This is the Truth Network. Coming to you from an entrenched barricade deep in the heart of central North Carolina, Masculine Journey After Hours. A time to go deeper and be more transparent on the topic covered on this week's broadcast. So sit back and join us on this adventure. The Masculine Journey After Hours starts here now.
Welcome to Masculine Journey After Hours. We are glad to have you with us today and we are talking about a very interesting topic. We sure are.
We are. It's one that we hint around, we reference, and we may have done a show on it back in the day, I don't know, because sometimes we repeat shows and don't know that we repeated them. It's true. It's kind of like if you read the Bible, like I hope that you do, if you read the Bible, certain things are repeated throughout the Bible because if we got them the first time, why would God have to say them a second time?
True. And so that's why we find ourselves back on some of the same topics is we can go deeper into those topics than we've gone before, or God's opening our eyes to more depths or more layers or more peals of the onion, the layers of the onion, and we're going back into another layer. And so we are talking about which topic today. We're talking about the orphan spirit, and we had last week's topic on the wounding of the mother and father.
Well, to me, this leads right into it. It's usually something, a wounding that somehow came into your life through your mother and father that could cause you to accept, take on an orphan spirit. And I want to be real clear too, I meant to do this on the first show, is I don't want to diminish a true orphan who never knew their parents or their parents were totally taken out of their life. I had my parents both in my life and I knew they loved me.
Their presence wasn't always there, I think I mentioned, but I want to make that really clear. But it does set us up to whenever you shift your focus from your earthly parents, and that's a lot of where this damage comes in, where you felt abandoned by your parents, they weren't present, they physically weren't there, or maybe they abused you or whatever. There are so many forms that you can take this on to where you feel abandoned. But that orphan spirit, it truly is a spirit. We're not saying we're truly orphans from the physical sense.
Many of us, our parents, are alive and present. But David in Psalm 27, 10, who we had a clip from the House of David that spoke to David's situation in the first show. But Psalm 27, 10, for my father and mother have forsaken me, but the Lord will take me up.
That's what we're talking about here, is that forsaken means that orphan spirit came in because you do feel forsaken, you feel abandoned. God wants to come into that. This really became evident to me when I was dealing with doing the sonship talk as part of boot camps.
I really began to look at this, and I think I was listening to the Wild Heart podcast quite a bit, and they were really on this. I wouldn't have ever considered this, because my parents both loved me and they were involved in my life. So, anyway, I don't want to spend too much time on it. I just really want to make this distinction of what we're talking about here in this orphan spirit, and really how to be set free from it, because whenever I really saw God as my father, we can still get into this feeling of, you know, nobody's coming for me, it's all up to me, that kind of thing. But typically it's not a broad thing over my whole life. It's like in a particular area, and I remind myself, no, no, you're not an orphan, you're an adopted son.
And it makes all the difference in the world. I think whether we like it or not, everything is new. Yeah, I mean, that's the way God wants our relationship to be with him, is new and fresh and present. I didn't take what you were saying at any point to downplay people that didn't have parents growing up, right? Technically, if our parents have passed away, we're orphans.
They're no longer in our life. And no, that's not the same as being a young kid or being in a foster, and we never compare that. But I think you were just saying it to give relevance to that we all have felt that way. Yeah, well, I didn't make the distinction.
I guess I just don't want to diminish that in any way, because that's a whole other level that I can't even imagine. I mean, my dad never had his dad in his life. I think he saw him two or three times. That's a way big difference than me losing my dad in my adolescence, which was at a very important time. But I still talked to my dad regularly. I didn't see him.
He was out in a different state. He had a presence in my life, but it was a distant presence. But I can't even imagine never knowing my father or whatever. Like I said last show, we've had guys at our boot camps talk about that. And guys that have really found the Lord, it's in God's grace where he's just raising that fatherlessness in them to come to him.
But even then, sometimes you hear the stories. We don't know what's available to us as being adopted by God. We read it in the Scripture, but until we receive it practically, it doesn't have as much relevance in our lives.
And when you're talking about Scripture, really the orphan spirit entered in in the Garden of Eden, right? Because at some point, Adam knows what he's supposed to do. He knows what he's been instructed to do. He knows what the right thing to do is, and he chooses otherwise. I choose beyond, and I make a choice independent of God, opposite of God in that. And so the orphan spirit's born into mankind. Darrell Bock Yep. He didn't operate in a father that was used to stepping in and being there for his son or whatever. He didn't step in to prevent Eve from sinning. So we get into our first clip, which is yours, Art, if you'd like to tell us a little bit about the clip and anything you want to share with it.
