Posts
Hannah Morrell
A Posture of Receiving

Many times in circles of Christ-followers, we obsess on what we are doing “for” God and how much we are producing, trying desperately to make Him happy with us. I find this stems from an incorrect concept of God, one who is angry and sets unrealistic standards for us, waiting to punish us when we don’t measure up. This is not the God I see in Scripture, as He pursues people constantly to lead them to repentance. Repentance is a change of mind, a turning that leads behavior. God is always walking with you, but repentance means you recognize it and ask Him for His perspective. Sin is separation from God. As Mike Wells used to say, “You fall out with God before you ever fall into sin.” But we obsess on sin as the problem, rather than a break in relationship with Jesus being the problem.

If we are constantly trying to measure up to whatever standards and expectations we believe are important, we basically become just like the religious leaders of Jesus’ day, whom He warned against often. They ended up demonstrating their hatred for God when they crucified Him. They would not be led to a change of mind, but were determined to follow the rules they had set for themselves and to judge everyone around them who was not measuring up in their view. It became a competition among the religious leaders to see who could be more religious. Interesting, isn’t it, when we sometimes do the same thing in the body of Christ?

Over and over again, Jesus told people that He had come as the Savior because we all needed one. That means that we couldn’t save ourselves. We couldn’t come to relationship with the Trinity because we kept trying to achieve and appease instead of receive. We often continue to make it about behavior rather than heart.

A Posture of Receiving
Posts
Hannah Morrell
Bringing Fear to the Light

I have been reading a book recently that has made me think deeply about my greatest fears. (It’s Living Fearless by Jamie Winship in case you want to read it. I highly recommend!) Most of the time in the past, I try to push fear away, just telling myself to deny it and move on anyway. I think it’s sort of like when you are a child and you hide under the covers from the monsters in your closet—we believe that will keep us safe from the things we fear. Denial becomes the bed covers, and we keep hiding under it hoping that the fear will go away.

Instead of this, though, Jamie recommends confessing fear to Jesus and letting Him free us from it. I have to be honest, when I first read this, I still really struggled with the idea. I don’t want to talk about my fears. But then I also realized that God already knows my fears, so it’s no surprise or disappointment to Him. I haven’t achieved anything in terms of being free of fear by ignoring or denying them. Instead, I spend a lot of time trying to stomp them down again, hoping they will go away if I just muscle them into submission.

So, I was walking and thinking about this, and I finally took the mental barrier down to really bring my fears out and discuss them with Jesus. And in the spirit of vulnerability opening up vulnerability in others, I’m sharing them with you too.

Bringing Fear to the Light
Posts
Hannah Morrell
The Life-altering Truth of Identity in Christ

Sometimes people question my slight obsession with teaching people to differentiate between lies and truth when it comes to identity messages. I am, indeed, very focused on doing this because I believe it makes such a difference in how you live life.

I think most of the identity messages we have received that really derail our lives are the negative ones like being a failure, unworthy, unloved, invisible, or rejected. These identity messages become part of who we really believe we are, most of the time because we are trying to get needs met in people when only God can really meet those basic needs. Some of these needs are love, acceptance, value and worth. When we go to a person or people to try to get satisfaction of these, we end up not getting what we wanted and often getting the opposite instead.

Of course, as humans we tend to go to humans first to try to have someone tell us we are ok, and to tell us who we are. When we get responses that are painful and rejecting, we tend to believe them and try to prove them wrong or fix ourselves so we don’t believe they are really true. Unfortunately, though, people are never going to be able to really give us unconditional love, true acceptance, and a communication of worth like we desire deeply. When we realize this, we can actually go to Jesus to get the truth and change our perspective and our source for life.

The Life-altering Truth of Identity in Christ
Posts
Hannah Morrell
Imagination

Sometimes we treat our imaginations as if they are bad and evil, instead of recognizing they are part of the transformation to a new creation and new Life in Christ the same as every other part of us. I think this leads us to shunning the very creativity and amazingness that God has created us to have, and one of the most useful tools in finding peace.

Imagination as defined by Oxford Languages is “the faculty or action of forming new ideas, or images or concepts of external objects not present to the senses” or “the ability of the mind to be creative or resourceful.”

The focus of our imagination is definitely important, and even with a redeemed imagination we can focus on things that don’t really suit us as new creations. But Isaiah talks below about allowing our imaginations to be consumed by God, which allows us to be surrounded in perfect, absolute peace and trust God.

So, if we want peace and trust, we must allow our imaginations to be focused on Him. Have you ever imagined the compassionate, powerful Jesus sitting in front of you for a chat? Have you ever imagined the Father’s glorious throne to which we are invited to come any time boldly? Have you ever imagined Holy Spirit breathing comfort and counsel deeply into the atmosphere surrounding you so that it infuses you and allows you to sleep?

Imagination
Posts
Hannah Morrell
An Invitation to Relationship

Many people tell me that they aren’t doing enough for God, which really means they don’t think they are working hard enough to make Him happy. I find this so demoralizing and discouraging, as everyone also has a different standard for what “enough” really looks like. We get weary, burned out and frustrated as the standard seems to keep moving depending on who sets it for us. A lot of religious people would love to set that expectation—maybe it looks like giving money, or helping the less fortunate, or being a pastor or giving your life as a martyr. But I don’t think we get the order right when we make this the priority.

All ministry, I believe, must come FROM relationship with Jesus, not IN ORDER TO get closer to or appease Him. We get the order wrong when we believe we can earn His acceptance, and we end up working for something we already have. Jesus has already brought us in, given us worth and told us we are loved and accepted. We didn’t have to do anything to try to earn that, and when we try to do it after the fact, it leaves us trying to live the Christian life without the power to do so.

