You Were Not Forgotten: Why You Actually Matter
When the lies get loud
You scroll through Instagram and wonder why everyone else seems to have it figured out. The job offers. The relationships. The momentum. And you’re sitting there thinking maybe God forgot about you. Maybe you’re just not as special as everyone else.
I sat with a college senior who was months from graduation with no internship and no job offer. Everyone around them seemed set. And they asked me a question that broke my heart: “Is there something wrong with me? Did God forget about me?”
Here’s what I’ve learned talking to people from coast to coast who feel this way. The voice telling you that you don’t matter is not the voice of God. Revelation 12:10 calls the enemy “the accuser of our brothers” who accuses us day and night before God. These accusations show up as limiting ideas: You’re a failure. You’re not special. God doesn’t have a plan for you. But building your life on these feelings instead of on truth will destroy you. God doesn’t see you as forgotten or as a failure. He sees you as his son or daughter that he dearly loves. And he wants to teach you to hear his voice so you can be guided by truth instead of lies.
God speaks in ways you’ll actually recognize
Two college students came to me feeling like they didn’t matter. I walked them through something simple: tell God the truth about how you feel, then ask him what he wants you to know about it. Both times, God didn’t speak in some booming voice. He sent them songs. Songs that spoke directly to their fears. Songs that reminded them they were loved and created with purpose.
God speaks to you in your voice. It sounds smarter than you are. It stokes peace, patience, kindness, and self-control in your life. And it lines up with scripture. If you’re a thinker, God will speak to you intellectually. If you’re a feeler, you’ll get impressions. If you’re creative, he might give you images or songs or dreams. He created you uniquely, so he speaks to you uniquely.
Build on truth, not feelings
Your feelings are terrible pilots. They’re great companions, but they can’t fly the plane of your life. When you have a feeling that tells you that you don’t matter, take that feeling to Jesus and ask him if it’s a fact. John 10:27 says “My sheep listen to my voice. I know them and they follow me.” Isaiah 30:21 promises “your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, this is the way, walk in it.”
You matter. The world needs what God gave you to bring. Your family needs you. Your friends need you. We need you. You were created on purpose and for a purpose. God is for you, not against you. He is near you, not far from you. And he wants to speak to you every day in everyday ways so you know how loved you are.
If you want help learning to hear God’s voice and walk in freedom, check out Rogue Collective, where we help people get clear on their destiny and learn to live from truth instead of fear.
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Episode Summary:
Ever feel like everyone else has it figured out except you? Like maybe God forgot about you in the grand scheme of things? This episode is your wake-up call. Daron gets raw and real about the lie that you don’t matter and walks you through exactly how to hear God’s voice break through the noise of fear and comparison. This episode unpacks the spiritual battle happening in your mind and gives you practical tools to overcome the accusations that keep you stuck. If you’ve ever wondered if you’re special enough, good enough, or if God even sees you, this message will transform how you see yourself and hear from God.
Key Takeaways:
- You were created in the image of God, on purpose and for purpose
- The enemy accuses you day and night, but that doesn’t make it true
- Build your life on truth and faith, not on feelings and fear
- God wants to speak to you every day in ways unique to how you’re wired
- A lie is simply a limiting idea entertained
- Your circumstances didn’t create you and don’t define your worth
- God’s voice sounds like your voice but wiser, and aligns with Scripture
- The world needs what you’ve been uniquely given by God
Notable Quotes:
- “Who were you before someone told you who you weren’t?”
- “Your circumstances didn’t make you, they didn’t create you.”
- “Feelings are great co-pilots, but cannot fly the plane.”
- “God is trying to speak to you every day in everyday types of ways.”
- “A lie is a limiting idea entertained.”
Episode Resources:
Connect with Daron on Social Media:
Links to the Daron Earlewine Podcast
YouTube | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Libsyn
EPISODE 187 TRANSCRIPT
Daron: Quick question, have you ever thought to yourself, have you ever had this feeling like, I don’t matter? Everyone else is special, I’m a rerun, I’m a leftover, God forgot about me, I’m just existing down there. If you’ve ever had that kind of feeling, this episode is for you. You matter, you’re not a rerun, and we’re not going to allow fear in these lies to control your life anymore. This episode’s for you. Let’s get founded in truth, let’s hear from the voice of God.
