—Eugene Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places

Friends, we continue to be gripped by these two questions. How are our daily activities shaping us into the people we are becoming? And, what changes might aim our becoming more closely toward the Person and Way of Jesus? 

In this next episode of the Become Good Soil Foundations Series we invite you to reflect with us on these questions and the ancient idea of a rule of life. Our hope—as we revisit the rule of life—is to facilitate a gentle check in regarding how we are arranging our days.

Developing a rule of life does not mean picking up a heavy yoke or toeing the line for a critical voice. Rather, “rule” in this case is related to a ruler or guide. Just as it’s helpful to use a ruler to steady our hand when drawing a line, so a rule of life helps guide our lives in the direction we yearn to live. 

As has often been observed, a rule of life is like a trellis supporting a growing vine. The trellis supports the vine as it grows and bears fruit, shaping its form and making possible its generativity. As a vine without a trellis becomes tangled, turned in on itself, and unfruitful, so can our hearts and lives, habits and relationships, desires and impulses devolve without the structure of a supportive rule of life. 

With characteristic understatement, Jesus reminds us that each day of life brings plenty of predictable challenges (Matthew 6:34). What would it be like to receive from our God and the wisdom of His people a “trellis” of habits and practices that over time will form the resilience, endurance, faithfulness, joy, and love of Jesus? What would it be like to have a Kingdom-trellis upon which to rest our souls as we trust the Spirit to form in us by day and decade the character of Jesus and allow us to persevere through whatever challenge we may face on the Way?

Check in with us as we explore a rule of life together.

It’s all been prologue. The best is yet to come.

For the Kingdom,

Morgan & Cherie

—Eugene Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places

In this next episode of the Become Good Soil Foundations Series, we invite you to pause and personally explore how koinonia—the heartbeat of the redemptive community modeled in the New Testament—might provide a clue for how we live counterculturally in a world deeply formed by hyper-individualism.

In the film Defiance, we see a heroic picture of redemptive community. The Bielski brothers gather fleeing refugees in the forests of modern-day Belarus to escape the persecution of World War II. There in the woods, with only the essentials, a redemptive community is formed as they struggle to survive. When they host a wedding, it becomes a beautiful reminder that joy and sorrow coexist. (Links to the Defiance Trailer and Wedding Scene here.)

Throughout the New Testament, we see redemptive fellowship being recovered and nurtured by a remnant of people whose hearts are being captured and apprenticed by the Living God. We catch a glimpse of this in Acts chapter 2. Koinonia is defined as fellowship, association, community, participation, and sharing in one another’s lives.

The first picture we have of koinonia exists within the Trinity itself: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in perfect fellowship. But more than simply observing that fellowship, we are invited into koinonia—first and foremost with God.

And from this place of intimate communion with God, the gospel invites us to love others. Paul helps us explore this idea through the imagery of the body in 1 Corinthians 12:25–26:

“The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as a church: every part dependent on every other part, the parts we mention and the parts we don’t, the parts we see and the parts we don’t. If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing. If one part flourishes, every other part enters into the exuberance.”

To be in fellowship with others in our fallen age is inherently risky. It involves cycles of rupture and repair. How do we pursue, engage in, respond to, repair, and flourish within a redemptive community? Where might God be inviting you to reconsider your participation in koinonia?

Join us as we explore this profound idea of koinonia together.

It’s all been prologue. The best is yet to come.

For the Kingdom,

Morgan & Cherie

—Pete Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality

Friends, how do we learn from Jesus to live the life of the Kingdom in every corner of our existence and every dimension of our personhood?

How do we learn not only to see reality as Jesus sees it, but also to feel in our bodies, engage in our relationships, regulate our nervous systems, and make meaning of our everyday lives as He would?

How do we join the Spirit—and His community of apprentices—in having our whole person transformed into the likeness of Jesus, expressed uniquely through our distinct personhood, relationships and stage of development?

How do we include in our whole person formation our vision of self, God, and others, our communal connections, our relationship with time and our place within all of creation?

As we continue diving into our Become Good Soil Foundations Series, join us for this podcast episode dedicated to exploring whole person formation into the likeness and way of Jesus.

It's all been prologue. The best is yet to come.

For the Kingdom,

Morgan & Cherie

Friends, how are we to understand the story of our lives as it unfolds across the years? What meaning do we give to our failures and our faithfulness, our losses and our triumphs, the long disappointments and the surprising gifts we never would have chosen—yet somehow needed? And how do we recognize true growth, not only in our own maturing, but in our apprenticeship to Jesus and the life of His Kingdom?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer once suggested that the cost of not following Jesus is, in the end, far greater—even in this life alone—than the cost of walking with Him. For discipleship is not merely a matter of belief, but of learning to live in intimate fellowship with Christ, slowly being formed into the kind of people He Himself would be, if He were to live our lives in our place.

In this next episode of the Become Good Soil Foundations Series, we explore apprenticeship and initiation as two essential lenses for making sense of this question: how our small, particular stories are caught up into something far larger—the redemptive and unfolding story of God.

It’s all been prologue. The best is yet to come.

For the Kingdom,

Morgan & Cherie

Friends,

What happens in you when you hear the word desire?

Is there a kind of quickening—something like curiosity?

Or a hesitation… a guardedness?

Maybe a quiet opening that feels like hope.

Or a heaviness in your chest that carries sadness.

Or even a flash of cynicism.

What have you come to believe about desire…

in your life with the Triune God,

in His Kingdom,

in your apprenticeship to Jesus?

And what if the recovery—the honoring and stewarding of desire in its purest form—is actually central to your restoration as an image-bearer of God?

In this next episode of the Become Good Soil Foundations Series, we explore the recovery of longing and desire. Because at the heart of the Christian story is an arresting claim: that desire, in its essence, is not something to fear—but something given by God, meant to lead us to Him and into His Kingdom.

It was the awakening of desire—those fleeting, radiant moments—that first beckoned C. S. Lewis. He described this awakening as joy. And that joy stirred something in him, calling him to search for more.

And the same is true for us.

Our longing is not a liability. It is part of the way back to joy. Everything we love—every glimpse of beauty, goodness, and delight—is from God, is for God, and ultimately finds its home in Him.

The story of the kingdom is a story of desire being gathered up and restored—a great homecoming.

