IN MOMENTS OF PAIN – PART TWO

IN MOMENTS OF PAIN – PART TWO

Victory Over an Orphan Spirit

“Even if my father and mother abandon me,
the Lord will hold me close.” Psalm 27:10

“No, I will not abandon you as orphans—I will come to you.” John 14:18

An Orphan Spirit

The orphan spirit causes one to live life as if he does not have a safe and secure place in the Father's heart. He feels he has no place of affirmation, protection, comfort, belonging, or affection. Self-oriented, lonely, and inwardly isolated, he has no one from whom to draw Godly inheritance. Therefore, he has to strive, achieve, compete, and earn everything he gets in life. It easily leads to a life of anxiety, fears, and frustration.

I struggled with an orphan spirit

For a very big part of my life growing up as a child, I had lived with an orphan spirit inside of me. It was only later that I realized what the problem was. It was not my sister’s fault to be sick half of the time, and neither was it my parents’ fault for giving her more attention. But because I did not understand what is happening as a child, I grew up feeling abandoned and neglected. I was rather distant from my parents, and there was a growing jealousy and rebellion inside of me. I did not understand why I was reacting that way, but the revelation which came at the later part of my childhood explained it. Nevertheless, I had continued to suffer from an orphan spirit until much recently.

The orphan spirit has left me paralysed in friendships and other mutual relationships. I could not receive love, and could not give love, because I do not know what love is like. And like real orphans, I had learnt to be independent. I learnt to take care of myself and protect my own heart. As a result, I was cold and hard. Independence caused me to deny and hide my pain through controlling my relationships with people through anger, passivity and isolation. My relationships with people are often superficial, meaning that people often do not know the real me. I kept my distance from the people who may be able to provide me with the love, acceptance and comfort that I need.

Living with an orphan spirit has robbed me of my ability to trust. I could not risk myself to be vulnerable to hurts. As a result, I did not only prevent myself from being hurt, I had locked myself from receiving love and acceptance as well. I was defensive and harsh, and I had a hard time submitting myself to receive love and comfort from people.

And because I had nowhere to run to for love, because there was no safe place for my soul, no one to protect me, I had resorted to counterfeit identity and comfort. For some people it may be substance abuse, immorality, addictions, ministry titles etc. but for me, food was my way out of my problems. The very year when my sister came into our family picture, that was when I started comfort-eating and it continued on until now.

And orphan spirit has caused my relationship with God to suffer a lot. My view of God’s acceptance for me is always based on performance. This belief of conditional love has caused me to often withdraw from the very person who is able to love me for who I am – GOD.

The reason why I am sharing with you the signs that I had with an orphan spirit is to help you to identify with your own life. If you find that you have one or more of those symptoms, I pray that this article will help you.

When I realized that I am His child

The orphan spirit within me has generally affected my relationship with God. Theologically I know that God is my Father and I am His child, but it was never a revelation. And because I do not have that revelation, my heart was not changed. I continued living as an orphan.

We can call ourselves children of God, and yet live like His slaves. For many years, I had lived in fear and uncertainty of the future. For a long time I did not experience the love and rest in a father’s arms. I did not know what true acceptance is like. And therefore it is difficult for me to grasp hold of the trust that I am accepted in the Beloved (Ephesians 1:6).

When I fully realized that I am a child of God, when I had the revelation that God’s love for me is unconditional, when I had finally gave Him all the years of pain as a result of living like an orphan, there was a tremendous release in my spirit. I am still in the healing process, but I know that I am getting somewhere.

From Orphans to Sons

An orphan spirit is not something you can cast out just like that because it is like a part of us. In order to uproot this false belief in our hearts, we must recognize the root of the problem. Can you remember a time when you feel neglected by your natural parents?

The only person who can remove the orphan spirit in us is God. On our part, we need to spend our time knowing God. When we know God, we know unconditional love. When we receive His unconditional love into our lives, then a major part of our lives will be reconstructed.

You may require time and space to develop that trust. One of the things that an orphan spirit does to an individual is the inability to trust others, even those in authority. That fear of being rejected, the feeling of being alone, the fear of having nowhere to run to be safe; all that will require time to heal.

As you allow God to take over His place as your Father, begin to open up your heart to Him, slowly. Let Him fill the void in your heart. Remember, you are now a child of God!