Let’s step into becoming who we’re born to be. Let’s jump into this episode. Created on purpose and for purpose. Hey, welcome back to the Daron Earlewine podcast. Want to hit you with something that I think is going to resonate pretty powerfully. And I think that because I have a ton of conversations from sea to shining sea here in the great U.S. of A. with people who feel this way. And when I have the conversations with them, it breaks my heart they feel this way. And then it fills my heart with so much joy to see them break out of it. Here’s what it is. I want to talk to you about the feeling that you don’t matter.
I want to talk to you today about that feeling you have, and you may feel it in your thoughts. It may be something that just eats at your feelings. It may be something that is unsettled in your gut, but you just have this thought, I don’t really matter. I know I don’t matter as much as that girl because look at all the things she’s accomplishing. I know I don’t matter as much as that guy because look, he’s married and he’s got kids. I know I don’t matter as much as the people I follow on Instagram, because look how many likes and shares and all the things they have. I’m just me and I’m just kind of a nobody and I don’t really matter. If you have ever felt like that or if you currently feel like that, this episode is for you.
I had a conversation a couple weeks ago. I had an opportunity to go and speak at a university to a couple hundred seniors getting ready to graduate this year. One of the seniors came up to me after I got done speaking and we started to talk and they started to just kind of be vulnerable and saying, I got some questions and here’s my struggle. They said, I am months away from graduating. I have what I’d like to do. I’ve got a dream. It’s kind of this, but I don’t have a lot of momentum. I don’t have an internship coming up. I don’t have a job offer and I’m looking at everyone else around me, everyone else in my class, and it seems like everybody else has got it figured out. It seems like everybody else has the opportunities. It seems like everybody else has got momentum in their life and I’m starting to wonder, like, is there something wrong with me? I’m starting to wonder and this is where it got deeper, I’m starting to wonder if God’s forgotten about me.
And I think that’s the way it goes. And it goes one of these directions. It either goes wrong beliefs about God leads to wrong beliefs about others, leads to wrong beliefs about myself, leads to wrong behaviors. That’s the underpinning of what’s going on here. But sometimes we work it backwards. Wrong behaviors or wrong circumstances in my life lead me to wrong beliefs about myself, which lead me to wrong beliefs about others, which lead me to wrong beliefs about God. And so I don’t feel like I matter because I’m not seeing the kind of impact with my life or the kind of opportunities for my life. Therefore, right, other people must be special and I must be a loser. Therefore, God must have forgotten about me. Therefore, maybe I’m a failure. And so I’m talking to this student and they’re unpacking these ideas and just as they were processing, they said, you know, sometimes I just feel like a failure and I stopped him at that point because I knew there it is. There’s the lie.
I’m a failure. I have all these feelings that I don’t matter because I don’t have the job. I don’t have the marriage. I don’t have the boyfriend. I don’t have the kids. I don’t have the, there’s the circumstances. Therefore, right? The lie I hear is I don’t matter. I’m a failure.
And man, it broke my heart. And so what I did with the student is I said, hey, recently I’ve learned to hear the voice of God in greater capacity. And I said, have you ever heard God speak to you? And they said, no, I don’t think so. And I said, what do you want to try? And because I had to step out on faith and believe in this, that God was for them, not against them, that God was very near to them, not far away, and that God had created them on purpose and for a purpose, and that God wants to speak to us every day in everyday type of ways. And so I took her through a process that I’ve been learning to practice. And man, this beautiful thing happened where she began to imagine herself in this like place of peace, place where she felt at peace and love and joy in her imagination. She invited the living God to join her. And I said, I just want you to tell God the truth about how you feel about yourself. I feel like a failure. So, okay, I just want you to ask Jesus what He wants you to know about that.
