From Religious Fear To Secure Love With Pastor And Therapist Micah Morgan

Fear can sound like faith until you realize it’s running your nervous system, your prayers, and your view of God. We’re joined by pastor and licensed therapist Micah Morgan to unpack a question so many believers quietly carry: why do so many of us know God’s holiness, hell, and judgment better than we know God’s love?

We talk about the difference between reverence and torment, and how trauma, abandonment, and church hurt can train us to expect rejection from God the same way we’ve experienced it from people. Micah shares a grounded practice she uses in both ministry and mental health work: gospel meditation. Instead of only memorizing verses, we learn how to “waste time in the gospels” and sit with Jesus in scenes like the woman at the well, letting His posture, patience, and honesty reshape our internal story.

If you’ve ever felt like you have to stay afraid to stay “good,” this conversation offers a safer, truer path. Subscribe, share this with someone who needs relief, and leave a review with the line that challenged you most.

About our guest :

• Micah Morgan, LPCC serves the Central Ohio community as a state-licensed mental health therapist, youth suicide prevention specialist at a local hospital (specializing in suicide prevention for Black youth and for Christian Faith communities), and as a bivocational minister licensed through the Evangelical Covenant Church. As a therapist, she has experience treating adults, couples, and teens who have an emotional, physical, spiritual, and/or racial trauma history. As an associate pastor, she supports the discipleship and spiritual formation of Sanctuary Columbus Church. Micah is passionate about creating safe spaces for deconstructing and reconstructing one’s faith within community rather than in isolation. She is also passionate about making the topics of faith, mental health, and justice doable for the people who trust her to do so.

Pastor & Therapist : Micah Morgan's socials!

• Instagram at @micah.j.m.morgan and on TikTok at @jmariemorgan

Episode Questions,Scriptures & Citations

What first made you realize there’s a difference between knowing about God and truly understanding His love personally?

• How you view Jesus and what you expect of Jesus matters. In a national study published in 2021 called, “Attachment to God and Psychological Distress: Evidence of a Curvilinear Relationship”

Why do you think so many believers grow up more aware of hell, judgment, or fear than they are of God’s love and closeness?

• Fear feels like control. When we know what we're afraid of and we put energy into avoiding it or overcoming it, it often feels like we're doing something productive.

Can fear ever play a healthy role in someone coming to God, or does lasting transformation require something deeper?

• Reverence of God's holiness and an understanding that God is the final Judge is necessary for worship. However, I do not believe that living with a constant fear of losing God's love is healthy or helpful.. (Matt 6:9 NRSVUE)

How do we balance reverence and holiness with the truth that God is loving, compassionate, and relational?

• God's holiness describes the reality that He is the standard and source of all Goodness. Therefore, His approval is what matters most. He sets the standard for what's right and wrong in our lives. 4 “I tell you,  (Luke 12:4-7 NRSVUE)
• Remember that God's Holiness is not passive. It moves Him to heal the world of individual and systemic sin and suffering. (Colossians 1:19-20 NRSVUE) (Revelation 21:1-5 NRSVUE)
• God doesn't sit idly by and watch sin and suffering and trauma ruin our lives. If it's true that Jesus is the exact representation of God (John 5:19; Hebrews 1:3), Jesus shows us that God grieves with us-- weeps with us-- when brokenness touches our lives directly. (John 11:17-21, 33-35 NRSVUE)

What are some signs that a person’s relationship with God has become rooted more in fear than in love?

• When someone's first thought then they do something wrong is, "God doesn't love me anymore," rather than, "God still loves me and has provided an excape from the power of sin every step of the way:
• 17 So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has p. (2 Corinthians 5:17-20 NRSVUE) (John 14:18, 26 NRSVUE) (1 John 1:9 NRSVUE) (1 Corinthians 10:13 NRSVUE

For people healing from trauma, rejection, or harsh religious experiences, how can they begin rebuilding a healthy understanding of God?

• Spend time with Jesus in the Gospels and work on feeling what it feels like to interact with Jesus there.
• “To know Jesus, therefore, is to know God (John 14: 9). Jesus is the “image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1: 15 nrsv). Thus he is the filter through which we need to pass all our ideas about God as we seek to move from knowing about God to meeting God personally in Jesus.” — The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery (The Spiritual Journey) by David G. Benner (p. 35)
• “Relationships develop when people spend time together. Spending time with God ought to be the essence of prayer... The starting point for learning to simply spend time with God is learning to do this with Jesus. Spending time with Jesus allows us to ground our God-knowing in the concrete events of a concrete life.” — The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery (The Spiritual Journey) by David G. Benner (p. 37)
• “Gospel meditation provides an opportunity to enter specific moments in Jesus’ life and thereby share his experience. Shared experience is the core of any friendship. And Spirit-guided meditation on the life of Jesus provides this possibility. The meditation I am recommending is not the same as Bible study. It is more an exercise of the imagination than of the intellect. It involves allowing the Spirit of God to help you imaginatively enter an event in the life of Christ as presented in the Gospels... [O]bserve the events as they unfold. Watch, listen and stay attentive to Christ. Don’t... try to analyze the story or learn lessons from it. Just be present to Jesus and open to your own reactions." — The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery (The Spiritual Journey) by David G. Benner (p. 37-38)

What Scriptures most changed your understanding of God’s character and love?

• God's character is such that He intended to completely solve the problems of sin and death through Jesus-- not merely condemn us.  (John 3:1-2, 16-19 NRSVUE)
• When I try to imagine what God is like and how God responds to me when I do something wrong, I remember that Jesus already told us that God is like Him. Everything the Son does, the Father does. Therefore, the way the Son loves me and interacts with me is also the way the Father loves and interacts with me.  (John 5:19 NRSVUE) (Hebrews 1:1-4 NRSVUE)

How do shame and condemnation distort the way people hear God’s voice?

• We tend to live out of our defenses and self-protectiveness when we live in shame and condemnation-- which makes generosity and mercy, grace and truth toward our neighbor more difficult to embody.

What would you say to someone who obeys God outwardly but internally struggles to believe they are truly loved by Him?

• Jesus is offering you the same kind of shame-free relationship He provided to the woman at the well. Jesus was so kind, loving, and welcoming to the woman at the well as He spoke to her that she could say to her village with a smile, "come and meet a man who told me everything I've ever done!" (John 4:4-7, 29-30 NRSVUE)

What does a love-centered relationship with God actually look like in everyday life?

• Using our healing as an opportunity to sin no more. Jesus understood sin to be damaging. It disrupts our closeness with God and with our neighbor. When we have encountered Jesus and are healed, we are take that healing and "sin no more." 2 . (John 5:2-9, 14-15 NRSVUE)
• A healthy spirituality is characterized by loving God and loving our neighbor. (Matt 22:34-40 NRSVUE

Closing reflection: If listeners walk away remembering one truth about God’s heart toward them, what would you want it to be?