Let’s press forward together.

It's all been prologue. The best is yet to come.

For the Kingdom,

Morgan & Cherie

How would you answer this question: What is the gospel that Jesus preached?

When I (Cherie) first encountered this question, I was both arrested and bewildered. I had some sense of what I thought the “gospel” might be, but I could not, for the life of me, articulate what it was that Jesus himself preached. I was new in my adult faith in Jesus and spent most of my devotional time reading the Psalms, the Gospel of John, and Paul’s letters.

This question launched me on a treasure hunt that changed my life—and continues to propel me today. It led me first deep into Matthew’s account of the life, teaching, death, and resurrection of Jesus, then into Mark’s and Luke’s, and back again to John. Over the past twenty years, I have returned again and again to these profound and sweeping accounts of the earthly ministry of the Anointed One.

What was the gospel that Jesus preached? And what does an apprenticeship look like when it seeks not only to have faith in Jesus, but to practice living the faith of Jesus?

Let’s remember it together. Join us for this episode of the Become Good Soil podcast. Indeed, the Kingdom of God is at hand.

It’s all been prologue. The best is yet to come.

For the Kingdom,

Cherie and Morgan 

How regularly do you find yourself showing up in your life from a place of overflow, having been saturated in the reservoir of Sabbath overflow? If you were to describe your evolving relationship with rest over your life in all its stages in seasons, how would your life speak to you?

What if the timeless invitation to live from Sabbath—and to cultivate practices every day, every seven days, every seven years, and every seven-times-seven years—isn’t merely an external activity, but a way of participating with God to relearn a way of kingdom living? What if there is a hidden secret that unlocks every other resource of the kingdom, concealed within this mystery rooted in relational security with the one who models rest and created a world sustained through His own participation in Sabbath?

Welcome back to the Become Good Soil Foundations Series. Join us as we explore together the possibility of Sabbath not only as an extravagant gift from a God of creativity, delight, and rest, but also as a primary posture in our apprenticeship to Jesus—and a catalyst for transformation: both a resistance to our age and an alternative path to a flourishing life.

It’s all been prologue. The best is yet to come.

For the Kingdom,

Morgan & Cherie

—St. John

Henri Nouwen offers these soulful questions:

“In what quiet ways have you bartered the worth of your soul to other grade-givers—some clamoring voices in the world around you, other critical voices firmly within your own being? By what small, repeated surrenders have you allowed yourself to become the very thing the world applauds, and the one thing you did not want to find yourself becoming?” 

In reflecting on these questions, we are keenly aware of the reality that we have often “bartered the worth of our soul” and been painfully malformed through “small repeated surrenders.”

Yet as we take stock of our precious yet infected souls, we experience Jesus’s pursuit afresh. As the generous host of all creation, as our creator and king, He invites us to once again entrust ourselves fully to Him—everything we are and everything we are not yet—and receive the nourishment, embrace, and affection we so desperately need and is His joy to extend.

In this second episode of our Become Good Soil Foundations Series, join us as we explore the wondrous reality whispered through the text of scripture, the text of nature, and the lives of those who intimately live the with-God life: that all reality begins with God—a God who overflows with creativity, energy, love, welcome, and life.

Let’s seek together how we might live more deeply from a posture of rest and receptivity, moving through our days and decades as those ever-receiving love and belonging—and, from that overflow, continually extending love and belonging to all those around us. 

We are so grateful to venture deeper on this journey together.

It’s all been prologue. The best is yet come.

For the Kingdom,

Morgan & Cherie

—Jason Ortiz and Daniel Keating in The Nicene Creed: A Scriptural, Historical, and Theological Commentary

Friends, beneath every value we express and every thought we act upon lies an underlying belief. Though often unexamined, each of us has developed a comprehensive worldview that shapes every moment of our lives. What are those beliefs and assumptions—and to what degree do they align with reality as revealed by God?

Join us for the first episode of the Become Good Soil Foundations Series, where we explore these core beliefs and assumptions of our faith and the fellowship of Become Good Soil.

Drawing on Jesus’ imagery in Matthew 7, we ask: what would it look like to make a fresh assessment of the foundations upon which the “house” of our lives is built? What might we notice if we paused to appreciate the beauty and strength of the “rock” itself—and to reckon honestly with the areas of our lives still resting on shifting sand?

As a fellowship, what does it look like to freshly receive and act upon Jesus’ invitation to relocate the whole of our lives onto the Rock—who is Christ Himself, His teaching, and His beautiful Kingdom?

Come along in a courageous global fellowship as we venture together down a path and process that leads to a life truly worth living.

It’s all been prologue. The best is yet to come.

For the Kingdom, 

Morgan & Cherie 

Note: In our conversation on The Nicene Creed this is the reference. For further exploration: Ortiz, J., & Keating, D. A. (2024). The Nicene Creed: a scriptural, historical, and theological commentary. Baker Academic, a division of Baker Publishing Group.

— Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy

Where are we going?

Friends, this simple question continues to wake us, gently and insistently, again and again. As we linger with it, we remember that every path—whether chosen or assumed—is always leading somewhere. The question meets us as both invitation and mercy, asking us to notice where we are headed and to hold our lives up to the light of God and His kingdom.

In doing so, this question stirs our imagination toward the greatest end—the long-awaited day when God’s kingdom is fully revealed on earth as it is in heaven, when all things are gathered up and made right, good, and beautiful. With that ultimate future shimmering before us, we find ourselves able to turn—sometimes subtly, sometimes decisively—and set our course again toward the good, the true, and the beautiful, trusting

God to lead us faithfully in the present moment and into what is yet to come.

For more than a year, we have carried this question in our minds and hearts as we have listened for God on behalf of Become Good Soil. Through prayer, discernment, and many honest conversations—with God and with so many of you—a clearer sense of where Become Good Soil is being led in this new season has slowly come into view.

It is our deep joy to finally share this emerging vision with you.

In this final episode of Our Origin Story, we reflect on the expanded mission and vision of Become Good Soil. At its heart is a simple and steadfast desire: to walk alongside you as you continue your apprenticeship to Jesus—the gradual, grace-filled transposing of your whole life into the life of Christ—and as you faithfully steward the generative outposts of Eden entrusted to your care.

