Become Good Soil

A 30-year old-man is like a densely populated city. Nothing new can be built, in its heart, without something else being torn down. – Mike Mason, The Mystery of Marriage The theme of "dying before we die" is Jesus’ steady and consistent invitation to his closest companions.  “Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You’re not in the driver’s seat; I am. Don’t run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I’ll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self.” Matthew 16:24-26 MSG “...unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” John 12:24 NIV  “If you cling to your life, you will lose it, and if you let your life go, you will save it.” Luke 17:33 NLT Perhaps one of the crowning marks of masculine maturity is the increasing capacity to entrust ourselves to God with intimate abandon so that we no longer shrink from death. This session takes us a step further in uncovering what in us needs to die in order that we might really, really, live. And in living, as more parts of us come home to more parts of God, we become men who have nothing to hide. Nothing to fear. Nothing to prove. Nothing to cling to beyond the love and goodness of the Triune God. Come along into Part 2 of the 2019 BGS Intensive as we journey together on the path to restoring the True Man. For the Kingdom, Morgan

There are many people who think they want to be a matador, only to find themselves in the ring with 2,000 pounds of bull bearing down on them, and then they discover that what they really wanted was to wear tight pants and hear the crowd roar. – Terry Pearce Over 20 years ago, I found myself navigating a man’s world but largely feeling like a boy. Balancing a young marriage, young children, and a young career had punted me into the deep end. Though I was thirsty for God and his Kingdom and doing my best to pursue good and noble endeavors, I was running out of steam. It was a baptism into adulthood by the fire of overwhelm. “It felt like I hopped on a rollercoaster that I didn’t remember getting on—it was all I could do to simply hold on.”  That’s how an older friend described this nexus of pressure and responsibility and it felt spot on. Life became something that happened to me, rather than something to which I was bringing strength and intentionality from a reservoir of confidence and peace. Money felt scarce, and time scarcer still.  In response, the myriad of uninitiated little boys in my soul began to surface, leading me to one of the most important days of my life: The day that I traded my exclamation points for question marks. The day that the Spirit invited me to a path of connected initiation instead of isolating performance. And it's made all the difference.  We’re more than a decade into hosting intimate leadership events with apprentices both young and old from around the globe to chase after the treasures of the Kingdom. Now two decades from beginning this quest, it is my joy to invite the extended Become Good Soil Tribe of apprentices to this audio teaching from the 2019 Become Good Soil Intensive. Join me for Part 1 of an extended podcast series diving deep into the restoration of the masculine soul.  For the Kingdom,

I will not abandon you as orphans….I am coming back for you. – Jesus of Nazareth Friends, there is much to hope for in the face of our apparent waywardness with God and our nagging discontent.  God is coming for us.  In his book Renovated, Jim Wilder explains the very simple and profound path to re-attaching ourselves to God and finally becoming the kind of people who can heed the supreme command of Jesus to love God with all our heart, mind, and strength. “...having received love, you will be transformed into a person who loves.” The secret is not found in a heroic, self-made mixture of beliefs, practices, and willful effort.  The secret is in receiving the love, care, and nourishment of God, over decades, into our souls.  The hope is not found in our effort or action, but rather in the desire, design, and deepest intentions of God’s heart.  There is more. Join Cherie and me in Part 3 as we share stories of coming home to receive the overflowing love, attention, and care of God through multiple stages of development.  For the Kingdom, Morgan

Christianity has tended to focus on right beliefs and right choices as the keys for personal growth. But biblical evidence and modern brain science show that our character is shaped more by whom we love than what we believe. – Jim Wilder, Renovated What if coming home to a new and secure attachment to God is the primary definition of salvation?  What would it be like to come home to God as our primary and single source of life, joy, strength, and stature?  The writers of the Old and New Testaments assure us that the very real dilemma of unhealthy attachment to other things and relationships need not have the final word, nor does the nagging sense of disconnection from God.  God has provided a path and process through the dignifying choice to re-parent our souls, shepherding them afresh into a loving, strengthening, and momentous attachment to God. Come along into Part 2 as Cherie and I reveal ways to come home to God when we feel distant from him.  For the Kingdom, Morgan