Art Smith Okay, yes. Well, I would say, first of all, I think that God intended for me to share this clip because it just kind of fell into my lap this morning. I was looking at our messages and seeing that we didn't have a lot of speakers here tonight.
And I looked back at the topic and said, hmm, I can't come up with anything on that. And then I opened my Facebook, and I saw this song, this song a couple of girls are singing. I think they're called the Church Sisters. And they're singing a song, and they're telling about their daddy, who was not religious. And apparently their mom was, and apparently they were. And that was, to them, they were spiritually orphaned.
But we'll go ahead and play the clip now. Our daddy would frown while mother was praying. His heart was so hard that he would not believe. In anger he'd swear, his voice cold enough, his Sundays were spent out with the gambling crowd. I've never seen my daddy inside the house of God.
Or Satan held his hand down the path of Cyndi Trott. Well, to borrow Rodney's phrase, I will say that as a parent, you have to show up. You have to be there. You have to work at it. It's often not an easy job. Sometimes you make mistakes, you think you're doing right, and it turns out that you did the wrong thing. But you have to be there. You have to show up. Right, Rodney?
Unfortunately, it's not easy, but you do, in any situation. Yeah, and I can say from my own experience, there was a man who was in our church, the church I went to when I was a child, and I'm not talking about Harold here. Harold was there. It was another man, and it seemed he never quite got things right. He took an interest in me. He wanted to talk to me. He wanted to be a help to me, an encouragement to me.
It seemed like he was always just off track a little bit. But what I remember about it was that he was sincere. He was honest. He tried. He had good intentions. He wanted to help me. And I remember that.
I'll always remember it. That was a long time ago, but a child will know. They will know. If you're trying to help them, they will understand that, and they will respect that. Another thing that came to mind about orphans that I'd like to tell is that I spent my career working in state government, and we had two different employees in my division who each took in an essentially an orphaned child.
I think they were both religious men, attended church, and they were godly men, and the opportunities just kind of fell into their laps. The situations developed where they ended up with an extra child to raise, and they gladly did it, and they took them in and raised them as their own. I'll always just have the greatest respect for them for doing that. Any time you can help a child, it's a difficult phase. It can be a difficult time.
Any time you can do something to help them, you should do it. Yeah, that's a big story when you think about what's the child's life like, what's going on in their mind, and what's happening, and somebody goes, You want to come live with us? You can come live with us. We'll take care of you. We'll do these things. We'll either help finance some things or just be that supportive, loving family and father that you didn't have before.
That's huge for these kids. Show me your purpose. What are you there for?
Let's go do something together versus, Oh, you're off on your own. It's really good. Rodney gets the opportunity to try to chew somebody else's gum, so to speak. Danny had a clip that he had put in for, and Rodney said, You know what? I got this one.
I'll take it. This is a pretty cool clip, and I'm interested to see the spin that Rodney has with it. Rodney, you want to share anything about the clip? What it brings to my mind is what's going to be the conversation between a father and a son when you don't have God in the story, and Andy basically, in a certain way, plays God for his son. How old is he in this clip?
Probably five or six or something. He's pretty young, but you've got Opie wanting to take off. Opie wants to leave the house, but he's like, Well, I'm supposed to tell you, Dad.
Any time I want to go do something, I'm supposed to tell you. So he's telling his dad, Well, I can't write the story. So his dad tries to write the story for him, and if he just kind of listened to what happens, he starts saying, Oh, well, I'm going to leave. I'm going to never come back and all these kinds of things. Well, that's what you do when you run away. You run away.
You don't come back. Well, Opie's like, No, no, that's not what I wanted. He just wanted to run away. I don't know what he's thinking, actually, but he's wanting to run away, but he actually wants to come back. So when he starts playing out the whole story for him, he's like, Oh, I don't really want to run away because I want to be here with you, Father. And that's where we all want to be as believers is with the Father. When you start thinking about the alternate life outside the Father, where would we be?
What could we do? He's like, Oh, that's just not good. Just stop thinking about it because you don't want to go there. You don't want to be there.
Ask for the forgiveness and say, Okay, all my thoughts and my sins, I want to let them go. And that's what really I saw and heard in this picture that Danny had put up for us. It comes from Danny's favorite.
He hadn't used one in a while. He's been going to Fire Country and Blue Bloods, and this is from Andy Griffith. Oh, yeah, here we go, and it's Opie who is planning to run away, so we'll see how that plays out.
