You are with me and in me. Let's stir the Father's heart tonight. And we just lift you up, Lord God. We thank you for your presence in Jesus' mighty name. Amen. Amen. Well, all right, everybody, have a wonderful, powerful, blessed week, and I will see you next week. Have a great night. Take care. Hey family, I pray that you were blessed and encouraged by that episode and that you took away something you can use in your walk with the Lord starting today. Jesus tells us in Matthew 6 to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. So I thank you for making me a part of your pursuit. Until next time, abide in Him.