And it was quiet and I was waiting and I’ll just be real honest with you, okay? Because I’ll just be straight with you on the podcast. I’m learning to do this, but it freaks me out every time because I have to trust that God is actually real and God actually will speak to people. And I tell you what’s easier for somebody like me that runs his mouth all the time talking about and for God, it’s way easier for me to be confident in my ability to tell you something true and tell you something inspiring than it is for me to trust that God will actually do what God does. More on that in another episode. So I’m just quiet and I’m like, oh gosh, please God, would you please be real? Would you still please be near? Would you please before? Would you please speak to this wonderful college student about your purpose? And it’s amazing. Guess what happened? God does what God does. And he doesn’t actually need me to do his job for him.
And we get done praying and I asked this college student, I said, did you hear anything? And they said, no, but I heard a song, like a song started playing in my mind. I said, well, what song was it? And they told me the song and I said, is that song significant to you at all? And this college student starts crying and takes me back to one of the most transformational moments of their life when that song was being played in the background. And I said, what words to that song? Like, what are they? And I’m not super familiar with it. And as this college student begins to speak the words of this song, it speaks directly to the fear that they had that they were a failure. More tears, more peace, more profound understanding that they matter so much that God sent his one and only son to die for them, to reclaim them, to redeem them, to buy them back, to invite them into a relationship, to send his very spirit in his voice, to guide and direct them in this moment towards the purpose that God had created them for. And it was a beautiful, beautiful moment.
And I’m just wondering for you, if you’re walking around thinking to yourself, you don’t really matter. Or maybe you’ve bought into the lie that you only matter because of what you can accomplish. I don’t have a lot of value and worth of myself, but if I’m successful, if I really do something big today, then. Or you may have bought into the lie, like, I don’t know that I really matter on my own, but I matter if other people say and think good things about me. Or for you, you may think, well, I don’t know that I really, in my essence, actually have value or worth. But I guess if I have certain things, then possessions and what I possess, whether that’s my knowledge or my freedom or my sense of safety, whatever it may be, then I have worth. But if you struggle with believing that you actually have value, that you actually matter, that you have worth, I want to try to walk you through that because I don’t want you, and I don’t want to walk in a place of that and trying to search and grab and find things outside of myself to try to prove to myself that I have worth when the reality is you were created in the image of God. He is for you, not against you. He’s near you, not far away. And He has created you on purpose and for purpose. And He wants to speak to you every day in everyday type of ways.
So this idea, like I had these feelings that I don’t matter, comes back to a quote we’ve used here on the podcast before, back in the archives, I was sitting out with my friend Heather Simple, and she asked this question, somebody asked her this question, and it’s when I come back to time and time again, when I talk to people that are stuck in this kind of place, and it says, who were you before someone told you who you weren’t? And for her, her story comes back to some childhood trauma, and we all have it, but here’s the reality. If you are battling with these feelings, like I don’t matter, I don’t have a lot of worth, like I’m a rerun, I’m a misfit, God forgot about me, I’m out here on my own, the question is, who were you before someone told you who you weren’t? And if you’re feeling like you don’t matter, if you feel like you don’t have value, here’s the question I want to ask you is, who told you that?
Who told you that? Well, Daron, my circumstances tell me that. Okay, well, your circumstances didn’t make you. They didn’t create you. Okay, well, my fear is telling me that. Okay, well, fear is most often a liar or only speaks half truths. It’s the opposite of love. So, nope, not going to listen to that. You say, well, I can tell you who told me that my ex boyfriend, my ex wife, my last boss, like enemies have told me that I don’t matter, that I don’t have value. Okay. Well, they didn’t create you. They don’t make you, they don’t define you. So that doesn’t work. And ultimately at a deep spiritual level, here’s what I believe when we’re having these kinds of battles in our heart and our mind, we have to realize this is most often the person that is telling you that is the enemy, also known as the devil, also known as the father of lies, also known as the accuser of the brethren or the accuser of God’s children. Check it out. Revelation 12:10 says this in the living Bible. Then I heard a loud voice shouting across the heavens. It has happened at last. God’s salvation and power in the rule and the authority of Christ are finally here. For the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down from heaven onto earth. He accused them day and night before our God.