• When we're deeply convinced of our belovedness from God, we tend to be more generous with our love for others. Therefore, meditate on the reality that you are loved by God more than you could ever imagine and watch how that affects your relationships. . (Romans 8:35, 37-39 NRSVUE)

• Support the show
  2 Corinthians 2:14 Now thanks be unto God, who always causes us to Triumph! 

Transcript

Welcome And Why This Exists

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Yo, welcome to 20 October Trauma, the podcast. Listen, y'all, I created this podcast because, like so many other people, I've had a traumatic past. I didn't always realize how those things affected me negatively and how I even carried them into my adult life. And so I wanted to create a space where other people can come and we can have candid conversations. Well, how do you identify trauma? How do you navigate it and how you recover from traumatic experiences? If this resonates with you, then join me. I am your host and trauma survivor, Miss Eve McNair. Let's get into it.

Meet Micah And The Big Question

SPEAKER_02 0:33

Hey guys, welcome back to Triumph Over Trauma. It has been a while, needless to say, I am back, and today I'm joined with pastor and therapist Micah Morgan. I came across Micah's video on TikTok. And so one day as I was scrolling, I found Micah's video, and she was going over um how sometimes we're more focused on the fact that hell is real, or maybe we're more educated on the fact that hell is real more than we are about the love of God. And when I saw that video, I just kept watching it over and over again. It resonated so deeply with me because I was like, wait a minute. When I even think about my own come to Jesus moment, um, I do remember hearing conversations like, you know, you don't want to leave here today and not know where your soul is going. Um, you you know, you could not wake up tomorrow. And and I will say that I was inadvertently in that case introduced to the fear of God before I was introduced to the love of God. And so Micah's video again um struck a chord with me, and I wanted to invite her on to the show to um elaborate on that as a pastor and a mental health therapist. And um, Micah, if you don't mind, give us a little bit of information about yourself and about the video you posted.

SPEAKER_01 1:59

Yes, thank you so much, by the way, Eve, for just letting me take up space on your algorithm and for watching my video. I really appreciate it. Um but yeah, I I am a therapist licensed um in Ohio, and then I'm serving full-time as a therapist in the community as a hospital at a hospital, and then serving part-time at my church as an associate pastor. And that video really was just my heart, like my heart for God's people is that we would be more convinced of God's love than we are motivated by fear. Wow. And there's lots that we can talk about in terms of God's holiness, and you know, what do we do when we think about God's holiness and God's wrath and how should we respond to that? But what we focus on from day to day is really what captures my heart. That's that's what I focus on when I serve people.

SPEAKER_02 3:00

I like I like that you said it's about what we focus on day to day. And that jumps out to me because in my early um encounter with Jesus and praying and trying to follow God, I remember having this sense of fear or dread, even in approaching him in prayer. We know that the Bible says, come boldly to the throne of grace that you may receive help in the time of need. But I think although I was approaching God who I knew could help me, who um cared about me, who was concerned about me, there was still this sense of dread, fear. Now I know that I can attribute that to some of my own traumatic experiences with my early relationships and childhood, but I still remember feeling like, uh oh, if I don't get this right, if I don't do this right, could I possibly end up in the bad place, right? Um, and so I think that for a lot of people, whether you are what we would consider a seasoned Christian or a babe in Christ, I think that sometimes how we are introduced to Christ, especially with, you know, maybe that type of language where we've we are focusing more on um the wrath or the anger of God versus the love and compassion, mercy of God, can kind of um shape our relationship or how we approach or how we even think that he views us. Um, I do want to make it clear that um I know that there is scriptural evidence that hell, in fact, is a real place, um, and that separation from God is a serious biblical truth. I believe that wholeheartedly. Um, however, I also believe that there's scriptural evidence and consistent evidence of God's love, of his mercy, of his compassion. Um, I mean, of course, we know one of the most famous scriptures, one of the scriptures, of course, probably was the one that got me hook, line, and sinker for me was of course John 3.16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. That who should ever believe in him, of course, will not perish, but have everlasting life. And always thought about like, well, have everlasting life where? Like, if we're not gonna live here forever, where what other options do we have and where are they? Um, but again, it was always with that sense of dread and fear or or of making a mistake, of possibly losing my ticket, so to speak. People can't see me doing air votes, but losing my ticket, so to speak, to heaven. And so again, I'm just want to, you know, go into a series of questions here that kind of came up for me as I was thinking about the scriptures. Um, again, you know, the ones that point to hell being a real place, like Matthew 25, 41, and then of course the one I just mentioned, John 3.16, which, you know, gives evidence to the fact that God loves us, right? Um, I'm gonna take a dive into a few of the questions here, and by all means, you know, we don't have to stick to just the questions. If you have anything to import as a pastor, as a therapist, as a child of God yourself, you know, just of course feel free to do so. My first question, I guess I can this question is going to be you to you as a child of God, and then maybe if you feel like there's another nuance as a pastor, you can add to this as well. What first made you realize that there's a difference between knowing about God and truly understanding his love personally?

Gospel Meditation And Experiencing Jesus

SPEAKER_01 6:39

I would say the first time this difference was when I read a book called The Gift of Being Yourself by David Benner.

SPEAKER_00 6:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:48

And in the book, it talks about a spiritual practice called gospel meditation. And what David Benner talked about was the fact that we are often so good at memorizing scripture, you know, rattling off things that we believe are true about God, but we don't spend enough time experiencing God. And the way to do that is by wasting time in the gospels. Wow. And I started doing that practice. I started doing over and really the practice is reading moments in the gospels that are focused on Jesus, so where Jesus is speaking or where Jesus is acting. Okay, you do read it over and over again. You you pretend as if you are one of the bystanders or you are the person you who is talking to Jesus. Oh wow. And you practice asking the question how would I feel if I were in that moment with Jesus? How would I feel if I were Nicodemus sneaking off in John chapter three to talk to Jesus in the middle of the night? Yeah. If I were the Samaritan woman who no one wanted to have anything to do with, so I had to go get water in the middle of the day, the high of the day. But this Jewish man stopped to talk to me. How would I feel? And I started noticing that changed me. That started me more gracious. It started, it my rested heart rate got slower. I felt more at peace experiencing what it was like to be with Jesus. And so that is something that has changed me, and I have noticed how it has changed people that I serve. When I coach people in pastoral meetings to sit in moments with Jesus and practice imagining being with Jesus, they walk away with so much more peace than just rattling off scriptures from Paul. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 8:35

