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