You see, our world is not neutral. There is good, there is evil, there is God, there is the devil, there’s the forces of good, there are the forces of evil, there are forces of light, the forces of darkness. And here is what the enemy does to you and against you day and night. He accuses you. Right, he accuses you, he brings these accusations, these lies into your life day in and day out. Right, you don’t matter. No one cares. You’re not worth it. God doesn’t pay attention to you. You’re a failure. All these things, we all battle with them. You think, man, sometimes I have voices in my head. We all do. We all do. And the question is, which voices in which voice are we going to allow to define our life? I just don’t feel like I matter. Who told you that? Because it wasn’t the source. It wasn’t the source of love. It wasn’t Jesus.
He does not say that about you. In fact, his whole life, death, resurrection, his communication, his love, his power, his peace, all of that screams throughout the universe. You matter. I love you. I’ve created you on purpose and for a purpose. So if you find yourself in this struggle, what I want to encourage you and help you walk through is you’ve got to pay attention to who’s the source and what voice are you listening to? Because if you’re listening to lies, right, Jim Quick in his book, Limitless, he unpacks things. Maybe we talked about this in a past episode. He talks about what is a lie. And he breaks it down as an acronym of L-I-E, right? It’s a limiting idea entertained. A limiting idea entertained. And that’s, I believe, what the enemy loves to work with in our minds is he tosses these little lies, these little limiting ideas into our mind. And as we entertain them, sometimes we come into agreement with them and they begin to destroy our lives. Right? He whispers, hey, listen, you don’t matter. You’re a failure. God didn’t have a plan for you. You were a mistake. You’re not as special as everybody else. You’re just kind of a side person on the real plot of life. These are lies. And if we don’t know how to actually combat them and actually speak truth to them, if we take these limiting ideas, these lies, and we entertain them, and the dangerous part is if we begin to agree with them, they do have power in our life. And so what we have to learn to do is, how do I learn to listen to the voice of love? How do I learn to listen to the voice of Jesus and only entertain truth in my life? Because these lies, what they do is they stir up feelings and then our feelings often become not the companion of our life, but the pilot the director of our life.
And so I feel like I don’t matter is that true. Well, I’m not sure if it’s true, but it sure feels true. Well, you cannot let your feelings drive your life. They’re very fickle. They’re great co-pilots, but they cannot fly the plane of your life, right? I don’t feel this. Okay, well when you have a feeling that’s not great, what I want you to learn to do is take that feeling, take it to Jesus and ask him if it’s a fact.
Right? Is it true? I feel this way, but it’s not true. Okay, then I’m going to believe in faith, what Jesus has said or what Jesus is saying right now in my life. And I will not allow feelings to drive my life. I will allow facts. I will allow faith. I will allow truth from God about who he says I am, about who he says he is, about who he says others are. And I will make my decisions based on that. I have to build my life on a foundation of truth, not on feelings, if I’m going to overcome the accusations of the devil trying to keep me from becoming who I was born to be, trying to keep me from understanding the love, the protection, and the provision of a covenant relationship with Jesus. So we have to learn to hear the source, right? Because this is what I believe somebody taught me this many years ago, that God speaks to us every day in everyday type of ways.
If you believe that God doesn’t speak to you, you’re wrong. You say, well, I don’t, I can’t hear him. Now that, right? That might be right. I don’t know how to hear him is different than God is not speaking. God is trying to speak to you every day in everyday type of ways. And he uses a lot of different methods to do it, right? He can use songs, he can use dreams, he can use conversations with other people. He can use the word of God as scripture, but God is guiding and directing. He is near you, not far away. He wants to speak to you every day to help you to build your life on a foundation of truth, not on the feelings produced by lies.
Another story about another college student. So this one’s a little close to home. So you’ve got to know my son, oldest son, a little bit. If you watch his podcast, if you haven’t, go back and watch his two episodes. But he’s a type one on the Enneagram. If you haven’t taken our spiritual DNA course, go to spiritualdna.me and you can learn this information about yourself of who God’s created you to be. But Cole’s gone through spiritual DNA and what we know about him, we’re pretty sure that he’s a prophet creative, is kind of his calling in the kingdom. He’s a type one on the Enneagram. And this combination drives him to really want to be a perfectionist, strong inner critic, wants to be seen as doing things right, doing things right, being moral, being ethical is very important to him. And if you’re a type one, you understand that place.