That's so profound because I'm not sure if I read it somewhere or heard it somewhere in the podcast, but there was some language that's um pretty much said that um in Western society we read from a different lens versus other, you know, cultures and societies. And so that kind of affects how we interpret scripture, how we believe what we believe the scriptures say to us. And um, I know even because I and this probably pertains to the type of ministry that I sit under, uh, which is considered apostolic prophetic ministry. And so sometimes I've read in the Bible, like, oh, I'm gonna get me a word, you know, God gonna speak to me. And there has been times that I've thought, like, God, you ain't saying nothing today, you know. But was I reading to get to know Jesus, or was I reading for him to like tickle my ego? But I remember one day I was reading the story of the woman at the well. And I was like, dang, you know, I just kept diving into it, diving into it, and what made I wanted to understand what made her story so profound, you know. And I was a little bit mad at God, like, dang, why you had to say that she had five husbands? And I felt like, you know, like why you had to like kind of call out with the issues that she had, and why did you speak to her in such a way? But then I also took into consideration her response. She was chill, like, oh, you must be a prophet, you know, like she was cool, she was chill, she she wasn't upset, you know. She she told him a little bit about what she thought she knew. Listen, my father is, you know, we work, we've been worshiping, we own this, you know, this well, and all of these different things. And I appreciated the dialogue. And it made me think, like, oh, I could rap with God, you know what I'm saying? Oh, I could talk to him, really have a heart-to-heart. Um, and I think just moments like that that help us understand, even though God is not physically here with us, he is within us, but he's a real person, he's a real being, and we can talk to him and we can relate to him. That alone helps me more. I will say this knowing that alone has helped me want a relationship with him more than fearing hell has. Um, and I and I'm probably gonna get some feedback, but um, that has helped me have and maintain a relationship with him. Obviously, I do not want to go to hell, do not desire that for me, for none of my loved ones, my friends, my families, or my enemies. But just knowing for me, I can relate to him, that he knows me, he sees me, and that he loves me unconditionally. I don't gotta perform, you know, I don't have to cross every T and dot every I. Once I have accepted him into my heart, and to once I believe that he is the savior of the world, like I don't have to be on this um guilt trip all the time. You know what I mean? I don't have to be insecure in my faith.

SPEAKER_01 11:26

No, I I love how transparent that you're being, right? And really just sharing that oftentimes fear feels more accessible. It's it's easier to fear

Fear Feels Productive Love Feels Risky

SPEAKER_01 11:40

God because we feel like we're checking off a box, we feel like we're in control. But I I invite people to go back to John chapter chapter 10. Okay, where Jesus is describing what it is like for him to be the good shepherd, and where he says of himself no one can snatch you out of the father's hand. That's John chapter 10, verse 29. Yes, he's saying that you once you learn my voice, once you are mine, no one can snatch you out of my hand. So I invite people to ask the question do you believe that? Do you believe once you choose Jesus as Lord, do you believe that he will chase you down and make sure that your relationship with him is secure? Wow. It's him that's doing all the work. We keep putting it back on us and saying, I need to earn this, I need to earn this. But if it is true that God so loved the world that that he sent his son, he did it all. Wow. And so, yes, we respond to his love, but but living day to day in fear that we will lose it, it doesn't match with Jesus' scripture. It doesn't match with what Jesus has said about his own love. If he's saying that we can't be snatched out of the sand, where does that does that fear have any basis? Is what I want to invite us to think about. Where do you think that fear comes from for most people? I think we understand that the world is not as it should be yet. Like I think we feel that every day. We feel that that the Holy Spirit is still at work, redeeming all things, restoring all things to be reconciled back to Jesus, as it says in the book of Colossians. And so being afraid is a natural response to that.

SPEAKER_00 13:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 13:33

And what we do is we project that onto God. We look around and we say, I know that things are not as they should be yet. I know that you're still in the process of healing it all. Okay. That's where we are right now. After Jesus inaugurated his kingdom by walking on this earth, dying on the cross, and raising from the dead, he returns to be with God to complete the rest of that work, to heal all of the rest of creation, to make a place for us. And so we're we're in this waiting phase. And looking at I'm like, okay, sin still feels like it's winning. For real. And the way that we feel empowered is we say, because that helps me to feel like I'm doing something. Fear feels productive. Yes, it does.

SPEAKER_02 14:22

Wow, fear feels productive, and love feels risky. Wow. That's actually true. I can I can that resonates with me because, like you said, you feel like you're in somewhat of a control if you have this constant fear behind you in your own mind, possibly motivating you to be good. When obviously the Bible says there's no one, you know, that is good. You know what I mean? Um, but wow, I didn't think of it like that. Yeah. I like that you said that he's the one doing all the work. Even even while we're waiting for his return, he's yet and work in us, you know, he's yet working through us. It gives me relief to know that um what's happening externally that doesn't really matter. Um what it what's really important is what's taking place on the inside of my soul, of my spirit, of my mind, and that alone, that responsibility, that work, that job is God's, you know, that belongs to Him. And um I'm not in charge of that. My fear is not in charge of that. Uh I do want to want to f um to mention that we're not necessarily talking about the fear that comes with um respect, like awe or reverence. We're not necessarily talking about that type of fear. We're talking about fear like the Bible says that has torment, right? That makes you, you know, hyperventilated or have anxiety or insecure or you know, worried or anxious. You know, we're talking about that afraid of punishment from God.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

Um I was just gonna highlight, I appreciate the difference that you just highlight there. Because Jesus talks about this too. Yeah in Luke 12, verses 4 through 7, right? Okay. He says to his disciples, I tell you, don't fear the people who can kill the body and can do nothing more. But I will show you whom to fear. Fear the one who kill and has authority to cast into hell. Jesus is teaching us who is it that we need to be seeking approval from? Who is it that we need to put up as our standard? Not the approval of man or people, but approval of the one who is holy. He is good. There is nothing bad within God, and so that is why we consider him the standard of goodness, approval. That's good. But but what what what we get wrong though is that we stop there at that scripture, Eve. Okay, we don't keep reading. So when we get to verse six, Jesus says, Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten in God's sight. But even the hands on your head are all numbered, therefore do not be afraid. You are of more value than any sparrows. So Jesus is not saying just fear God because constantly afraid that God will abandon you and not take care of you. No, Jesus is saying fear God because He is the standard, He is the one who deterns who determines who goes where.

SPEAKER_02 17:32

Right.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

But that doesn't mean you have to be constantly nervous about how he interacts with you. That's what we get wrong.

SPEAKER_02 17:40

Yeah. But why do you feel that there's so many people who kind of just grow up with more of an awareness

Trauma Projection And A Punitive God

SPEAKER_02 17:46

of the wrath of God more than they grow up or grow into the love of God?

SPEAKER_01 17:52

Well, Eve, I'm gonna put on my therapist hat. Okay. Because, you know, really one of the answers, just one, one of the answers to this question is we are skeptical of the love of God because the way we treat each other makes us skeptical of the love we get from each other. I'm sorry, say that again. We are skeptical of the love of God because the way we treat each other makes us skeptical of the love we get from each other. And so this is the thing that we I think is helpful for us to remember about ourselves. Okay. It is hard for us not to predict one to God what we experience here on earth.