He's only three. You're smart. I hope you all let's go down to the creek. No, I've got some thinking to do. Oh, why? You got some kind of problem? Well, I've got something to ask you, something important.
Yeah? Well, go ahead. Can I run away from home? You want to run away from home? Now, if that's what you got on your mind, well, you're going about it all wrong.
I am? Oh, yeah, you ain't supposed to ask your pa. But you always said I should never go anyplace far without getting your permission. Well, yeah, I know I did say that, but see, running away from home is a little special. See, what you do in a case like that is first you write a note saying that you're running away, and then you do. You mean to tell me that's all there is to it? That's all. But I don't know how to write.
It does make a problem. I'll tell you what. If you are really bound to run away, I'll write a note for you. You will? Yes, sir.
I'll do it. Now, let's see. When was it you want to leave? Right away. Well, today's Wednesday. Let's see.
And about how long was you figuring on staying? Why? Well, never mind.
That stands to reason. If you run away, you run away forever. What do you mean? Now, don't bother me.
I'm thinking. Dear Pa, I am running away from home, and you will never see me again. Pa, what are you talking about? Why won't I ever see you again?
Well, that stands to reason. You've run away, and I'm right here. Now, we're going to see one another. No.
What are you doing that for? I didn't finish the number check. I don't want you to finish. I don't want to run away. I changed my mind. Oh, well, I reckon a good boy gets the right to change his mind.
I don't want to leave you, Pa. And I don't want you to leave me. Yeah, they don't want to be separated, but whatever was going on in the clip, you know, prior to that, you know, which I don't have, you know, something happened that said, well, I'm just going to run away. I've seen it on a movie. I've seen it on a clip. I've seen it talked about, or something's happened. Oh, I'm just going to go do that. It's that quick response answer that we have as a human being that says, oh, I know the answer.
I know an answer. And you just throw it out there, and sometimes it becomes into something along those lines. And I love what Andy wrote here. It's like, think about how we as an individual, me, myself, and I, become self-reliant, instead of father-reliant, and how we regularly feel everything is up to us.
That happens so easily in life. Oh, it's up to me. I've got to go do this. I've got to go do this.
I've got to go do this. If you can back away and say, okay, I'm not going to jump in like I have to own this thing. I'm going to let other things happen, other people speak into my life, other people speak into this situation, and I'm just going to let things play out. Sometimes it goes well, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes you jump in the middle of it, it goes well, it doesn't.
There's no guarantee that it's just going to go well. The more godly we are in it and what we think and how we treat other people gives you a better chance, and that's never the easiest thing to do specifically when you're at work, where you've got so many things going on. That's the one thing I really like about where you work, Sam. There's lots of things going on, but you have a lot of godly people. You have a lot of ungodly people, but you know you have a core of really good godly people, and that's one of the things where it just helps when you can go, I can be honest.
I can tell them what I'm thinking. In some worlds, you just can't, and you have people that tell you, oh, they're godly, they believe in God, but you watch what they say and do, and you're like, what? I don't get that, and it becomes a big struggle.
So I think most people do walk into the world just trying to figure out, how do I act? And it's not the easiest thing to sit there and be godly in these situations, because what happens, you get in the conversation, you get in the meeting, and God's outside. He's not with you. You forget about him. You just let him go, and you start to say and do things that aren't godly. I've done them, and you want to go back, and you want to redo it, but you can't, so you do the best you can, make up for what you can, and you move on. Next time, I'm going to be a better Lord, and you just do the best you can with it.
Absolutely. Yeah, I think that's a point about what I wanted to make was that we've talked about just identifying the orphan spirit and kind of initially, and that is a big thing, and as you grow into your sonship, you still will default back into your default to me as an orphan, and I think one of the key things in your prayer has to become, help me to identify those places. A lot of times, they become under pressure.
If everything's good, and you've got Shalom all around, everything's cool, it's not hard to walk in as a son then, but when the pressure's on, and I've seen it. The other day, I was struggling with a customer account. It was like last week, and I just kind of let go, not directed at him, but just about the situation to my boss. I'd apologized today about him. It was our next follow-up, one-on-one, and I thought, okay, it's easy to sit there and say, everybody knows Andy who's the guy that's got the sonship, or that's really what he focuses on, but when the pressure was on, I acted like an orphan, and I don't want to act like an orphan, and the more that I walk and step into that sonship, the more victory, and the more peace of who I am. David, in that previous clip from the first show, was, God, show me who I am, and that means show me all the junk.