And so Cole called me a couple of weeks ago and just was being honest about some of the things that he’s wrestling through and just, you know, it kind of builds in the last episode that we just released about the side of the perfection is a lie. Like, I know I’m not perfect and is God okay with me? And just a lot of doubts and started to feel like, and he may not have said it like this to this. I don’t feel like I matter, but he was saying, like, I don’t know. Like, I don’t know about myself. I don’t know about God. And I have all these worries and I just this inner critic. And so I said, Cole, I want you to build your life on a foundation of truth of what God says is true about you and what God says is true about him, not on how you feel right now.
So I walked through this very similar process that I did with that other college student. And I got this amazing text from him a couple of days later. He was like, I can’t believe it, dad. He’s like, it worked. He was like, it blew my mind. He’s like, God spoke to me. I’m like, that’s freaking amazing. I’m like, what truth did you tell Jesus? And he told me, told him I felt like this, and I felt like this. And I asked him what he wanted me to know about that. I said, what did God say?
He didn’t really say anything, but then once again, this is interesting, was a common theme with these two college students. He’s like, my mind started to be flooded with songs. I was like, okay, that’s interesting. I said, what song popped in? He’s like, I just kept hearing a song. And then God gave me this other song. And then there’s like three or four songs that popped into my head. And so I was like, okay, I don’t think I know that first song. So I went and looked it up and here’s how awesome God is. Here’s how personal God is. Here’s how much God wants to speak to you every day in every type of ways and meet you most fully where you really are is in this moment of feeling like I don’t matter feeling like I’m not perfect so God can’t love me, right? All these accusations, all these feelings, right?
My son comes to God and says, God, here’s the truth. Here’s what I’m believing about myself. Here’s the feeling I have. What do you want me to know about it? And God sends him through the Holy Spirit in his brain this song. And the song spoke directly to what he needed to hear. And it overwhelmed me with so much joy for my son. And to hear your story would overwhelm me with so much joy as well. Because here’s the deal. There is an accuser in your life who is lying to you, who is trying to destroy you with a sense of failure, with a sense of fear. They’re trying to convince you that God is not for you, trying to convince you that God is not near you, trying to convince you that God has not created you on purpose and for purpose. And those are lies. I don’t care what you think, what you feel about them. I don’t care what the circumstances around you are yelling at you. See, you don’t matter. You’re not as special as everybody else. God doesn’t have a plan for you. He forgot about you. He lost you somewhere down some path and he lost you probably because you’re not perfect enough and you sinned too much and you can’t figure it out and you’re too…
That is not the way that God speaks to you. He doesn’t see you as a failure. He doesn’t see you as someone who’s lost. He sees you as his son or daughter that he dearly loves. And he wants to learn. He wants to teach you to hear his voice so you can be guided by the source of love and by truth in your life. He promises this throughout the scriptures, right? Check it out. He speaks to us. John 10, my sheep listen to my voice. I know them and they follow me. Hebrews 3:15, today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did the rebellion. Revelation 3:20, here I am. I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person and they with me. Isaiah 30:21, whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, this is the way walk in it. Psalm 32:8, I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will counsel you with my loving eye on you. And Proverbs 3:6, and all your ways submit to him and he will make your paths straight. God will lead you by his Holy Spirit, by his voice, by his truth. You’ve got to learn to hear it. Okay. Couple of tips as we close out, okay. When God speaks to you, what does it sound like? It sounds like your voice talking to you. Okay.
I’ve never heard God speak into my life and it’s some booming, you know, kind of like, you know, Charlton Heston. What’s his name? Charles Heston. Wow. That’s terrible. Let’s not edit that out. We’ll just keep it real. Right. James Earl Jones. That’s another one, right? He has a big name, right? Or like Morgan Freeman. It’d be cool, wouldn’t it? If God spoke like Morgan Freeman and you just knew it, it was always Morgan Freeman. And he was like, hope is a dangerous thing. I don’t do good Morgan Freeman, but it would be cool. But it’s not, it’s your voice, right? It’s usually God saying something that sounds smarter than you are. It’s within you, but it kind of feels like it’s coming out, coming from outside of you, right? It stokes the fruit of the spirit in your life. And it’s in line with scripture. And here’s what I think is cool that God does. And I’m just learning this, is that all of us are created uniquely. Some of us are thinkers.