SPEAKER_02 18:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

There have been many research studies that have been done that talk about how trauma affects or a lack of felt relational safety affects the way that we think about God. So we have had a lot of abandonment in our lives. If we have had a lot of people turn their backs on us, criticize us, judge us, and we try to imagine what God is like, we project that onto God. And so this is one of the reasons why I believe Jesus said in chapter 13, they will know you by the way you love one another. They will know that you follow me by the way that you love one another. And one another matters. It shapes the way we think, not only about each other, but also about God. And so when I'm working with people as a therapist, sometimes I, you know, work with people with their spirituality and whatever mental health diagnosis we're treating, right? Oftentimes they're projecting the things that they go through in their relationships on well, God must, God must think of me this way too. God must be constantly on the verge of walking the way for me too.

SPEAKER_02 19:41

Wow. As someone who has had to confront abandonment trauma in my own life, when I look back on some of my past behaviors, I can I can see how they my rep my my relationship with God or the way I related to him was, like you said, a trauma response based on my early relationships with other people, thinking like, I know I've done done it now. I know that this is it. God is done with me. You know, there's no way I'm making it in. No way he got no more grace, no way he got no more mercy. Um, because we only know that can you know, we only know that conditional love. And so we really have no reference point, which makes it even more difficult, I think, to maintain a relationship with God. But it's when you are in your daily life, when you are facing these challenges, your insecurities, your issues, whatever, um, that you begin to doubt that there's no way that he could know the worst about me and still want to give me the best of himself, right? If we are to consider the impact, I don't know if there's some sort of case study that was ever done about the impact that fear has on a person versus the impact that love has on a person? Of course, we can deduce maybe the person who's loved properly will be better balanced, more successful, and everything like that. But um, can fear ever, ever in any capacity play a healthy role in

Does Fear Create Real Change

SPEAKER_02 21:08

someone coming to God, maintaining a relationship with God, or does lasting transformation require something deeper than fear?

SPEAKER_01 21:19

Yeah, this is a good question. Okay. This is a good question. I really I I I thought deeply about this when you sent it to me. Here's what I'll say.

unknown 21:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 21:29

And I think Jesus highlights this in that scripture that I read from Luke 12. Right. Our response to God, the reverence that we have for God is realizing that God is the ultimate being. Okay. Right? God is judge. Yeah. Along with Jesus. Jesus talks about in John chapter 5 God has given me all of the power of judgment, right? So that is what initially convinces us of the Reason why it is worth worshiping God. That is often what we what convinces us first is God's holiness and receipts of reverence. Now, some people experience that as fear.

SPEAKER_00 22:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 22:17

Other people don't. This looks very interesting is that the fear response to God, that fear of God is so big, God can send me to hell. That's not how everyone begins their spiritual journey. Some people begin it just by the sheer beauty of God. They think about the fact that God is so beautiful. I want to worship God. Some people don't come to God with fear. And so I think I am skeptical of the fact that when we read about the fear of God in scripture, I think we have projected a Western picture of fear onto that. And I don't think it's this kind of trending, I'm scared God's gonna kill me at any moment. Fear. I think a more appropriate word for it is reverence. Yeah. Revering God for coloness and saying, you know what? The fact that you wrapped yourself in flesh and died on a cross for me and had the nerve to live 33 years on to teach us how to be integrated human.

SPEAKER_02 23:25

Right.

SPEAKER_01 23:26

Like you spent time with us. Like some people are like, man, that is so beautiful. I want to, I want to get to know this God who wants to be with me. Wow. And so all of that to say, I don't think that this kind of anxiety that a lot of people feel is necessary for faith. I rather it is, but I don't think that that constant worry of being thrown away is a necessity. And there have actually been studies that show that when we think of God as this punitive, wrathful, punishing God, if that's how we constantly imagine God, yeah. We tend to be, this was published in the Journal for Scientific Study of Religion in 2021. Okay, now we tend to be more anxious, we tend to be more paranoid, we tend to engage in impulsive behaviors that overstep the boundaries of others and our own boundaries. There was another study published in 2019 that showed that when we see God more loving and when we see God's love as unconditional, people tend to have more empathy, they tend to be more capable of forgiving, they tend to be more generous and helping toward others. Wow. So there has been research that shows that the way we see God, it's not this neutral kind of thing, but it affects the way that we show up in the world. If we constantly think I'm always at risk of losing God's love, that affects the way that we act.

SPEAKER_02 25:02

Wow. That's mind-blowing for me. Um, the fact that there are people whose, like you said, whose first introduction to God was maybe in nature. Um, maybe with the birth of a child, maybe, maybe with some sort of deliverance from, you know, an addiction or a miracle in their health. I'm almost choked up about it myself when I think about, you know, people we um we know at one point who were in the faith and maybe now uh are what we would consider backslidden. Maybe it is because all along they had the fear that they, you know, was weren't gonna be good enough for God or weren't gonna make the mark or weren't going to meet this uh impossible standard. And so they just quit the race, you know? Not knowing, like you said, that God is constantly chasing after them, wanting them, wooing them, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 26:00

Yeah, and I think I think it it moves us to compassion, Eve, too, you know, to say, what if what if people have walked away from God because they felt like they just could never measure up? Yeah. And so at Memo, that invites us to speak love to one another and to say, you couldn't do it anyway. Yeah, you couldn't do it by yourself anyway. That's why Jesus in John chapter 14 said, When I go, I'm gonna leave a comforter for you. I'm gonna leave the Holy Spirit for you to remind you of the things that I have taught you. Every step of the way, Jesus has put some kind of contingency plan together for us to succeed in Christ-likeness.

SPEAKER_00 26:46

Right.

SPEAKER_01 26:46

Every step of the way, whether it was being born by a virgin and living and showing us how to be in relationship with God and how to be in relationship with one another. Yeah. Whether it was dying on the cross to be sin with leaving the Holy Spirit to make sure that we have something within us that reminds us of our belovedness with God and reminds us of the teachings of God. Every step of the way, God has been our help. And so to try to do it in our own strength, it just doesn't, it doesn't even match with what Jesus has put in place. Jesus is saying, trying, if you trust the things that I've done to make your salvation complete, you cannot be snatched out of my hand. So it's our job to believe that.

SPEAKER_02 27:36

Yeah. You you referenced the scripture that they will know us by our love, right? For for those people who may not feel like they've experienced the love of God or they don't know what you know unconditional love is, if we are to exemplify that, I feel like that first is gonna have to flow from a relationship with him. Uh our obviously we can't pour out of a tank that hasn't, you know, hasn't been filled. I would venture to say that maybe for those of us who have felt as though you in the body of Christ have felt as though they had to use a fear tactic as a means to control a person's decision, maybe that stems from yourself having a lack of love. Because if we believe the scripture that says that they will know us um by our love, right? And we know that God's love is um uh encompassing, it's it draw the Bible says that he draws us with loving kindness, you know. If we realize that then love that love actually does the work that we think that fear is doing, right? Um, so it's all I look at it as like you're almost robbing the Holy Spirit of his job when all you have to do is let love do the work, you know what I mean? Before I ask the next question. Were you gonna say something? No, I

Holiness As Justice And Protection

SPEAKER_02 28:58

1000% agree. Okay. Um, well, I guess this kind of aligns with what we were just saying. How do you think that we balance that reverence and holiness with the truth that God is loving, is compassionate, is relational. I feel like we kind of just answered that. How do we balance those? Is there a balance?