God’s standard is how Jesus lived on the earth—everything He did came out of relationship with His Father, and nothing was more important than that Source. When we try to live like Jesus did, we make it impossible by removing the source and believing we can achieve that on our own. Instead, we can continue to live with Jesus and with God’s power being the spring from which all of the work we do begins.

An Invitation to Relationship

Casting Your Cares

Casting Your Cares

Sometimes my purse gets incredibly heavy while I’m lugging it around day in and day out. When I finally decide to figure out what is making it so weighed down, usually it’s a random toy or some other heavy object that I don’t need to be carrying around, but have forgotten is in there. One time it was giant rock that my son had slipped in there for me to carry for him! After the troubling object was removed, I felt so much lighter and my shoulder quit hurting!

Contentment

Contentment

I recently watched a TED talk in which Shawn Achor discussed happiness and success. He pointed out that if we measure happiness by successes in our life and external determiners, we have to keep upping the ante. Thus, we are never really happy. If we reach the goal that determines success, we have to push the standard higher or come up with a new goal. We start over and are always lacking. If, however, we turn it around and learn to be content in our circumstances, we can be happy before we become “successful” in whatever terms we use for that. 

Endurance & Perseverance

Endurance & Perseverance

Last year, my sister-in-laws convinced me to try to run a 10K for the first time in my life. I was running a bit, but only short distances. Six miles seemed ridiculously far away. I often found myself running too fast in the beginning couple of miles, and then I was totally spent and couldn’t go further. I had to slow myself down so I could run for longer, increasing my endurance. 

Letting Go of Perfection in Favor of Love

Letting Go of Perfection in Favor of Love

This morning I realized one minute before we walked out the door for school drop-off that it’s 50’s day at school. And I have nothing to make my son look “50’s” at all. He tried to be gracious about it, and for that I’m thankful. But his disappointed look made me run smack into the wall of my own desire for perfectionism in all things. My standard for myself was not met. 

Religious Performance vs. Life in Christ

Religious Performance vs. Life in Christ

I think one of my greatest struggles in life has been to break free from the “religious” performance and recognize Christ’s Life as the source of every good work. I used to obsess on how I was working so hard to make God happy, when that was not His desire at all. In fact, I failed a lot and was completely miserable in my quest to be a perfect child of God on my own. Not to mention I judged a lot of other people in order to try to make myself feel better. Of course, it didn’t work, and I just ended up being a judgmental, miserable human with a prettied up exterior to show off in an attempt to prove I was something else. So much work for nothing!

The Blood of Jesus & Confidence for Today

The Blood of Jesus & Confidence for Today

Often I want to skip the suffering of the cross and go straight to the glory of Easter morning, when Jesus rose from the dead and presented Himself in victory to those who surrounded Him throughout His earthly ministry. I want the celebration without the fight. I want the promises of God to come to fruition without having to wait for them. Basically, I want the easy way out.

Kara Tippetts and Suffering With Hope

Kara Tippetts and Suffering With Hope

I hate being sick. The weakness, the pain, the feeling of being behind on everything while simultaneously feeling like you can’t get out of bed. As with every seemingly negative thing in life, I try to see Jesus in it. I have realized that the last week or so I’ve been praying for those with chronic pain and illness much more than I usually do. Something about the reminder of what those people feel every morning when they get up makes me come before the Father with the realization of how hard that must be. 

Baby Steps

Baby Steps

There was a movie many years ago called “What About Bob?” in which the two main characters are a psychiatrist and patient. The patient proceeds to drive the psychiatrist totally crazy by following his “baby steps” right into chasing the therapist down on vacation. The idea of baby steps for everything—small movements or decisions in life that add up to bigger strides to a goal—were supposed to help Bob (the patient) to overcome some of his anxiety. As funny as that movie was about the whole thing, there is something to be said for baby-stepping your way through life.

When God's Plan Seems Crazy

When God's Plan Seems Crazy

I was listening to Lisa Jo Baker today as she talked about a story in 2 Chronicles in which God told King Jehoshaphat to do some crazy things when faced with enemies bent on the destruction of his people. God told him not to fear, to stand still and to watch the Lord fight for him. So, he sent the choir out front of the army and marched down to meet the other armies. The singers sang praise to God and as they did this, the Lord defeated the armies and had them kill each other. When the Israelites arrived on the scene, nothing was left but corpses. It made me laugh because of how often God asks us to do the thing that doesn’t make sense, that makes us feel or look like a fool, or that is the opposite of what we would think we should do. 

Living in a Broken, Messed-Up World

Living in a Broken, Messed-Up World

It’s easy to feel that evil is swallowing up the world. Take one look around you and find pain, lies, brokenness and the overall feeling that we might be drowning without even realizing it. But perhaps what we see is what doing life without God looks like. It has happened many times before throughout history, this distancing from God and His ways. The results are never good. Governments, countries and powers that seem invincible and brilliant fall by the wayside as they implode. People convince themselves and each other that they are smarter than all the others and no longer need God.

Women's Retreat 2019

Women's Retreat 2019

I am excited to announce we are having a women’s retreat this year on November 1-3 at Table Mountain Inn in beautiful Golden, Colorado! We will meet from Friday evening through Sunday lunch, enjoying a few wonderful speakers, worship time, good fellowship with other women and also a chance to benefit from the giftings of some of the ladies who will be there like coaching, counseling and personality testing. 

Walking with the broken to find hope in Jesus