Become Good Soil
Morgan Snyder
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124: A Soul’s Review
Become Good Soil
12/20/22 • 53 min
“Where are you, Adam?”
– Genesis 3:9
A disruptive phrase in Isaiah 44 has grabbed my attention and refused to let go. Notably grieved, the prophet utters these words:
“They know nothing, they understand nothing. Their eyes are plastered over so they can’t see, and their minds closed so they cannot understand....No one stops to think...” (44:18-19 NIV)
The prophet was urgently inviting the people of his day to stop everything and consider afresh God and his engagement with them. More than 2500 years later, the Spirit urges us to do the same.
This new guided exercise from Become Good Soil is intended to help you slow down to reflect with the Spirit through the close of this year and the launch of the next. Together we will look back in order to look forward.
Honoring your own masculine heart and life in God, I encourage you to set aside two or three hours of distraction-free time to engage in this Soul’s Review.
Download the free guided reflection here.
I recorded this podcast to walk together through the entire reflection. The podcast includes everything in the PDF with even more examples, explanations, and guided prayer. You can go through this reflection using only the PDF, or engage the podcast and PDF together for a more shepherded experience. The choice is yours.
What if your whole story is one unbroken line of intentional initiation as your Father shepherds you into the wholehearted, mature man he intends you to be? What if pausing with him to review this past year will uncover the particular treasures and clarify priceless insight for the journey ahead? He’s worth it. And so are you.
For the Kingdom,
Morgan
044: Intensive Series (Episode 5 of 8)
Become Good Soil
09/18/18 • 41 min
Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download
How are you arranging your days?
Dallas suggest that there is a possibility and a promise that, in time and over time, we can indeed arrange our days so that we are "experiencing deep contentment, joy, and confidence in our everyday life with God."
Friends, it is available. By day and by decade.
Join me as we once again dive behind the scenes for a portion of another session from the most recent Become Good Soil Intensive.
In this episode I refer to two images:
Through October 12, we are accepting applications for the next Become Good Soil Intensive. Find out more.
For the Kingdom,
Morgan
176: First Breath
Become Good Soil
12/17/24 • 33 min
"You should not be surprised when I say, 'You must be born again.'"
– Jesus of Nazareth
Dear Friends,
Advent is upon us—a season not merely of waiting but of planting, where the seed of hope is buried deep in the soil of time. It is the prologue to Christmas when the Author Himself stepped onto the stage of His own story. But like all great stories, this one is layered. Beneath the glitter and sentiment of the season lies a truth so profound it shakes the foundations of our reality: that life springs from death, joy from suffering, and rebirth from what we thought was the end.
Have you ever considered what it truly means to be born again? Cast aside, for a moment, the tattered clichés and the defensive armor we often wrap around such words. To be born again is not a slogan or a doctrine but the startling, living reality of God’s relentless affection—an affection that invades every shadowed corner of the human heart.
The Incarnation of Christ is not merely an event in history; it is the eternal declaration that God has chosen to make Himself known not in distant thunder but in the fragile cry of a child. And yet, it is more. It is an invitation—a call to enter into a union so mysterious, so vivid, that we find ourselves remade, again and again, until we come to know the safety and intimacy that Christ Himself knew with the Father.
This, my friends, is the heart of the process of salvation. It is not merely a rescue from peril but the restoration of our true selves, rooted in divine love and revealed in our human relationships, by day and by decade. Every celebration of the Incarnation is pregnant with the invitation to come, taste, and see.
And here lies the wonder: this salvation is not a far-off promise. It is here, now, within reach of the humble and the weary, waiting to be received by you and by me.
This Advent, let us pause amidst the noise and receive this gift afresh. Let us prepare to experience the miracle of new birth, of first breath, as we are drawn ever deeper into the life of the One who has come to make all things new.
For the Kingdom,
Cherie and Morgan
160: The Metanarrative of Masculine Love (Part 3)
Become Good Soil
05/08/24 • 48 min
Things that matter most must never be at the mercy of things that matter least.
– Goethe
Friends,
Years ago, as a father in the faith led a group of young, thirsty apprentices and me through a series of exercises and questions for our masculine souls, we came across this question:
What is your dream assignment in the Kingdom?
In other words, if you could be charged with any task, vocation, or work in God’s Kingdom, what would you love it to be?