SPEAKER_01 29:19

I I think there is, even I think, you know, this goes back to what I talked about when it comes to gospel meditation. Okay. Is, you know, I think we think of God's holiness as this, this, like, of course we do, because there's no conceive of God's holiness. But I think the way that we think about it is it's this thing that that is just like untouchable, there's no way that we can understand it. But God's holiness actually has a function. And it's helpful for us to meditate on what that function is. Okay. God's holiness sets the standard for what is right and wrong, what is good. God's holiness, therefore, is the standard judgment. So when we look out in the world and we see injustice, okay, God's holiness is supposed to bring us a source of peace. We're supposed to look at God and say, I know that you are absolutely other compared to the evil that's going on in this world. And because you are other, because you are holy and you can't let evil exist without being eradicated, I have trust in you that you are true when you say you are going to defeat evil in this world. So holiness is supposed to evoke a response from us. Okay. And I think where we where we kind of we start what the what the Holy Spirit is trying to do in us is we don't meditate on what does it mean that God told me? What does it mean that God is the greatest good source of good that there is? What does that mean for my life today? It means that he's pulling towardness, he's inviting me to live like Christ because this is the standard that he has set. He is making sure that his holiness compels him to do justice in our world. When we meditate on that and we keep that at the forefront of our mind, that settles us to a trusting relationship with God. Because we know that God's holiness isn't something that's just sitting far off and not moving God to action. Wow. And so I think for me, when when I'm serving people in my in our congregation, right, I invite them to think about what does it mean that God is the best thing ever? Like, that's what we're saying when we say God is holy. There is none like him who is like the Lord.

SPEAKER_00 31:38

Right.

SPEAKER_01 31:39

Right? So that means that every bit of evil and suffering in this world, God's holiness is going to move him to heal it all. Wow. So God's holiness evokes us to trust. So, you know, I'm I'm I'm really passionate about making sure that we that we don't just let the reverence of God just kind of sit in this part of our brain that doesn't like have a function. But like use the reverence of God, use the holiness of God for your faith to help you know how God responds and how you should respond to God.

SPEAKER_02 32:16

So God's holiness definitely certainly serves um as a reminder of how we should function in relationship to Him and in the way that we should live, or at least strive to live. And it's so crazy because I'm actually uh every year I try to read the Bible from cover to cover. So now I'm back in the book of Exodus, and I'm reading it's either the 30th chapter, 32nd chapter around there, when uh Moses is in the mountain on the mountain, and um God calls, he God called tells Moses he's gonna speak to the people, and they come to he to he tells them don't touch the mountain. And the people are like, Yeah, we don't want you can go talk to God for us, but we really don't want to be like, you know, in his way. We really don't have we want no parts of that. And sometimes I think about that, God, are you that same old testament God? Because they kind of it seems like you wasn't playing, like you were striking people down, you ain't, you know, you there was so much going on that we think in the old testament versus the new testament, and it's like, are you that same person? You know, and if you are that same person, how should we entreat you, you know?

SPEAKER_01 33:32

I love this question. I love it. Is God still the same God in the Old Testament? You know, I I think I think the answer is yes, of course, right? Because God is one, God does not change. Yes, but I think what what is so important about God wrapping himself in flesh, right, and incarnating himself as Jesus here on earth is that we get to make better sense of the old testament God.

SPEAKER_02 34:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 34:04

So for example, when we when we see God, you know, responding in the Old Testament with what we perceive as anger or with you know, sometimes violence, really pay attention. When God responds that way, it is to keep safe, vulnerable people or God's chosen people. Now, if we go to the New Testament, we see Jesus showing up the same way. Right, that's true. That's true. I'm thinking of when he flipped the I was about to say, right? When we think about Jesus in that moment, what what he was thinking about were the people who were on the outside of those courts who couldn't get in because they didn't have any money to change over. Right. Okay. So Jesus flipped the tables because he was like, You turning this into a marketplace, and the vulnerable people who need to be close to God can't get in here.

SPEAKER_00 34:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:59

That's the same God.

SPEAKER_02 35:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 35:01

Protecting the vulnerable, and if God needed to use aggression to protect the purple, God does. That is good.

SPEAKER_02 35:09

I love that. I love that. For someone who may have misunderstood things like we just talked about, um, his response to sin or to just, you know, because out of his love correcting this, for someone who may have misunderstood that, I think that's gonna speak volume. We we hear all the time that, you know, whom the Lord loves if he chastises, and even in his correcting this love, you know, but I think we equate it to when you were a child and your mother, your father, your caregiver gave you a spanking and they said, I do this because I love you. And you're like, what I don't understand. Because how does hurting me making me feel loved? But I think it goes back to understanding if you understand his holiness, you understand the standard, you understand why he's passionate, you understand, like you said, why he's so adamant about those who are marginalized, those who are, you know, vulnerable. You know, um, we kind of spoke to this as well.

Signs Your Faith Is Fear Based

SPEAKER_02 36:14

But um, what are some of the signs that we could consider that our relationship with God is more rooted in fear than it is in the knowledge of his love?

SPEAKER_01 36:25

Yeah, I would say one of the tale tell signs is when the Holy Spirit convicts us of doing something wrong, okay, doing something that chafes against doesn't align with God's holiness, what is our first thought? Is our first thought God doesn't love me anymore? Or is our first thought God's love has provided a way of escape? Or is our first thought that God's salvation has made a way for me to confess and to repent from that sin and provide a way of escape? If we think of God's love as a as a means for healing from sin and running away from sin, that is a healthier spirituality rather than I just did something wrong and now God doesn't want anything to do with me anymore. And this is based on God's scripture.

SPEAKER_00 37:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 37:22

Like, do we believe that God provides us a way of escape? Do we believe if we if we confess our sins that He is faithful to forgive us? Like we we have to wrestle with within ourselves and ask we do we believe those things.

SPEAKER_02 37:38

Right. Wow. Wow, that's awesome. I love that. So the next time that you are tempted after a mistake, a deliberate, um, undeliberate, a sin, a shortcoming, a failure, when you are tempted to condemn yourself, understand that that could point to or or could speak to the fact that your relationship with God could be more rooted in fear versus the knowledge of his love and the knowledge of the way of escape that he's provided through confession, through repentance, and the help and strength and power of the Holy

Healing Church Hurt And Trauma

SPEAKER_02 38:16

Spirit. Um, we know we live in this age where everyone's talking about their trauma. Um, I myself, obviously, the name of the podcast is Triumph Over Trauma, and there's just so much that we can talk about in terms of trauma. And so I definitely shied away. And then sometimes I still do like, you know, okay, God, you're gonna have to, you know, push me back up there again to talk about that, but with so many people talking about it. So for those people who are healing from trauma, rejection or abandonment, um, or even like harsh religious experiences, people who have that church hurt, you know, um, how can they begin just rebuilding a healthy understanding of God? You know, sometimes it's people feel like, and I know this is kind of like a run on run-on question, sometimes people feel like I'm not gonna have a relationship with God because I don't go to church, and I don't go to church because that's where I've been hurt. So, how can somebody build a healthy healthy relationship with God in light of all the trauma they've experienced, whether it's been in their families or in the church?