It’s all been prologue. The best is yet to come.

For the Kingdom,

Morgan & Cherie

It turns out this matters more than we have come to believe. Consider this reflection from Henri Nouwen in The Wounded Healer:

A waiting person is a person practicing patience.

The word patience means to practice a daring willingness to stay where we are and live the situation out to the full, in the belief that something hidden here will make itself known to us.

Impatient people are always expecting the real thing to happen somewhere else—the better thing to be somewhere other than here. Therefore, practicing impatience is to entertain and cultivate a longing to be somewhere else.

The present moment is empty for them.

Patient people dare to stay where they are.

Patient living means living actively in the present and daringly waiting right here. Waiting, therefore, in God’s Kingdom, is not passive. It involves bravely nurturing the moment as a mother nurtures a child growing in her womb.

As Nouwen reminds us, waiting carries with it both opportunity and temptation—the opportunity to become more whole and mature, united with God, and the temptation to give way to impatience, to hustle for control, or to force our will on others.

In this second episode of Our Origin Story, we explore a core challenge to fully inhabit the present moment: the twin thieves of fixation on the past and preoccupation with the future. We examine the subtle seduction of living in the past—not only the pull of regret, but also the empty cistern of nostalgia. We also explore the thievery of vaulting ourselves prematurely into the future—not only the anxiety and fear this can produce, but how visions of what might be can quietly morph into fantasies of a better life somewhere else or with someone else, rather than in the place and with the people to whom we are presently called.

Join us as we take a deeper dive, considering both the temptation and the gift of this present moment—and the audacious joy of coming home to where we are, here and now, held within the epic story of God revealing who He truly is and restoring all of His creation, together, with us.

It’s all been prologue. The best is yet to come.

For the Kingdom,

Morgan & Cherie

— C.S. Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew

The apostle Paul reminds us that we have been grafted into the origin story of the People of God—a story that begins with God creating a good and beautiful world, and humans as beloved and creative stewards made in God’s image.

Before long, the story takes a tragic turn, giving way to exile from our original Home. Since then, a quiet homesickness has haunted the human experience—a sense that, for all its awakening beauty, the world is not now as it was meant to be.

Yet the story does not end in exile.

Scene after scene, we witness God’s persistent and passionate initiative to rescue and restore all of creation and His cherished human image-bearers. From Noah to Abraham, from Israel’s return from exile in Babylon to the bright expectancy of Anna and Zechariah in Luke’s Gospel, the story unfolds across centuries, culminating in the incarnation of Jesus, the promised King and Rescuer.

And now the story continues—handed down from one generation to the next—inviting each generation to freely and creatively enter, participate, and carry the story forward.

This great, cosmic history is the story within which our own personal histories unfold and find their meaning.

What might it look like to recover our origin story—both the cosmic and the personal? What if remembering where we come from is essential to our apprenticeship? Our origin stories help us name who we are, locate us within a larger story, and gently orient us toward the way forward. As pastor and teacher, Jason Jackson writes, origin stories are “seeds that are planted, becoming the identity of today and the vision of tomorrow.”

So we pause and wonder: What are the seeds of your origin story? Where do you come from—and who do you come from? As you reflect, what patterns begin to emerge? How might God be inviting you to notice what He is forming in you today, in light of where you have come from and where He is leading you?

As we unpack the seeds of the Become Good Soil story, we pray this episode might support you in recovering and strengthening the promise carried in the seeds of your story as well.

It’s all been prologue. The best is yet to come.

For the Kingdom,

Morgan & Cherie

I must first listen to my life telling me who I am.” 

— Parker Palmer

Important Note: HERE IS THE LINK to the most updated version of A Soul’s Review for Groups. Updates were made on 12/15/25. Please download THIS VERSION for any use of the guided Examen.

God comes to us brilliantly disguised in the ordinary moments of our everyday lives. With this in mind, we offer an invitation.

For several years, we have invited you into the ancient practice of an annual examen. This year, we have released an updated edition designed for groups of all sizes.

The first portion of this podcast is an invitation to host a group. It might be a regular circle of friends, family, or coworkers with whom you share life. Or perhaps a group of people you’ve been longing to invite into a deeper exploration of the geography of their soul and a reawakening to God’s pursuit.

Here’s the invitation: pray about whom you might share this with. Choose a date between now and mid-January to host a simple gathering. It is structured around a minimum of two hours, though giving it more time allows the experience to breathe. If possible, we encourage you to include a simple meal.

Listen to the entire podcast as a preview and prayer.

When you gather, provide a printed PDF of A Soul’s Review for Groups, which you can download HERE. Then begin playing this episode at the 11:15 time code.

It’s all been prologue. The best is yet to come.

For the Kingdom

Morgan & Cherie

Friends,

We’d love for you to join us for the final episode in this three-part series. In this conversation, we take a hopeful look at what the Styles of Relating can become as we grow in maturity—as fear and shame loosen their grip, and as trust, courage, and love begin to shape our reactions more than our old habits do.

Our hope is that you’ll find encouragement for your own relationships and a renewed sense that change, even slow change, is possible.

We’re grateful to walk this road with you—toward deeper wholeness, steadier love, and a growing belonging in God’s Kingdom and Family.

Please note there is a COMPANION PDF for this episode that includes deeper reflection questions for the Styles of Relating. You can find it HERE.

It’s all been prologue. The best is yet to come.

For the Kingdom,

Morgan & Cherie

​Friends,

In this second episode of a deeper dive into Styles of Relating, we reflect on how fear, hedging, and self-protection show up in our relationships, in contrast to the moments when, by God’s grace, we find ourselves relating from trust, dignity, and self-giving love instead.

Nothing has exposed and transformed our own patterns more than this work. Slowly, we are learning to pause, to notice what’s actually motivating our reactions, to identify when fear and shame have snuck in sideways. But here’s the gift: awareness really does open space for change. And that change has brought us more joy, safety, and connection in our marriage than we ever imagined.

We are grateful to be on this journey with you—toward wholeness, deeper love, and a growing trust in God and His Kingdom.

It’s all been prologue. The best is yet to come.

For the Kingdom,

Morgan & Cherie

— Meister Eckhart (1260-1328),  Medieval Mystic

Dear Friends,

Around 2011, we discovered the work of Karen Horney and her insight into how humans relate to one another, especially under stress, in uncertainty, or for the sake of self-protection.