My peers and I sincerely (and rather hastily) shared our responses:
Author
Life coach
Film producer
Professor
Real estate agent
Counselor
Our teacher benevolently received the desires of our hearts.
He paused.
And then he answered the prompt himself:
“My dream is to become a grandfather.”
You could hear a pin drop. I had to pick my jaw up off the floor. He had my attention. The stark contrast between my peers' and our teacher's answers revealed a gap between our souls' unfinished places and the geography to which God was beckoning us.
Somewhere in this man’s initiation, he had taken a radical path that transplanted his soul from the narrow field of self-centeredness to the vast open place of wholehearted others-centeredness.
He had become the kind of man who had nothing to fear, nothing to prove, and nothing to hide. He had more than enough. And he had become more than enough, in and through the One who made him.
In a phrase, he was full, secure, and free to love with the unconditional generosity of heaven.
The Father is inviting us along a path to become this wholehearted.
Join me for Part 3 as we conclude this series on the metanarrative of masculine love.
For the Kingdom,
Morgan
![Become Good Soil - 051: Heart Strong – A Conversation with Chuck Bolton (Episode One) [podcast]](https://storage.googleapis.com/goodpods-images-bucket/episode_images/a322889575f88b35c0fe52b432de95e34871a4fa02d74e79eb483c0a9f7e5c30.avif)
05/30/19 • 53 min
07/25/19 • 49 min
057: Surviving Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why? [podcast]
Become Good Soil
04/18/20 • 43 min
The owner of the company maintained his poker face; it was not simply for the card game. This was the face he now donned for every public moment in these dark days. He was in trouble, and under no circumstances would he let it show. The investments he had made in the good times were now worthless.
The post 057: Surviving Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why? [podcast] appeared first on Become Good Soil.
058: Locking Shields
Become Good Soil
04/29/20 • 40 min
Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download
No life of faith can be lived privately. There must be overflow into the lives of others.
–Eugene Peterson
Seventy-two years ago, a novel threat emerged on the earth, inciting a proportionate pandemic of fear around the globe. In that hour, it was the advent of the atomic bomb, a weapon whose potential for immediate and global destruction was unprecedented. The pressing and consequential question of that age was “How should we now live in light of this new and deadly threat?” C. S. Lewis wrote the following in response:
In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. “How are we to live in an atomic age?” I am tempted to reply: “Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.”
In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. We had, indeed, one very great advantage over our ancestors—anesthetics; but we have that still. It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty.
This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.
“On Living in an Atomic Age” (1948) in Present Concerns: Journalistic Essays
Following Lewis’s counsel, one of the “human things” we can do is gather, albeit virtually, to connect and be strengthened by the stories of others. Together, we can imagine, dream, question, and unite in prayer, and thereby enact a power beyond ourselves that will steady and focus us as we continue in the sacred and sometimes mundane work of being found at our post on any and every day.
To this end, I have gathered some of my most trusted companions for mutual strengthening; we are inviting you to gather with us as well. Our hope is that as a global fellowship of like-hearted men, we can encourage each other in “sensible and human things,” and as one, bring more and more of the reign of Heaven to more and more of the domain of earth.
Our world is at a rare juncture; the global crisis of our age offers a fresh and remarkably accessible opportunity to return our need and our personal story back to the Hero and Author of the Larger Story from which we originated. There is so much goodness to fight for here. Long-standing strongholds can be broken. Shattered relationships and lives can be restored. Lost things can be found. Life can be recovered. Light shines brighter in darkness. Come, join us. We’re glad you’re here.
For the Kingdom,
055: The Secret To Work You Love
Become Good Soil
12/17/19 • 83 min
Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download
Standing up and owning our reverberating pulses of passion rarely comes down to a singular event or momentary intersection with destiny. There is a daily-ness to our noble and sensible resignations. We dutifully go about our lives for years, decades even, and suddenly we look up to find ourselves with parts or whole swatches of our lives unlived.
–Aaron McHugh
What if the current challenges you're facing could lead to an inner transformation that facilitates, over time, a flourishing finish to your story? Paul prayed this daring prayer for his like-hearted allies in a place called Philippi (Phil. 1:6). I too pray this regularly for the hearts of family and friends entrusted to my care. But sometimes in my own struggle, it is strengthening to see it being lived out by other climbing companions.