SPEAKER_01 39:19

Yeah, yeah. I think two things would be helpful to believe. The first is to really believe that Jesus is grieving the brokenness of the world with us. I think a lot about when Jesus, you know, when Lazarus died, and Martha, Jesus finally three days later, he's walking down the street, Martha sees him, and she starts yelling at Jesus. Like, Jesus, if you had only been here, he wouldn't have died. Now, Jesus' response could have been to get, you know, puffed up and saying, like, who do you talking to? Like, I'm the King of Kings. Like, you want to talk to me like that. But instead, his response was to weep with Martha. And I think that was Jesus showing us that he understands this world is not the way that my father intended it to be. We look back at Genesis 1 and 2, like the world that God created was all things in perfect relationship with one another. And so Jesus weeping over that brokenness gives us permission to lament that too. We can lament the fact that we've not been held safe in spaces where we should have been protected. We can lament the fact that there has been immense injustice, vulnerable populations, people of color, black people, indigenous peoples. We can lament that because we know Jesus is weeping too. That's one. But then, second, yeah, I think we don't have a full enough picture of salvation. Yeah, I think we fixate on salvation is just humans being saved.

SPEAKER_02 41:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 41:11

That's a part of it.

SPEAKER_02 41:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 41:13

But Jesus is also coming to heal systems, Jesus is coming to heal the world. Wow. In Revelation 21, it says, Paul, I saw a new heaven and a new earth. Everything is being made new. Wow. It's not just humans. Wow. Right? So if we believe that, then what we are saying to God is, you know what? I am trusting that every broken system, every deteriorating body, every bit of illness, every leader who has abused their power, all of that will be healed.

unknown 41:53

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 41:54

And I'm trusting you to do it. I'm gonna participate in what you ask me to do. Right. I'm gonna surrender this every day by the power of the Holy Spirit, but I'm trusting you to heal everything else. Wow. And I think those things, knowing that Jesus weeps with us, right? Knowing that Jesus is coming to heal it all, can help us to be like, you know what, God? I know that I'm through some tough stuff, but I know that you've got a plan to fix it all. And while you're fixing it, you're gonna validate my weeping of it.

SPEAKER_02 42:27

I absolutely love God not only gives us permission to grieve what we have experienced, but that he weeps with us. That is so profound. Because when I think about the times where I hurt the most, even the traumas that I've had to face and therapy and prayer, and you know, just different things, one of the most debilitating things was that it felt as if I went through all of this alone, right? Nobody saw it, nobody knew it, nobody understands. So the fact that Jesus will come on the scene, offer salvation, offer healing and correction to all of these systems which as it which were went astray or awry as a result of the fall of man. But he's coming to remedy that. But in the interim, okay, I saw what you went through, I understand what you went through. I it hurts me that you went through that, right? Because people need to know that someone sees and understands. So I love that you gave language to the fact that not only do we have permission to heal and be let God heal us, but we have permission to grieve our experiences, and God has invited us to allow him to step with us so that he can. Grieve with us in it, like that is so profound to me. That is so profound to me. And I just again want to, you know, just speak to that one. You may be like, you know what? There's no way that there is a God, that there's no way that this Jesus Jesus person exists. If what I went through happened, there's no way, right? How can you say that God is holy and loving and all-knowing and powerful if the scope of what I went through has literally utterly felt like it was destroying me? You just you've just given us that remedy by saying we have permission to heal and to be healed and to grieve. And I honestly will go in a little bit further to say, I think, even when, and this is probably going to be for another episode, but even when we talk about trauma in the church and we talk about leaders being trauma-informed, and even laymen being trauma-informed, and understanding your brother and sister in Christ, and maybe what you might consider their struggles could possibly be, you know, trauma responses, coping mechanisms. But if we are to really understand Jesus' mission, it's literally to heal the broken. And how have people become broken through trauma? You know, through the things they've experienced, you know. Um, it's just that blew me away. Uh that's something I'm probably going to be chewing on for the next couple days. Um, real quick, there's a story in the Bible. I can't I forget the address.

SPEAKER_00 45:35

Praise God.

SPEAKER_02 45:36

You'll tell me. There's a story in the Bible, you know it. Jesus comes to the pool of Bethesda. Uh, the man has been there nearly 40 years. Uh, he, you know, obviously wants to get into the pool. I thought that's it. That's in John 5. Uh, he wants to get into the pool, and you know, he's been waiting for a while. But the story goes that um he's been waiting there for years, and every time he goes to get into the pool, you know, somebody goes down before him, and he has that never has never had the opportunity to get in the pool and receive this miracle. Every time I read that story, what sticks out to me the most is that when Jesus came on the scene, Jesus talked to him. When he said, Do you want to be made whole? Right? And the man goes on to say, you know, hey man, I'm trying to get in this water. I'm paraphrasing, I'm trying to get in this water. Every time I try to go down, somebody else gets there before me. Um, while he was giving his what someone may say is uh an excuse, Jesus never interrupted him. He let him explain, he let him talk, he let him get it out. He sat with him in whatever his issue was, whatever he thought his reality was. I love the fact that Jesus, before he offered him his healing, before he gave him instruction, before he told him even how to maintain his healing. Because remember, he said, Rise or take your bed and walk and then sit no more, right? So something else worse don't happen to you. But before he did all of that, he sat with him and he talked with him. And every time I read that story, I'm struck by the way Jesus approached him. I'm struck by the fact that a lot of the miracles of healing that Jesus performed within the was in the context of conversation. Right? And so again, when you say, when you say that um Jesus gives us that permission, that's what I was immediately reminded of, that he gave that man at the at the pull-up as a permission to tell whatever his story was, right? Um, and then he offered solution. And I I just hope that that's a model that we could um adapt, right? When we're looking at someone's situation, when we're looking at, you know, maybe an addiction, when we're looking at someone's failures or um issues, you know, whatever it is that we could give people permission and sit there with him uh in it. You know what I mean? Um until they're until they're ready to get their healing, until they're ready, you know, to receive what it is that they need in order to move forward um in their lives. What I do love about um our conversation thus far is that a lot of what you said was um scripture-based and backed up with scripture. I always say um sometimes I know what's in the Bible but not where it is. Always um tell people, let me find the address of that first. But you gave us the address, the Google coordinates, the maps, you know, all of that. And so with that in mind, with that in mind, what scriptures would you say um most change your understanding of God's love?

SPEAKER_01 48:59

I would say one of one of the scriptures that I come back to all the time is John chapter 5, verse 19. Okay, where Jesus is telling us that there is nothing that the son does on his own. Okay, but only what he sees the father doing. For whatever the father does, the son does likewise. Okay, and so what that tells me is that God is Christ-like. If if I'm asking the question, what is God like? God is like Jesus. Wow, right? Hebrews chapter 1, verse 3 says that Jesus, the whole substance of God exists within Jesus. And so when I look at Jesus, I can trust that the character that Jesus shows me is the character of God, the gentleness that Jesus shows me, the patience that Jesus shows me.