Her work on the styles of relating became catalytic for both of us. It gave language to dynamics we were feeling but didn’t yet understand — why, despite our love for one another, we so often felt hurt, alone, or misunderstood. We were desperate for clarity, longing to discover what was not working, and what needed to change within us and between us to grow the kind of marriage we both believed was possible.

In 2014, we recorded a live conversation exploring how our styles of relating had been colliding — and sometimes colluding — since before we were married. That conversation became Episode 9 of the Become Good Soil podcast, marking an early milestone in our journey toward healing and deeper connection.

Now, we invite you to join us again as we revisit this territory. This is the first episode in a three-part series reflecting afresh on the Styles of Relating — a return to what these styles are, an exploration of how they may be showing up in our relationships, and an honest look at what it could mean to employ them in the service of Love instead of fear.

We’re honored to walk this path with you.

For the Kingdom,

Cherie & Morgan

P.S. If you haven’t explored our first two podcasts and the blog on Styles of Relating recently, we would encourage you to check out the following soul-nourishing resources as well:

Wild, Unfettered, and Free - Jesus Modeling Styles of Relating (Blog)

Getting Naked - BGS Podcast Episode 014 (Part 1 of 2)

Getting Naked - BGS Podcast Episode 015 (Part 2 of 2)

– Dwight D. Eisenhower

In The Scandals of the Kingdom, Dallas Willard names a profound tension between the person of Jesus and the dilemma of modern American Christianity. We spend vast sums of money and energy trying to get people into church. Meanwhile, in the Gospels, people tore the roofs off buildings just to get to Jesus. So much so, He often withdrew from the crowds—not to perform, but to be with His Father and to invest in a few trusted apprentices.

Jesus was the most consecrated King who ever lived. And yet, while we strive to build platforms and leverage influence, He chose obscurity and intimacy and consented to the slow and steady work of His Father in the lives entrusted to his care.

So we must ask ourselves: Why do we find Him hiding from crowds in places where we keep striving to be seen?

If we are willing to be honest with both this longing to be seen and the desire to see immediate results for the fruit of our labors, we can access a precious part of us that becomes a fresh doorway to return home to the heart of God.

This episode concludes a deeper cut series—an excavation of the foundational ideas unearthed through Becoming a King. At its core, we’ve been exploring a central, piercing question: How do we become the kind of men to whom God can entrust His power?

Let me remind you—this path was never promised to be easy. But I can assure you: it is profoundly worth it.

Over time, a compelling pattern emerges. Through the consent by day and by decade to the narrow road of deep apprenticeship, transformation is no longer just a hope—it becomes a lived reality. I see it in the stories, again and again, from men being led by God into deeper wholeness and restoration through Becoming a King.

What once felt like a headwind—marked by adversity, resistance, and battle—in time becomes a tailwind. The strength and care of a good Father, ever present, begins to nourish and sustain us.

A Father who is for us, not against us. Having committed Himself to our well-being, He relentlessly pours Himself into our shepherding and our apprenticeship.

He is our tailwind. And even in our trials, in the end, we will encounter His exceeding kindness.

In this episode, we conclude this conversation with some compelling ideas, questions, and stories from Outposts of Eden around the globe, thanks to the strength lent by allies John Scott Mooring, Pablo Ceron, Ryan Ruebsahm, and Chris Rice.

Together, we’re looking deeper into the kind of King that Jesus is, and I want you to join us.

It’s all been prologue. The best is yet to come.

For the Kingdom,

Morgan and Cherie

— Tim Keller

What does it mean to be made in the image of a Triune God-in-Relationship?

What if relational connection is the heartbeat of the with God life?

What is a relational model for becoming a king or a queen, one who can steward from wholehearted maturity?

We must begin by recovering our hidden life in God—the joyful intimacy available with the Father, Jesus, and Holy Spirit. Drawing our life from the Life of God, we move into relationships with our spouse, children, peers, and families—both our biological and kingdom families.

Right where we find ourselves. On this day. In these circumstances. Perhaps even through these circumstances, God offers a creative invitation to shepherd us in such a way that the things which matter most are no longer at the mercy of the things which matter least.

Join Cherie and me as we take a deeper cut into a relational rule of life and explore generative steps toward arranging our days so that more and more of us can be reattached to the Vine of Life.

It’s all been prologue. The best is yet to come.

For the Kingdom,

Morgan and Cherie

—Eugene Petersen

“First, God. God is the subject of life. God is foundational for living. If we don't have a sense of the primacy of God, we will never get it right, get life right, get our lives right. Not God at the margins; not God as an option; not God on the weekends. God at center and circumference; God first and last; God, God, God.”

These are the opening words of Petersen’s evocative invitation to consider how we might begin to enter into the sacred scriptures.

As we find ourselves today in a Story already in motion—being invited to play an essential role—we must begin afresh with God, we are being invited to turn our affections and our attention back to Him.

It is from that posture that we can revisit this operational question: What are you practicing that is helping to consistently re-align your soul to this reality amid the precarious circumstances in which you find yourself?

We must lean into compassion, remembering Dallas’s reminder that there are, indeed, no ordinary days. With that in mind, what we choose to do shapes the days given to us. Our days shape our decades, and our practices shape our days.

The question isn’t whether we are apprentices, but whose apprentice we are. Make no mistake: we are being formed by our daily practices. Whether chosen with care or dangerously shaped by the current of culture, whether life-giving or quietly corrosive, these practices are not neutral. They are the sculptors of our souls. The real question is, how is that formation going, and how is it being led? What shifts might the Spirit be inviting us to make—shifts that, over time, could bear dramatically different fruit?

Living the Christian life—right where we are—is both our intended place and the primary way we access God. Let us take a fresh look at the ancient practice of a rule of life—a framework that helps us arrange our everyday rhythms around practices we can trust to lead us toward greater wholeheartedness and deeper union with God.

Join me for a deeper dive and a conversation with like-hearted allies Ryan Ruebsahm and Chris Rice, as we recover more of the ancient path together as a global community.

It’s all been prologue. The best is yet to come.

For the Kingdom,

Morgan and Cherie

— Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community by Wendell Berry

Take a moment to breathe. Slow your pace.