Become Good Soil is about setting as paramount not what we do, but who we are becoming. The hope is that together we will be strengthened and guided more deeply into becoming the kind of men to whom God can gladly entrust to the care of his Kingdom.
It takes the like-hearted to get there.
Over the years, I’ve made it a priority to invest in friendships with men who are also risking it all on God and his Kingdom. In some upcoming podcasts, I hope to pull the curtain back on other men's lives so you can draw courage and strength from the fruit of their commitment to the slow and steady process of deep inner transformation.
Aaron McHugh has been side by side with me in this since the beginning. He attended the first Become Good Soil Intensive (which was a dozen guys in camp chairs and sleeping bags at Bart’s ranch) and has helped provide leadership for every U.S. Intensive over the past decade. I’ve participated in and had the privilege of witnessing hundreds of Aaron's largely unseen choices where he gave a risky yes to God, allowing his apprenticeship in the Kingdom to be the primary driving force of his days and his last two decades. For years he’s been putting pen to paper the story of what it has looked like to live out this process in a corporate context. Part of Aaron’s mission as Kingdom ambassador has been to offer a framework for discovering the work you love without quitting your job. He tackles fear and self-preservation head on while mapping out philosophical, emotional, tactical, and heart-centered shifts that can help recover the narrow road in the context of work.
Aaron's new book, Fire Your Boss: Discover Work You Love Without Quitting Your Job, launches January 14, and it’s with joy that I recommend it to you. Woven through its pages is living, breathing evidence of the slow and steady that leads to the life we were meant for, from the inside out.
Two years ago I sat down to interview Aaron to celebrate a milestone in the stewardship of his podcast and to take a hidden look behind the scenes as he was steadily shaping what would become his new book. In the spirit of featuring soul-strengthening stories of the like-hearted, I wanted to bring some of that conversation to your heart in this episode.
For the Kingdom,
Morgan
147: DadAwesome, with Jeff Zaugg (Part 1)
Become Good Soil
11/21/23 • 39 min
The glory of children are their Fathers.
– Proverbs 17:6 KJV
Friends,
Our sacred Scriptures whisper to us the invitation God has woven into reality for men to once again consent to the path and process of becoming fathers. The Proverbs winsomely teach us that the weight of the lives of our children points back to the headwaters of our faithful Father.
Who is he?
What is he like?
Is he available?
Deeper still, is he interested?
These questions, though often hidden below the surface, haunt us. They beckon the male soul to stop and think. They invite us to reconsider the impact of our own becoming, not with shame or regret, but with hopeful curiosity of the possibility of participating in a Father-initiated restoration. A God-orchestrated initiation. In a phrase, a story that is far larger than us.
As I’ve suggested before, “Parenting, like everything else in masculine initiation, has no shortcuts. So I want to suggest that the first questions in raising wholehearted children turn right back on us: If I can only lead my child where I’ve gone myself, what’s next in my initiation? What is the frontier of my masculine soul? What is it that I am intimidated to engage, but that I know is essential to wholly enter the life that I was meant to live? Thankfully, God is the great Initiator, and our great work is simply and bravely to respond to his particular invitation. When we give him our yes, we become what we most want to offer. And in becoming, we will find the path to shepherd our children in the way that is good and right for their souls. Only on this path of responding to our Father for the initiation of our hearts as men can we release outcomes in our parenting and find joy in whatever unfolds. For them and for us.”
Come along into a conversation with like-hearted son, student, and father Jeff Zaugg, founder of DadAwesome, as we consider fatherhood and return to curiosity, hope, and strength in a Good Father.
For the Kingdom,
Morgan
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FAQ
How many episodes does Become Good Soil have?
Become Good Soil currently has 210 episodes available.
What topics does Become Good Soil cover?
The podcast is about Christianity, Religion & Spirituality and Podcasts.
What is the most popular episode on Become Good Soil?
The episode title '052: Heart Strong – A Conversation with Chuck Bolton (Episode 2 of 3) [podcast]' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on Become Good Soil?
The average episode length on Become Good Soil is 52 minutes.
How often are episodes of Become Good Soil released?
Episodes of Become Good Soil are typically released every 14 days.
When was the first episode of Become Good Soil?
The first episode of Become Good Soil was released on Mar 5, 2014.
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