SPEAKER_00 49:50

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 49:50

Letting people yell and scream at him if he still doesn't lash out.

SPEAKER_02 49:54

Yeah, right?

SPEAKER_01 49:56

Protecting the vulnerable against religious leaders. Like I know that that is the kind of character that God has. So that I meditate on that so much, Eve, just constantly telling myself, there is nothing that the son does on his own, only what he sees the father doing. There's nothing that the son does on only what he sees the father doing.

SPEAKER_00 50:16

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 50:17

And so when I feel anxious, I literally will go and spend time in the gospels. Just imagine myself being with Jesus in the Gospels because I'm like, I know that this is what God is like. And so that's the thing that I would invite people to meditate on as well.

SPEAKER_02 50:35

I love that scripture. Um, we're gonna actually have to make sure that we um include in the show notes, or I include in the show notes every scripture that you referenced, every um there were some book titles that you referenced as well. Some um, I don't know if they were book titles, but there were passages that you cited regarding those two um studies. I want to keep that as well. Because if anybody is like me, you know, I like to read and I like to go back and say, okay, let me see, you know, so we're gonna have to include that in the show notes. All right, well, so we're gonna move along to I don't want to keep, you know, we could be here all night. Um we did kind of cover this as well, but for the sake of just really driving at home and really making sure listeners understand and just re-even, you know, reminding ourselves.

Shame Distorts God’s Voice

SPEAKER_02 51:27

How would you say that shame and sometimes condemnation distort the way that people hear God's voice? Especially because we live in a society where people feel like they can't really hear from God themselves, right? Like they're just totally dependent on their leaders or on their pastors, um, and they have not necessarily learned to trust God in themselves or for themselves.

SPEAKER_01 51:54

Yeah, I think that they're I think understanding what shame and condemnation do to us is helpful. Okay when we when we live in a posture of shame, what that does is it puts us in self-protective mode. Okay, and we do not do our best thinking when we're in self-protective mode, when we're constantly focused on danger, when we're constantly focused on what we can lose. Wow, that that literally shifts us from the brain down to the more emotional and reactive part of our brain. Wow. And so we don't even do a good job of remembering the truth of God when we're constantly living in a posture of shame. And so this is why I think it's so important to remember that when we're in a relationship with God, God has created step of the way, a way for us to access God's grace, love, and truth. Okay, every step of the way by the word of the Holy Spirit, and so what that does is it it allows us to come out of self-protective mode, okay, and to open ourselves to risk, to the risk of letting God down, to the risk of being hurt by others. Okay, but because we are convinced of God's love and that we can trust that God has a plan for every step of the way, how we can move through suffering and get back close to Him, what that does is it doesn't leave us in a posture of shame, but it leaves us in a posture of trust and empowerment. And so I think that's what's helpful is to think about what does shame do to us to make us really good thinkers, right? Christians.

SPEAKER_02 53:45

Yeah. When I think about the story of Adam and Eve when you said that um the type of mindset that it gives you when you're in that shame and condemnation. I think about the story of Adam and Eve when the Bible says that you know, Adam and Eve ate their fruit, and the Bible says that the Lord began to walk in the cool of the day um to meet with them. And I love the fact that you know God was like, listen, this is the time we always meet, like, where y'all at? You know what I'm saying? Um, and Adam's response was right. Um, Adam's response was, I heard you coming and I heard your voice, and I hid from you because I was afraid. You know what I mean? And I always think, like, God, what would have happened if Adam was like, here I go? I mean, I know I wasn't supposed to, I know what you had told me, you know, I let, you know, this happened and whatever the hell was happening, and I ate the fruit. What would have happened if Adam realized that God loved him so much that in that moment, even though he had disobeyed God, even though, you know, he had violated the command and um the direct orders that he was given, what would have happened if he knew in that moment he could have just been naked and you know, unashamed and just free to confess, you know, free to tell. Where would we be today, right? Had we not, you know, obviously be feeling the effects of the fallen world if Adam understood that, right? And I know that's something that we would probably not understand on this side of heaven, but just thinking about it, you know, like even in that moment, how that shame and condemnation um shaped him, shaped his response, shaped his um even the way he the lack of accountability he took. He was like the woman you gave me did it. You know what I mean? And that's just like us today, you know, how we like, oh, I mean, if this person ain't ever treated me like this, I would have never been acting like this, you know, all of those factors, you know, um ultimately keep us, you know, out of relationship with God. And maybe that points to us still feeling like we have to do it all right, we have to get it all right, we have to always cross every T and dot every I. Whereas though God already knew. God already knew Adam was gonna make that decision. God already knew it, Eve was gonna fall. You know what I mean? So I'm glad that you spoke to that. I'm glad that you explained it in that in that manner. Um, we know that the Bible says that um there's no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, you know. But sometimes we we forget that he loves us so much so that even when we've made a mistake, we've fallen short, we didn't meet the prayer altar, we ate when we were supposed to be fasting, you know, all of those things. You know, he's not out of love with you, right? He's not he's not done with you, he's not through with you, you know, and so we can we can let go of that self-preservation mode. We we don't have to make excuses, we don't have to hide. Um, you know, like the Bible says, we can come boldly. I always thought that that meant necessarily come boldly to ask for what you want. Like, God, I want a new car, I want this, I want a new spouse, or not a new spouse, I want a spouse, I want this, you know. Um, but also coming boldly to say, God, listen, I done messed up again. You know, I done messed up again, I done said this, you know, I done lost it, I crashed out, whatever it is, you know. Um, because you love me and because your grace is that powerful, your blood is that powerful. Um, here I am again to say I'm standing in the need of prayer, you know? Yeah. So wow, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 57:27

Right? And that's that's the beauty of God. Yeah. I love that. Come and confess our sins and believe that he's faithful to forgive us. That's the love that God offers.

SPEAKER_02 57:41

Yeah. I love that scripture because uh I've always always um think about the other part of that where it says not only is he, if we confess our sins, not only is he just and faithful to forgive us, but then to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So the thing that you're battling with or tripping or beating yourself up over, not only is he gonna forgive you, but he's gonna cleanse you from it. He's gonna help you with it, he's gonna deliver you from it, you know. You just gotta stay with him, you just gotta stick with him. But like you said, that shame, that condemnation makes us feel like we're in the driver's seat when we're really not. You know, I've I I always reckon our relationship to God, somebody gonna be like, girl, no. But I rest I reckon our relationship to God sometimes, like that Tesla. Because you know, you get in that car and that thing will drive you wherever you want to go. God is the one that's driving. We are passengers.

unknown 58:35

That's good.