Another breath.

Perhaps another. Allow your soul to catch up with your life—even in this very moment.

Another breath.

Enjoy this brilliant poem by Wendell Berry, The Peace of Wild Things. Read it as slowly as you are able:

“When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”

The first sacred text given to all of humanity is God’s creation itself. In many ways, the created world was intended to be a sacred container for the Kingdom of God—a primary expression of His presence and love.

What if, just as the Creator crafted this redemptive backdrop for the story of mankind, you were invited to partner with Him in creating your life as a continually expanding spiritual refuge? A place where you are known, loved, perfectly safe, and deeply nourished—affording you an ever-increasing capacity to engage the battles God invites you to fight on behalf of your own heart and those entrusted to your care?

Just as every creature is designed to flourish within a particular habitat, every soul is also meant to thrive in a specific environment. This is our destiny, and this is God’s invitation. A soul planted in good soil has little choice but to grow into the full expression of all it was created to become—since before the foundation of the world.

Even a cursory immersion in the sacred text of nature reveals a profound truth: the health of any living thing is directly tied to the quality of its habitat. When the environment is whole, life flourishes. When it becomes toxic, life withers.

Day by day, decade by decade, we hold far more power than we’ve believed to shape our lives in ways that increase our joy, confidence, and contentment in daily life with God.

It was the prophetic voice of God through Isaiah that offered this invitation:

“My people will live in peaceful dwelling places, in secure homes, in undisturbed places of rest.” — Isaiah 32:18

Make no mistake: this restoration is fiercely opposed. And yet, there is One who is greater. Even now, a perfect invitation is being extended—for you to take the next brave step, the next twenty seconds of courage, to partner with God in restoring a habitat where your soul can truly thrive.

What if the restoration of the masculine soul depends on our willingness to humbly embrace the formative power of our context? What would it look like to recover a way of life that positions us to receive the revitalizing power of God's own life?

Join me as we explore the power and hope of cultivating a habitat where our souls can flourish.

As part of the journey of Becoming a King, this podcast offers a deeper exploration into creating that sacred habitat where this dream can be realized.

It’s all been prologue. The best is yet to come.

For the Kingdom,

Morgan & Cherie

— Native American Leader to Benjamin Franklin, 1759

Of all the responses I’ve received regarding the encounters and process through which God has fathered souls through Becoming a King over the past five years, none have been as impactful as the invitation to become a generalist.

In many ways, this big idea in masculine initiation is a prologue to a deeper question: How do we become honest about our relationship with fear, risk, and failure?

Becoming a generalist is the process of engaging in a maturing relationship with risk, and failure through the recovery of repairing our relationship with fear by doing and in time, mastering real things. It’s about becoming the kind of man who, more and more, can handle himself in any situation—whether it’s fixing a broken toilet or helping mend a broken heart.

It’s a process of identifying where we overreact and under react, what we avoid, and where we feel exposed; where we even hide behind our gifting, our competence, and our training, allowing precious and essential parts of our soul to remain uninitiated.

None of us becomes a generalist overnight. It’s a slow and steady process of healing our relationship with risk. It’s the practice of stepping onto our frontier instead of avoiding it. It’s learning, little by little, how to do real things in the real world.

Where are you on your journey of becoming a generalist?

Join me as we take a deeper cut at exploring what it means to become the kind of man who brings skill and harnessed strength to meet the world’s needs.

Every man has a place where he feels weak, incompetent, or intimidated. Perhaps that place of avoidance is actually the place of our greatest opportunity—for maturity, integration, and ultimately, peace.

If you dare to risk more and more, you’ll love this conversation—and this invitation.

It’s all been prologue. The best is yet to come.

For the Kingdom,

Morgan and Cherie

“Can one stone change the course of history?”

It is the question we reflect on when considering the life of David.

In his youth, he was an outcast—rejected by his father and older brothers, exiled to wild places to perform the demeaning task of tending sheep rather than the noble work of training as a warrior. Yet it was there, in the lonely hills—not with sword or shield, but with slingshot and harp—that God trained the warrior heart of David.

Through direct confrontations with both lion and bear, his courage and identity as a warrior for God’s people were forged, not in royal courts, but in the fields, watching over a flock totally dependent upon his protection and care. There was no audience to cheer him on, only the solitude of his own conscience and the friendship with the Creator of Creation. David’s heart was shaped—not for conquest or acclaim, but purely out of love for what had been entrusted to his care.

The wild beasts he faced were not only threats but also gifts from God—tools in David’s apprenticeship as a warrior king in training for God’s Kingdom. So when he would later rise to lead Israel, it was not as a tyrant adorned with crowns, but as a servant after God’s own heart.

How do we become the kind of kings who spend ourselves on a worthy cause, willing to die a thousand deaths for those entrusted to our care?

How do we become, as Chesterton put it, the warrior who fights “not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him”?

How do we engage in the slow and steady process that trains us, like David, to become one of skillful hands and integrity of heart? 

What does it look like for the warrior heart to be fully deployed in the exact context where our souls are invited to thrive—even in these modern and precarious times?

How do we become men who move toward healthy risk rather than avoid it?

How do we grow in courage and in our capacity to offer strength in ways that bring goodness and not harm?

What place does a warrior ethic have in the Kingdom of God?

What is the path and process for maturing the warrior heart within?

Join me along with another round of conversation with Grant and Nathan, as we take a deeper dive into the way of the Warrior—as apprentices of the truest warrior who ever lived…

It’s all been prologue. The best is yet to come.

For the Kingdom,

Morgan and Cherie

In his essay The New Name, George MacDonald reflects on the mystery of each man’s unrepeatable uniqueness before God:

“As the fir-tree lifts up itself with a far different need from the need of the palm-tree, so does each man stand before God, and lift up a different humanity to the common Father. And for each God has a different response. With every man he has a secret—the secret of the new name. In every man there is a loneliness, an inner chamber of peculiar life into which God only can enter.

From this it follows that there is a chamber also (O God, humble and accept my speech) a chamber in God himself, into which none can enter but the one, the individual, the peculiar man—out of which chamber that man has to bring revelation and strength for his brethren. This is that for which he was made—to reveal the secret things of the Father.”

Who are you? What is your true name?