All of life is a coming home. Salesmen, secretaries, coal miners, bee keepers, sword swallowers, all of us. All the restless hearts of the world, trying to find a way to go home. It's hard to describe how I felt then. Picture yourself walking for days in a driving snow. You don't even know you're walking in circles...the heaviness of your legs in the drifts, your shouts disappearing into the wind. How small you can feel. How far away home can be.Home.The dictionary defines it as both a place of origin and a goal or destination. The storm? The storm was all in my mind. Eventually I would find the right path, but in the most unlikely place.– Patch AdamsWhere have you taken your soul's need for unearned love?In what or in whom do you seek a sense of unconditional belonging?Where do you regularly feel joyful, nourished, and satisfied? In Isaiah 66, God unveils the secret to these questions with a promise brimming with hope and possibility:“You newborns can satisfy yourselves  at her nurturing breasts.Yes, delight yourselves and drink your fill    at her ample bosom.God’s Message:I’ll pour robust well-being into her like a river,    the glory of nations like a river in flood.You’ll nurse at her breasts,    nestle in her bosom,    and be bounced on her knees.As a mother comforts her child,    so I’ll comfort you.    You will be comforted in Jerusalem.You’ll see all this and burst with joy  —you’ll feel ten feet tall—As it becomes apparent that God is on your side.”If this is God’s intention, then what's gone wrong? What is in the way of growing our attachment and attunement to God? Why do we find ourselves wanting and even genuinely loving God, yet continuing to attach our hearts and hopes to so many other things? Join Cherie and me in Part 1 of this series as we explore the hope of a palpable attachment to the living God as our Source of pleasure, joy, and comfort—a secure attachment through which we could feel ten feet tall, overflowing with loyal love for our Father’s good and precious world.For the Kingdom,MorganTaking Action:List three unhealthy ways you seek comfort.List three healthy ways you seek comfort.What is the condition of your attachment to God? Not beliefs, or theology, but your operational, daily practice. In prayer and with God, explore this PDF.

There are no unsacred places; there are only sacred places and desecrated places. – Wendell Berry There simply is no distinction between sacred and unsacred work in the world.  The ache and longing in a man to have purpose and meaning expressed in his daily work is universal. It is intrinsic to our design, marred in the fall, and contested terrain in every masculine soul. So often we spend precious energy and time hoping for "the next job" in order to engage in the work of God. Rarely does it come. And even when it does, the familiar specter of futility so often continues to haunt us.  But what if our work already is sacred?  What if our current assignment already is God's work? Or at least, it could be? As men, the core desires we share are greater than any distinction in how they are expressed.   I had the JOY of circling up with two men I love who are both fully immersed in the Kingdom of God and are engaging wholeheartedly in work that many might mistakenly consider secular assignments. Buckle up for an honest and hopeful conversation that helps us recover a Kingdom vision of the aspect of our lives we have come to call work.  For the Kingdom, Morgan

Now I have had most of the life I am going to have, and I can see what it has been. I can remember those early years when it seemed to me I was completely adrift, and time when, looking back, at earliest times, it seemed I had been wandering in the dark woods of error. But now it looks to me as though I was following a path that was laid out for me, unbroken, and maybe even as straight as possible, from one end to the other, and I have this feeling, which never leaves me anymore that I have been led. I will leave you to judge the truth of that for yourself… there is no proof. – Jayber Crow Reflecting on the whole of his story, Wendell Berry’s unforgettable character Jayber Crow utters these words in the twilight of his life. A resident of a small Kentucky town on the banks of the Ohio River, an itinerant barber by trade, Jayber speaks of a feeling that never leaves him: the feeling of being led.  Over seven decades of curiosity, heartbreak, and loyal love for an increasingly marginalized community, Jayber became the kind of man who experiences even the bewildering turns in his story as an unbroken line of grace. Including painful setbacks and unforeseen bends in the road, it was, in fact, the “the straightest path possible.” Over time, Jayber became the kind of man who now experienced the feeling of being led every moment of his days. What if, even in the midst of bewildering pain and disappointment, we are actually being led, being led by a Father on the particular path and process of masculine initiation that he has uniquely set for each of us? What if there is an ancient path that leads to life?  What if you can discover who God meant when he meant you, and find yourself being led to become that man?  It’s all available, dear brothers. And it might even prove to be the apex of our masculine becoming. Come along with me and a remarkable global fellowship of men as we dive into yet another foundational question of masculine initiation. For the Kingdom, Morgan Taking Action “I Am Being Led" – Download this PDF postcard and place it in a prominent, disruptive place. Say the words out loud every day through the end of the year. Linger. Look for God's leading.  Notice when you are most aware of it and when you are most clueless to it.  Notice what is primarily in the way.  Notice what part of your soul is mostly in the way of this right now. (Ex.: Does the “strategist” always have permission to drive the bus?) Notice the effect of practicing confidently resting and trusting in his leading. Meditate on Paul’s Theology of Being Led. Dig into “The Worker” (unpacking 1 Corinthians 9:11-27, from Approved unto God by Oswald Chambers). Get the book Approved unto God. The Complete Works of Oswald Chambers is fabulous and also a great source of the teaching above, along with much more. Read Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry.