SPEAKER_02 58:37

Right? We are passengers, and if we just let him drive, we'll get we'll get to righteousness, we'll get to sanctification, we'll get to holiness, right? If we just let him do the driving instead of us kicking him out the driver's suit every time we mess up, every time we fall short, we're like, all right, I got this. I'll take the wheel. No, but literally, Jesus take the wheel, right?

unknown 58:58

Right.

SPEAKER_01 59:01

That's good. That's not good.

SPEAKER_02 59:04

All right, we got a couple more questions. Let's see if we can get through this without acting out. Um what would you say to someone who obeys God outwardly? I forgot I wrote this question. What would you say to God to someone who obeys God outwardly but internally struggles to believe that they are truly loved by him? So they're doing all the works. They're like the scribes and the Pharisees, they doing all the things, right? Um, but they don't really secretly, they don't feel like they're enough. And they don't even know the depth or the height or the width of God's love for them.

SPEAKER_01 59:48

Honestly, Eve, I don't think that this is something that we can just memorize or think our way into. I really think that this requires meditating on how Jesus behaves with people in the gospels.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:03

And one place I already mentioned it, yeah. Woman at the well. Yeah. When people are struggling with shame, I always open them and I meditate with them on the woman at the well. Because, like you said before, she is sitting with this Jewish man, Jesus, and he is essential telling her, Yeah, I know that you have five husbands.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:27

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:27

And who knows what else that they've left, right? But she goes back to her village and she says, in John chapter 4, 29, she says, Come and see a man that told me everything I've ever done. She didn't say it with uh, you know, um with guilt.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:47

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:47

She said it in a way that almost sounded free. Wow. And so what I invite people to think about is that God will sit with you and will know everything that you have done and he will not cast you away. That's the kind of love that Jesus. Wow. And so we we can't think our way into that. We have to experience that, we have to imagine ourselves as women as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:17

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:19

That's that's really good because he invited her into conversation. It's uh it reminds me of that scripture that says, um, here I mean, here I go, not knowing the address again. But that scripture that says, um, come let us reason, though your sins be uh, you know, as red as crimson, you know. You know, let's let's reason, let's talk about it, let's discuss it. You know what I mean? Like, and uh to me, of course, goes back to the idea that God is always pulling us or attempting to pull us into conversation, attempting to pull us into relationship, whereas though we as humans have that tendency to run and to hide, there had to be a level of intimacy that they've that she experienced in order for her to be able to tell what he told her without shame, right? Without condemnation. Um wow, you know, I love how there's evidence of God's power, love, forgiveness, and invitation all throughout the Bible. I mean, literally from the beginning to the end. Um, Charlie Brown has this little question, has a little question. I think Snoopy asked, or one of the little friends asked Charlie Brown, what's love? And Charlie Brown says, A man named Jesus. You know what I mean? And I saw that commercial, yeah, I saw that commercial or that snippet, I don't even think that I was saved at the time, and I'm like, What? A man named Jesus, and I just thought it was so so profound because if anything sums up love, if anything sums up patience, if anything sums up forgiveness, if anything sums up um acceptance, it's literally Jesus, right? It's literally Jesus, it's literally his work that he's done on the cross. And if we are to consider the work that he did on the cross, if we are to consider the 33 years he said, like you said, he spent on earth to confess um convincing us of that love and of his intention, then we have to consider God the Father. And if we are to consider God the Father, then perhaps we should also consider his holiness, his intention. And maybe if we can consider that, if we could somehow wrap our minds, our hearts, and our souls around that, we will be more uh inviting to the possibility that this God loves us so much, so much so that although he is holy, and although his wrath is high, he still gives us the opportunity to make that choice, to make that decision, because ultimately it's an invitation, ultimately, it's it's him giving us through love a way of escape, a way to ultimately enjoy him forever. And I just think that's so profound. I think that's so profound. Wow.

Love Centered Practice And Closing

SPEAKER_02 1:04:30

Alright, well, we're gonna do our closing reflection. What would you say that a love-centered relationship with God looks like in everyday terms? What does that look like from day to day?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:44

I think what it looks like from day to day is meditating on the truth that we find in Romans chapter 8. Okay. Where Paul says in verse 35, who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will affliction, distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness. No, in all these things we are victorious through him who loved us. For there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God. And I truly believe that when we meditate on that reality, that what happens is that we become more open to the risk of loving other people deeply. When we are convinced that we there's nothing that can separate us from the love of God, we become more patient with people, we become more willing to tell the truth and love people, we become more merciful to people, we become more generous. That is what That kind of love is making you nuts. So that would be my invitation is to meditate on the love of God so that we can be the love of God to others.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:11

I love that. I love that it seems as if um one of your practices is meditation on the scriptures. Um we know that there is another scripture that says he who meditates, you know, on the law of the Lord will be like a tree planted by the rivers of the water. You know, just not move, not toss to and fro, not distracted, not disturbed, you're not not overcome um by life. Um and so meditating on the word of God and on the love of God not only allows us to experience it, but to reflect it and to share it. That's powerful. Ms. I'm I want to say miss, but pastor, I should say. I'm sure that there may be some people who were like, wait a minute, um, Pastor Micah said that she was in the Ohio area, and I want to know how I can book a session with her. I want to know where I can reach her. Um, tell us first and foremost where if anybody's um interested in well, first of all, if you if you are accepting clients and or even if somebody wants to just engage with you like I did through social media, just be blessed um by some of the um topics that you share. What can we reach you?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:25

Yeah, thank you so much. Um you you're welcome to um engage with me on TikTok at A Marie Morgan, no periods. Um, and then also on Instagram at mica.j.morgan is my by government name and initials. Um and and right now I am taking a few more clients. Um I'm working with adults at Apex Counseling in Columbus. And so um if folks reach out to that office and I have an opening, I'm very happy to serve.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:02

Awesome, awesome. Um, I want to applaud you for the work that you do. I know that um mental health, especially in the face faith lens, um, it can be challenging. Um, but I am so grateful and so thankful for persons like yourself because this is so needed. It is so needed in the body of Christ, in the world at large. I I truly applaud you. Um I get a sense of passion um from you when I watch your videos. Like I said, with that that that particular day when I came across the video that we spoke about today, I was like, oh, let me let me see what else she got to say about this, what else she got to say about that. Um, but I could get I get the sense that you um uh authentically care about God's people, you authentically care about them understanding and receiving truth. Um, and I feel the compassion, I feel the love. Um, and that is what we need. Um in the church, in the world, you know, that's what we need. That's what's gonna, you know, what as they say, conquer all. And so again, I just you know wanted to say thank you for for what you do and for what you're doing.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:13

Thank you so much, Eve. Thank you. And this I've just been so blessed to meet you and to listen to your past in my rotation now. And just thank you for elevating this topic constantly. Like we we need our God's people to have the money. Um, and so I really appreciate you for your work too.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:33

Oh, you're so welcome. Alright, guys, that's a wrap. Thanks so much for joining us for another episode of Triumph Over Trauma. Remember, now thanks be unto God who always causes us to triumph. I'll see you next time.