What dimension of the Father do you reveal in a way no one else can—or ever will?

How is this mysterious, life-saving, and life-sustaining revelation being made known to you?

How is it meant not only to grow in depth and breadth over the decades, but also to become a kind of revelatory light—guiding you ever deeper into a life of faith, hope, and love?

It takes profound courage to become who we truly are.

Join me and brave allies Chris Rice and Ryan Ruebsahm as we take a deeper cut into the mystery and manna of our true name before God.

It’s all been prologue. The best is yet to come.

For the Kingdom,

Morgan and Cherie Snyder

— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

How have fear and shame shaped the person you’ve become?

What patterns have you developed to avoid exposing the parts of yourself that feel afraid, uncertain, ashamed, or weak?

How do you reach for aggression or withdrawal as a way to protect yourself from the risk of being hurt or being known?

And beneath all the posing and self-protection, what do we truly long for? Who are you meant to be?

Join me and brave allies Nathan Jameson and Grant Leitheiser, as we explore what it means to become the kind of man or woman who has nothing to hide, nothing to fear, and nothing to prove.

What might a man look like—and what could his impact become, day by day and decade by decade—if he were strong and at peace in and through the God who created and sustains him?

In this episode, we take a deeper dive into a central idea of initiation: Becoming True.

It has all been prologue. The best is yet to come.

For the Kingdom,

Morgan and Cherie

George MacDonald’s reflections on receiving God as Father offer profound guidance for the encounters and process of becoming a daughter or son of God. While Becoming a King offers a trailhead largely on receiving the masculine love of God, have you considered the role of feminine love in your story and your walk with God?

What if your relationship (or lack thereof) with the feminine love of God is shaping every moment of your life?

Consider these words from Isaiah 55: 

Come, all you who are thirsty,

    come to the waters;

and you who have no money,

    come, buy and eat!

Come, buy wine and milk

    without money and without cost.

Why spend money on what is not bread,

    and your labor on what does not satisfy?

Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,

    and you will delight in the richest of fare.

Give ear and come to me;

    listen, that you may live. 

What if God’s love holds both the strength, protection, and companionship of masculine love and the overflowing, satisfying, and soothing nurture of feminine love?

If God is indeed the headwaters of all that is both masculine and feminine, what feminine nourishment might be available for the human soul, nourishment we’ve been searching for all our lives?

Come, drink, and feast. There is more.

It has all been prologue. The best is yet to come.

For the Kingdom,

Morgan and Cherie

— Abraham Joshua Heschel

What does a soul do with power entrusted to him by the living God?

What is its lasting legacy in the souls and spaces he inhabits?

How is a man or woman remembered long after they’ve passed from this world?

What is the formation—or lack thereof—that shapes these outcomes?

These questions and others lie at the heart of the message of Becoming a King. How do we become people whose relationship with power leads to the flourishing of others rather than their suffering? How do we respond to our deep desire to be powerful, confront what has gone wrong, and become the kind of Image-Bearers whose strength helps heal and restore the world?

Join me for Episode One of A Deeper Cut Series. As we mark the fifth anniversary of the release of Becoming a King, it feels both fitting and honoring to invite each member of our community, women and men alike, into more. Through interviews with like-hearted allies, teaching, conversations, and stories of how God has worked through this message, this ten-part series serves as a collection of trailheads—each centered on a deeper immersion through core ideas from Becoming a King.

There is more and more of God and His Kingdom available. Much of Him, a breath away. Let’s pursue it together.

It has all been prologue. The best is yet to come.

For the Kingdom,

Morgan and Cherie Snyder

— Mike Mason, The Mystery of Marriage

What is the fruit of a decade given over to apprenticeship, to the slow work of excavation, and to the painful but promising transformation within the Kingdom of God? More precisely, what is the fruit born from the tender soil of our closest relationships?

Over twenty-five years spent investing in the shaping of leaders, I have found one of the deepest and most gladdening sources of confirmation to be the voices of the wives of Become Good Soil men. It is one thing, after all, for a man to speak of his own progress—but it is quite another, and perhaps of far greater weight, when a spouse dares to offer her own candid reflections on what it is to share life with one who has set his whole heart upon the precarious path of becoming.

As we prepare to launch into an extended BGS Podcast series—a deeper dive into the central truths of Becoming a King—it seems only fitting, indeed right and good, and more than a little risky, to let this voyage begin with the voices of women. These are women who generously offer their honest and loving observations from a deep well of intimate relationships.

This episode features the voices of four remarkable women whose husbands have been engaged with the message of Become Good Soil for a decade or more. Join me as they share about the joyous, transformative effects they’ve witnessed in every dimension of their husbands’ lives, their marriages, and their families.

For the Kingdom,

Morgan and Cherie

—Rainer Maria Rilke

Friends,

On our unique paths of initiation as women and men, we often encounter the severe mercy—the painful hope—of having our illusion of control shattered by the rebellious parts of our own souls.

The infant, longing for nourishment. The toddler, yearning for eye contact and the smile of an attentive parent. The boyish hope and daring of a third-grade cowboy. The angry teenager, thirsting for a strength both within and beyond himself. The older man, carrying an unsung song in his heart.

When we finally summon the courage to face the collective of young men within us, what do we do?

To whom do we turn?

I suggest that the invitation and intention of Jesus Christ is to welcome, see, love, know, sustain, restore, and champion all the uninitiated men within us—bringing them into an effectively organized community, fully held together and integrated by Him.

With permission, this episode offers a behind-the-scenes look at an authentic, real-time mentoring call with a courageous apprentice. He is noticing the parts within and creating a safe space for each one to embark on the journey ever closer to Home.

Join me as his story unfolds, opening access to our own stories in ways beyond what we can yet imagine.

For the Kingdom,

Morgan & Cherie

Jean Giono, author of The Man Who Planted Trees, penned these breathtaking and invitational lines - words that draw us back to the path of Christ’s Kingdom Simplicity and Generous Love:

“Creation seemed to come about in a sort of chain reaction. But the man who planted trees did not worry about it; he was determinedly pursuing his task in all its simplicity... For a human character to reveal truly exceptional qualities, one must have the good fortune to observe its performance over many years. If this performance is devoid of all egoism, if its guiding motive is unparalleled generosity, if it is absolutely certain there is no thought of recompense, and that, in addition, it has left its visible mark upon the earth, then there can be no mistake… This was the most impressive visible mark of his work: as we went back toward the village, I saw water flowing in brooks that had been dry since the memory of man. These dry streams had once, long ago, run with water…”

Friends, take a moment to ask yourself:

What would it be like to receive this invitation?

