Messages by Hannah Hurnard

Messages given at various Camps Farthest Out by Hannah Hurnard

Hannah Hurnard

About Hannah Hurnard

Hannah Hurnard (1905–1990) was an extraordinary English missionary and author who touched millions of lives…

Hannah Hurnard (1905–1990) was an extraordinary English missionary and author who touched millions of lives through her writing, most notably her classic spiritual allegory, Hinds’ Feet on High Places. Yet, long before she became a household name in Christian literature, she spent her youth in Colchester, England, battling intense inner turmoil. Raised in a Quaker family, Hurnard suffered from severe anxiety, deep-seated fears, and a crippling stammer that made everyday communication a painful struggle.

Everything changed for her at the age of nineteen during a life-altering spiritual awakening at a Keswick Convention revival meeting. This profound experience set her on a brand-new path, and it brought about a remarkable physical transformation as well. Remarkably, her lifelong speech impediment completely vanished whenever she stood up to speak publicly about her faith, giving her a powerful, newfound voice for ministry.

After graduating from Ridgelands Bible College in 1926, Hurnard followed a calling to the Middle East. She relocated to Haifa, Israel, where she would spend nearly half a century working as an independent missionary. Showing immense dedication, she worked as a hospital housekeeper and evangelist, choosing to stay in the region even through the dangerous realities of the 1948 conflict to support local Hebrew Christians. It was out of these rich, often difficult life experiences that she penned her masterpiece in 1955. The book, which mirrors her own victory over anxiety, follows a fragile character named “Much-Afraid” on a treacherous but beautiful journey to the mountains alongside the Chief Shepherd.

As her book gained global popularity, Hurnard found herself highly sought after as a speaker. She became a beloved and regular presence at Camps Farthest Out (CFO), an international retreat movement dedicated to deep prayer, holistic Christian living, and inner emotional healing. Throughout the late 1950s and 1960s, she traveled extensively across the United States and Canada to headline these gatherings. Her powerful messages on cultivating a transformed mind, practicing faith, and diving into intercessory prayer resonated deeply with attendees, and many of these timeless talks were preserved through archival audio recordings available here on The CFO Classics Library.

Messages Given By Hannah Hurnard

Searching the House for Leaven

At the Nebraska CFO in 1959, Hannah Hurnard compares self-will to the leaven a household hunts for by candlelight before Passover. She then traces Hebrew words for parts of the body to show how healing follows the fruits of the Spirit.

The Lord Behind the Window

The disciples at Pentecost became so filled with Christ that they saw him looking back through the eyes of everyone they met, Hannah Hurnard tells the camps. She urges campers to let him show himself the same way through their own eyes once they go home.

An Army of Intercessors

Hannah Hurnard recalls crowds waiting in line for hours in Tel Aviv to see a film about the early church. She asks the Nebraska CFO in 1959 to become intercessors, praying that Jews and Arab refugees alike might find a forgiveness reaching past the wrongs of Christian nations.

The Veil That Only Love Can Tear

Preaching on the last day of a camp, Hannah Hurnard walks through the tabernacle’s three veils. She ends at the holiest of all. There a missionary learned to channel his love for his dead wife onto the Lord, and found it returned multiplied.

The Prayer Mistaken for Gossip

Hannah Hurnard recalls being overheard praying critically about her coworkers, a habit others took for gossip. She learned to say in prayer only what she would want each person to overhear. She teaches the camps to bring imagination, thought, memory and a surrendered will into intercession.

The Doorkeeper Who Learned To Forgive

Hannah Hurnard tells the camps how she once served as a doorkeeper in a mission clinic. She snapped at a suffering patient there and then had to ask his forgiveness in front of the whole waiting room. Forgiveness is not real, she warns, if the old grievance keeps getting retold.

God Becomes a Caterpillar To Save Us

Hannah Hurnard retells a parable of a keeper who must become a caterpillar to be understood at all, and the story of Francis of Assisi kissing a leper. She uses both to picture for the camps a God whose love and suffering live inside every wounded person.

The Key That Opens Every Hell

Hannah Hurnard describes what she calls the holy spells of Jesus, by which he made harm powerless by befriending it in thought and opened any self-made hell by sharing in it. She reads his sayings from the cross as opening the hell of each person present at the Northern California CFO in 1960.

Prescription For Healing

Hannah Hurnard argues before the 1960 Northern California CFO that every healing Jesus performed cost both him and the sufferer, because he prescribed a change of character along with the cure. She works through Peter’s mother-in-law, the man with the withered arm and blind Bartimaeus.

Ten Commandments Written in the Body

Hannah Hurnard catalogues for the 1960 Northern California CFO how each Beatitude keeps a particular organ in what she calls holy health, noting that in Hebrew each of the ten commandments names a part of the body. She defers the question of healing itself to the following day.