Show me the good stuff. It says that we are basically children created out of wedlock if we don't accept the chastisement of the Lord. I mean, I like all the blessings of the Lord, him speaking good, kind things to me, but I also have to be open to those things where I receive his chastisement. But that's part of the growth, and that's part of a father being a son, a father moving towards his son. So anyway, hopefully this brought some insight into this whole thing, because again, I think this is where we really need to break through, is to really walk as a son of God. Yeah, I'm going to phrase it a different way, but we've talked all around it, and we've said it, but let's say you're like, oh, you know, I trust God in everything. Really.
Exactly. Be honest with yourself. Do you trust God in your marriage? Do you trust God in your relationship with your children? Do you trust God in your finances? Do you trust God here?
Just fill in the blank. Where are you taking control? Where are you holding on?
Where are you not relinquishing the control and saying, Father, I'm walking with you in this. That's going to be a key to where the enemy still has you in an agreement, or there's wounding there, there's something there that's holding you back, and that's where some of the orphan spirit is still alive and well. Even though you may have had 90% of it, there's still a percentage.
There's always something. Yeah, that God's still working on it. That all gets into our whole transformation as a, you know, just our sanctification process.
Sanctification, yeah. It's all part of it, but that's becoming who we were created to be and all that stuff, you know. I could easily say in those things, do I really trust God? Yeah, I trust him, but I don't trust myself, and that's true.
Right. But I shouldn't trust myself either. The thing is, there is a part of this distinguishing really where God is leading, and that takes intimacy with him, which we continually go back to, too.
We want to take the shortcuts and not really have that intimacy with him, but then, you know, in those things that we're not trusting him in, it's because we lack the intimacy to really give us that trust in him. It's so easy to not trust. It is.
It's orphan spirit. Or worse, trust yourself. Yeah. That's hard. Right. But you're always putting your trust somewhere with every decision you make.
Right. It's just different a lot of times. If it's yourself or God or others or whoever it happens to be, you're putting trust somewhere. It's just, well, where am I putting it this time? Do you think through that and understand what you're doing and why you're doing it?
It's just not that easy to do when you're flying and moving and going and making things happen. Yeah. Not only do you put your trust somewhere, you're being fathered somewhere. Yeah, that's right.
So if I'm not letting God father me through it, then who is fathering me through it? The devil. The enemy. For sure. Right? So you've got to pick. Yeah. It can't be one or the other.
Who's your daddy? Exactly. You do. You have to go back and you have to pick that. So what are the thoughts?
We've got about three minutes left before we wrap up this show. What other thoughts do you guys have on this? What's some areas that can help them uncover some of this? Andy, obviously reading Wild at Heart is a great place. John's other stuff, Fathered by God, is a great place to help you deal with those woundedness in each one of those areas.
If you've read Wild at Heart, I would recommend Fathered by God because what it will do is it will take you through the different stages of your life and help you identify the opportunities. Well, not opportunities where you've been wounded, but the opportunities for the orphan spirit to set in and give you places to pray. You're blown away in those stages. And then you ask God to come farther in those and take you back into it, which is Sam just gave an example of that. Yeah.
Yeah. And I think you need a band of brothers, too, because you need people to like what we do. I have mentioned a lot more stuff in here than I mention outside of here because I'm comfortable. I know you guys know me, and I've always been able to share more. And I've seen you guys share, so, oh, this is a great place to share. It's great to have brothers to go trust in Christ with.
This isn't always just go do it on your own. Well, it's a form of fathering. It's God fathering us with skin on it. And we've all learned so much from each other. There's things that I wouldn't even be aware of unless I would have heard y'all's stories and how you did them. And that's part of the sonship talk is identifying those fathers in your life of who God put in your life.
I mean, Joshua had a Moses. There's so many stories of, I mean, Timothy had Paul, where men stepped in and gave an example of what a good father looks like. I mean, I think about, man, just a few years ago, even when I was walking this out and learning about it, me and my daughter, I was not a present father and really couldn't connect with her. And my wife continued to speak to me about this and just say, look, our heart's crying out.
It wasn't easy for my daughter to come tell me those things. And, you know, as I've grown and been fathered by God, I've seen that improve, and there's ways I can improve in that, but I've come a long way. And I don't say I, it's we, and it's God that's fathered me through that, that's made it possible. But that's the kind of victory, when I say victory, I mean, it's like, that's the breakthrough that makes life livable. It's freedom. It's freedom, yeah, rewarding. I mean, it makes it to where you're just not struggling, you're just succeeding in life. So we do have a boot camp coming up November 30th, or November something, 23rd, so 20th through 23rd, Mass.OneJourney.org. This is the Truth Network.