To become this kind of person?

To return to simplicity?

To see dry stream beds run with water once more?

To give most of our attention and affection to God and to a few things and a few others, in a way that is deeply affecting and outrageously good?

To receive the freedom from our Father to engage only what is essential?

It would change the world.

Join me for a hidden conversation originally shared among a handful of Become Good Soil Intensive alumni. For other thirsty, like-hearted women and men among us, we’d love to welcome you to explore simplicity, essentialism, and generous love—together.

For the Kingdom,

Morgan & Cherie

— James K. A. Smith

The power of questions is central to the path of an apprentice—especially the questions we don’t realize we are asking and the unconscious answers that shape our every moment. What questions have you recovered along the way of your initiation? And how are you allowing these questions to shape your apprenticeship as kings and queens in God’s Kingdom?

In this episode, we seek to recover core questions of the human experience and explore how reflecting on questions helps interrupt disintegrating patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving—and connects us in fresh ways to Jesus and His Kingdom.

Join us as we continue to risk together in this deeper exploration of the big ideas explored in Becoming a King. To access the free and recently released second edition of the companion retreat, go to Becomingakingretreat.com.

For the Kingdom,

Morgan and Cherie

to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him. 

-2 Chronicles 16:9

Friends, 

As our fellow apprentice Matthew McConaughey once observed—albeit in delightful colorful terms:

"We all step in shit from time to time. We hit roadblocks, we get sick, we don’t get what we want. We cross thousands of ‘could have done better’s and ‘wish that wouldn’t have happened’s in life. Stepping in shit is inevitable, so let’s either see it as good luck or figure out how to do it less often. … I’m not perfect; no, I step in shit all the time and recognize it when I do. I’ve just learned how to scrape it off my boots and carry on."

One could scarcely find truer words to describe my dear and like-hearted brother, Dave Robison.

Dave’s story is unvarnished and arresting - unorthodox, raw, at times heartbreaking, and yet - ever more radiant with the passing years. It is unique in its details and yet unmistakably universal, bearing the signs and waymarks of the initiation into wholehearted maturity every man and every woman must take. His tale is, in truth, echoes an immersion in God’s Larger Story.

It is through this ancient, sweeping narrative in which his story and our own must recover its meaning. As the psalmist reminds us:

“God is the country in which we live. He is our beginning and our end. He is where we are from, and where we are going. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit alone are the inheritance of our lives. God is the prize, our supreme delight, our everlasting portion. Our destiny, and its hour, rest secure in His strong hands.” - Psalm 16:5, BGST

So come—walk a little farther down this ancient path. Allow Dave’s story of redemption to be another narrow gate to recover more of your heart. Join us in the laughter and the ache, as we enter another Spirit-breathed chapter of masculine initiation.

For the Kingdom,

Morgan

Jean Giono, author of The Man Who Planted Trees, penned these breathtaking and invitational lines - words that draw us back to the path of Christ’s Kingdom Simplicity and Generous Love:

“Creation seemed to come about in a sort of chain reaction. But the man who planted trees did not worry about it; he was determinedly pursuing his task in all its simplicity... For a human character to reveal truly exceptional qualities, one must have the good fortune to observe its performance over many years. If this performance is devoid of all egoism, if its guiding motive is unparalleled generosity, if it is absolutely certain there is no thought of recompense, and that, in addition, it has left its visible mark upon the earth, then there can be no mistake… This was the most impressive visible mark of his work: as we went back toward the village, I saw water flowing in brooks that had been dry since the memory of man. These dry streams had once, long ago, run with water…”

Friends, take a moment to ask yourself:

What would it be like to receive this invitation?

To become this kind of person?

To return to simplicity?

To see dry stream beds run with water once more?

To give most of our attention and affection to God and to a few things and a few others, in a way that is deeply affecting and outrageously good?

To receive the freedom from our Father to engage only what is essential?

It would change the world.

Join me for a hidden conversation originally shared among a handful of Become Good Soil Intensive alumni. For other thirsty, like-hearted women and men among us, we’d love to welcome you to explore simplicity, essentialism, and generous love—together.

For the Kingdom,

Morgan & Cherie

Consider these provocative words by Walter Brueggeman from Sabbath as Resistance. 

“Sabbath is not only resistance; it is an alternative. Sabbath offers both the awareness and practice of the claim that we are on the receiving end of the gifts of God.... To be so situated is a staggering option because we are accustomed to initiating all things. I have come to believe that the fourth commandment on the Sabbath is the most difficult and urgent commandment in our society because it calls us to an intent and conduct that defy the fundamental demands of a commodity-driven society - one that thrives on control, entertainment, bread, and circuses, and requires 24/7 multitasking to achieve, accomplish, perform, and possess.” 

Pause with me for a moment and try on this reality. The joyous restoration of land to its original owners. Debts canceled—forever. Slaves released from bondage. Relationships healed. Even the land recovers its vitality with extended rest from sowing and reaping. Spiritual renewal and re-creation as the community shifts from striving and acquiring to pausing, noticing, receiving, forgiving, reconciling, celebrating, and resting.

In The Year of Jubilee, biblical scholar John Bergsma invites readers to consider how God is calling His people to a collective, life-saving practice - one that preserves freedom, family, and the fullness of God in a fallen world that has lost its ability to rest and to heal.

What lies behind Yahweh’s profound directive and promise of Jubilee, first given to the people of Israel to reform them? How was it ultimately fulfilled in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, the Messianic King?

Given to the people of God 3,500 years ago, this ancient rhythm feels like a long-lost key to life’s riddle. How can we participate in this biblical pattern of stopping and settling in, of forgiveness and renewal?

And what might we say to the curious—or to those who think we are out of our minds?

Join us as we explore The Sabbath of Sabbaths, inviting you more intimately into our story and walking alongside you as you discern what God may be calling you into in yours.