Okay? God’s created us to be more of a thinking person. If you’re talking about the Enneagram, we talk about what we learned in spiritual DNA, you may be in the thinking triad. You’re a five, six, or seven, type five, six, or seven. Some of us are heart people, right? Type two, threes, and fours. We feel our way through life. Some of us are gut people, right? Types eight, nines, and ones. We’re doers. We move towards life with action. And depending on your identity and who God’s created you to be, He will speak to you in that unique identity. If you’re more of a prophet, creative, artistic kind of person, God may give you songs, God may give you images, God may give you just downloads. He might speak to you through dreams. If you’re a thinker, a big time thinker, God’s going to speak to you in ways that intellectually make sense to you. If you’re a feeler, you may just get an impression, a sense, right? Where you sense this is from God because it brings peace and patience and kindness and goodness and gentleness and self-control into your life. He speaks to you through your unique identity. So it’s not the same for every single person, but it’s something I want you to get familiar with. If this is something you have no idea how to do and you’d like to have someone help you walk in this process, okay? It’s one of the things that we do in our Rogue Collective Training. We put together these, we call hives, groups of fortified people.
And some of the exercises we go through helps you get clearer on what’s my destiny. How do I walk towards freedom? How do I live in a deeper sense of love? And in that process, we do work on how do you figure out how do you hear God’s voice and live your life, not from feelings, but from the facts and from faith of what God says is true about you. So are you feeling like you don’t matter? Here’s what I want to encourage you. The three thoughts is you got to build on truth.
Right? Build on truth, not on fear, not on feelings. You need to connect to the source. You need to learn to hear the voice of God guiding and directing you. Tell God the truth and ask him what he wants you to know about that feeling you’re having. Connect to the truth and learn to listen to his voice because you matter. The world needs what you have been given by God to bring to this world. The world needs you, your family needs you, your friend needs you, we need you. You matter. You are created on purpose and for a purpose. God is for you. He’s not against you. He is near you, not far from you. And He wants to speak to you every day in everyday type of ways so you know how loved you are and how unique you are, that you are the workmanship of God created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which He’s created in advance for you to do.
You matter. I hope that’s encouraging to you. I hope it inspires you today. I hope it awakens you to begin to seek to know how to hear the voice of love, to hear the voice of Jesus as he guides and directs you into his love. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. I’d love to hear some feedback. I’d love to be in a conversation with you. You reach out to me, Daron at DaronEarlewine.com and would love to know how this is hitting you, what you’re learning, what God’s saying to you, and be a part of that journey in your life. And also want to thank everyone who donates monthly generously to help us keep the Daron Earlewine podcast alive and all of the resources and discipleship efforts we do through Blackbird Mission all over the country. If you have been blessed by this podcast and maybe God has blessed you financially and you’d like to invest in seeing kingdom things go forward, I want to encourage you to go to blackbirdmission.com/give and join us as a monthly partner. Or maybe it’s something for you so you know that I haven’t been greatly blessed, but I love what you guys do. It’s changed my life and I want to help you guys change the lives of more people. But man, I could probably only help you guys out with 25 bucks a month or something. Listen, every little bit helps and we couldn’t do what we do every single week, every single month for the past 13, 15 years, whatever it’s been, without generous people who believe in this mission. So thank you to our monthly partners that help us continue to take this mission across the world. And if that would be something that you would consider doing, pray about it, ask God what he wants you to do about it. Listen to his voice, not mine. And if you feel nudged to join us as a monthly partner or maybe a one time gift, you can go to blackbirdmission.com/give and join us in that capacity. I appreciate you guys. I love you. Thanks for downloading this episode. We’ll see you next time on the Daron Earlewine Podcast.