Aim at Heaven and you will get earth "thrown in"; aim at earth and you will get neither. It seems a strange rule, but something like it can be seen at work in other matters. Health is a great blessing, but the moment you make health your main and direct object you start becoming a crank and imagining there is something wrong with you. You are only likely to get health provided you want other things more—food, games, work, fun, open air. In the same way, we shall never save civilization as long as civilization is our main object. We must learn to want something else even more. – C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity There is nothing more clarifying for our masculine souls than proximity to birth and death and the invitation these twin experiences provide to consider what we most deeply want. This immutable truth struck me freshly today while driving my daughter to school. In the midst of the bewilderment, unmet longings, and painful misses that my brave teenage daughter and I are navigating in the emerging rapids of our relationship, the memory of her birth rose up and caught my breath with startling power. The words spilled out to her before I could edit them: “The day you were born was the best day of my life. I remember every moment. I always will.” Surely the poignancy of birth and death is why a man like Bill Lokey would risk so much, risk sitting with me for hours even as he draws closer to his grand transition from Life to Life. The gift of being with Bill was a privilege beyond measure—this wise guide, this father in the faith. Together laughing and crying as we explored some of the deeply mysterious miles of life in a broken world; touching on the painful death of a marriage, the challenges and graces of parenting teenagers, intimacy lost and gained, vocation, and remarriage; and the task of showing up with intentional engagement all the way through our very last mile and very last breath along this slow and steady process of transformation into the likeness of Jesus. Bill is nearing the end of his beginning. His journey through aggressive cancer has led him to the end of what modern medicine has to offer. Yet in the midst of this chapter of his story, he joyously mustered the strength to respond to my questions with bravery, courage, and love. Join us for a conversation where we risk living and offering as we all journey from life to Life. For the Kingdom, Morgan

We all need a witness to the particularities of our story, someone who takes in and holds everything from banal trivialities to what is so horrendous it can barely be seen, let alone spoken. Even truer, however, is that we are a proxy witness for the One who reminds us that our life is seen and held by a great cloud of witnesses. – Dan Allender It was Ezra, one of the heroes of our faith, who reminded us, "The eyes of the Lord search the whole earth in order to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him" (2 Chronicles 16:9). For almost a decade, the Spirit has fueled the Become Good Soil podcast, reaching the many to find and strengthen the few. Though the world has changed a great deal since we launched, the mission has remained the same: supporting men and their families as they respond to our Father’s creative and relentless invitation to a path and process of masculine initiation.  To mark this sacred milestone of 100 episodes, it is my deep joy to celebrate your stories! I asked, and from around the globe you responded with story after story of God working through the Become Good Soil podcast to fuel your journey. It is my deep hope that this chorus of stories will strengthen each of our souls and grant us fresh revelation of what our Father might be pursuing for us, in us, and through us as we trek this narrow road together that leads to life.   The human race is in trouble. Yet as one man at a time experiences the restoration, integration, and maturing of his heart, our world can be healed and we can participate together in the greatest story ever written.   Dive in with me as we savor the stories of like-hearted men consenting to the path and process of becoming. For the Kingdom, Morgan

Life is our resume. It is our story to tell, and the choices we make write the chapters. Can we live in a way where we look forward to looking back? Inevitably, we are all going to die. Our eulogy, our story, will be told by others, and forever introduce us when we are gone. The soul objective: begin with the end in mind. – Matthew McConaughey, Greenlights Where have you collided with the limit of what your best can accomplish?  Where are you coming to terms with your powerlessness?  How have you responded to the reality that, in some stories and places in your life, your very best strength is still not enough to achieve the outcome you long for?  Brothers, we are diving into deep waters yet again.  Masculine initiation is always unique and, at the same time, always universal.  One of the universal crucibles is when our best is not enough. Through this painful birth canal of soul, God delivers us from our self-sufficiency into the reality of an indestructible life.  Drafting off the wheel of brave men like Adam Paulson—a legend among the few who have said yes to God and his Kingdom a thousand times—greatly helps us cross this challenging terrain. You don’t want to miss this poignant blend of conversation and song featuring the newest album release by BGS alumni, music artist, and worship leader Adam Paulson. In this very special episode, Adam and I reflect afresh, with tears and laughter, on the mystery of suffering and hope presented in the holy middle of a decade of consented initiation. Beyond the new songs featured in this podcast episode, you can find the full collection of Adam’s music on Spotify, iTunes, Bandcamp, or just about any place you go for soul-strengthening melodies. Sit back, slow down, and let these songs and stories permeate your soul, tend to you in your quiet suffering, and fill you with a greater hope. For the Kingdom, Morgan