An Orphan Mindset
“This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Papa?” God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what’s coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we’re certainly going to go through the good times with him!”—Romans 8:15-17 MSG
A “surrender” altar to God on the beach in Bucerias
May 5th, 2025
📍Salida, Colorado, USA 🇺🇸
Greetings from the promised land,
This past month in Bucerias has been instrumental in my life. I’m so grateful for these wilderness seasons where God invites me into the unknown to have my faith tested and my life refined. While these wilderness seasons can often look barren, dry, and harsh, they are necessary. As you’ve heard me say before, the crap we go through in life is the fertilizer for our growth.
My digital nomad solo travels around the globe are where I am the most stretched and aware of the Spirit’s work inside me.
On the other side of these seasons of growth is the promised land, a place of rest, blessing, and provision in the Presence of our Lord. Like the Israelites, YHWH uses the wilderness to prepare me to inhabit the goodness that awaits me in the land flowing with milk and honey.
I returned “home” to Colorado deeply aware of a significant shift inside me from this latest trip to Mexico.
The final sunset on this trip to Bucerias, Mexico.
I had spent the first half of my trip meditating on a word the Spirit placed in my heart, “orphan.” The Lord was showing me where beloved people in my life are living like orphans; some who have lost parents at an early age, others living without the comfort of a heavenly Father. Seeing their striving and self-reliance as a survival mechanism was easy, but I was so blind to see it in myself.
While I am blessed to have both of my parents still alive and have an ever-deepening relationship with God the Father, I realized that I, too, have been living like an orphan. Over the years, that has shown up as feeling like I had to accomplish things in my own strength, worried about my financial future, people-pleasing, feeling rudderless, and striving to “do it all.” Burnout.
Worship time in the pool
The Holy Spirit illuminated how my fears were rooted in an orphan mindset—I lacked trust that God would provide for me and care for my every need. I was striving, and the Lord used this wilderness season to invite me into a place of rest. More than provision for my most basic needs, this promised land is God’s symbolic faithfulness to bless me richly and to give me rest.
The Lord had told me in advance to await clarity on April 30th. I awoke to an expectant heart, having no idea of the what or how, only a deep knowing that God was going to show me Their (referring to the triune personhood of God) glory that day.
Being my Sabbath day of rest that week, I was worshipping in the swimming pool when the Holy Spirit spoke these truths to me through a new friend.
God again used the people in my life to speak Their truth of provision into my heart. Out of nowhere, this friend showed up to inform me that April 30th was El Dia de Los Niños in Mexico. She handed me a lollipop and blessed me as her sister in Christ, reminding me that we are both daughters of the Most High King.
The Spirit lovingly reminded me that I am not an orphan, that I can trust in the loving care of my Father. And that my time in this particular wilderness season of refining was ending that day because I was ready to enter the promised land. To everything there is a season, and while I don’t know whether this will be my final wilderness season of drought and waiting, the rains have finally come.
It’s time to step out of the fight and into the Fruit.
Time to build differently; to face my giants without fear.
The Jericho walls will come down through more being, less doing. More receiving, less striving.
The Lord is doing a new thing in the world today, and we are being asked to follow Him out of old paradigms and to confront orphan mindsets.
Can you see it?
See, darkness covers the earth, and thick darkness is over the peoples. (Isaiah 60:2)
The eyes of the blind are being opened to the Light (Isaiah 35:5).
Can you hear my voice calling to you from the wilderness (Isaiah 40:3), inviting you into The Way of Holiness alongside me, the highway of our God into the promised land (Isaiah 35:8)?
Drink up His living waters. The desert and the parched land of the wilderness are rejoicing and blossoming (Isaiah 35:1).
It’s time to awaken! Clothe yourself with His strength (Isaiah 52:1).
The Lord says, “Do not fear; I will help you.” (Isaiah 41:13).
It’s time to arise and shine brightly into the darkness as spiritual children, my fellow heirs in Christ, to claim our inheritance and share in His glory (Romans 8:17).
“John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, “I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’ ””—John 1:23 NIV
Our present sufferings are nothing compared to the glory that is about to be revealed as all of creation waits in eager expectation for us, the children of God, to be revealed (Romans 8:18-19).
Something new is being birthed. Can you feel it?
With Love,
Jennifer
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