For the Kingdom,

Morgan & Cherie

Luke 12:19-32 MSG

Friends,

Our initiation into wholehearted maturity and deeper union with Christ unfolds over decades of learning to practice without pressure.

Perhaps nowhere is this invitation more hopeful than in parenting.

Of all the questions I receive, none are more common than questions about fathering—and none consistently carry within them more weight of pressure and fear or confusion.

Pause and consider for a moment: What would it be like to shift from a posture of performance into a posture of practicing without pressure? What would it be like not only to understand but also to accept the reality that our children’s lives are held in the hands of a present, caring, and beautifully winsome Father? In the ordinary rhythms of daily life as a dad, what would it be like to encounter God, recognize His presence, feast on His goodness, and, from that nourished place, carry His very essence into the sacred journey of fathering our children?

It would change the world.

Dare I say, it is changing the world.

We are men choosing to become the kind of fathers to whom God is glad to entrust His Kingdom—His rule, His presence—that we might generously reveal His unrelenting affection to our children.

Moms and dads, join us for Part 2 as we explore together the hope and promise of participating in the story of our becoming—the story God is authoring in and through our journey of fatherhood.

For the Kingdom,

Morgan

P.S. For more parenting resources, explore more with the free Becoming a King Parenting Devotional and this blog, Celebration of Boyhood.

 Matthew 7:12 MSG

Friends,

Few questions come my way as consistently and sincerely as questions about the desire and dilemma of initiating children—particularly sons—into wholehearted maturity. And few aspects of my own initiation have received more of my attention.

On behalf of the boys in our world—and the boy within every man (myself included)—I want to invite both men and women to join this roundtable on Initiating Sons.

Often beneath our questions about parenting lay fear, shame, or a nagging sense of lack, fueling a persistent apprehension that we are blowing it royally both in what we do and what we leave undone as parents.

But if we pause long enough—choosing curiosity over fear and consent over control—we may discover that below our fear lies one of the Gospel’s most profound invitations: the invitation to become what we did not have. And as we become, we will naturally offer and initiate from our transformation.

Our role as fathers will eventually evolve into an unbreakable bond of siblinghood with our children in the Kingdom of God—where each of us is deeply loved and securely rooted in the heart of our Common Father.

Join us for Part 1 of a conversation exploring both the pain and possibility of being initiated—and of offering initiation to our sons.

For the Kingdom,

Morgan

P.S. For more on initiating boys, check out these blogs: An Arsenal, a Library, and a Tool Collection and The Gospel as Initiation.

Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity.

Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.

– Matthew 5:48 MSG

The invitation of the Gospel is stark and unrelenting: Come and die in order to live. It is strange and compelling that Jesus, who healed so many, never once chose to heal his own disciples instantaneously. Instead, he continually beckoned them to the weightiest of challenges, probing the very depths of their souls—both the masculine and the feminine within them—daring them to come and die at the deepest levels of their human experience:

Pick up your cross and follow me.

If you want to save your life, you must lose it.

You cannot serve God and money. You cannot serve God and power.

Leave everything you’ve ever known, and follow me.

Unless you surrender all to me—giving up everything, father, mother, sister, brother—you cannot be my disciple.

Jesus’ language to his disciples is a language of initiation. He shaped and implemented a culture where men and women can realize their God-given identities. And from generation to generation, he guides his followers into a lifestyle of ever-increasing maturity through loving challenge.

If we allow our lives to speak, we will hear Reality inviting us to pass through a death and experience rebirth. At every moment, Jesus is freshly inviting us onto the ancient path of initiation. It is the center of his brilliant and loving work.

You cannot discipline your way out of woundedness and brokenness. At the same time, you cannot heal your way out of immaturity. Jesus’ way with the disciples is both: to heal and mature. By day and by decade, he not only heals what is lame in us but trains us to join him in walking on the water.

Join me and Conrad Schottel for a conversation as we dare to let Jesus lovingly challenge us.

For the Kingdom,

– Sam Jolman

Friends,

I’d like to invite you to savor with me a breathtaking excerpt from Sam Jolman’s book as we plumb the depths of the intersection of God’s kindness and our sexual stories: 

We take the risk to call shame what it is: a damn liar. We turn the tables on shame and question it. That starts with getting curious about what provoked it. Maybe it’s lying to you. Maybe love is still available . . . and you can recover a sense of safety. Leaning into vulnerability like that takes immense courage.

If you don’t want to handle your sexual shame with contempt, you must take a risk on love.

Contempt or kindness. That’s it.

What is this kindness stuff? Maybe it invokes an eye roll. Kindness feels too close to niceness . . . but kindness is not niceness. It has more teeth than that. It’s brave with the deep things of life. It looks you right in the face and really sees you with no pretense, with no threat of harm. Can you imagine someone who does not flee from you or metaphorically hit you back, who keeps their heart open and available, but does not flinch from the truth? That is kindness. Someone who can hold the tension of facing reality but still stays openhearted and kind.

Kindness says I can handle you. And I can love you. It’s profound.

Jesus is this incarnate kindness we most desperately need. 

And Jesus is the kindness that we get if we but turn to him with our need.

The Sex Talk You Never Got is brilliant, thorough, and God-breathed. 

I will be recommending it and giving copies as gifts to men (and their wives) I am investing in for decades to come. Grab a copy and immerse yourself in this treasure chest of wisdom, guidance, and hope.

Come along into Part 2 as we reclaim, together, the lover inside of us all. 

For the Kingdom,

Morgan

The Gospel is an invitation to be curious, rather than ashamed, about our sin.
– Sam Jolman

Friends,

God’s preferred method of communication is through a still, small voice.

– Dallas Willard

Dear Friends,

Who have I become, and who am I becoming?

For over two decades, I’ve relentlessly asked these questions and found myself lovingly interrogated by Jesus and His Kingdom at every turn of my journey.

Now, as I transition from one season to the next, I sense another pair of soul-searching questions rising from the depths:

Who is God, really?

Who will I allow Him to become in the decades ahead?

Parker Palmer beautifully wrote, “Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must first listen to my life telling me who I am.” God comes to us brilliantly disguised in the ordinary moments of our everyday lives.

Let us look back and see afresh the God who has prevailed. Let us look forward with confidence and hope, trusting in the God who will continue to prevail.

This episode offers a brief, real-time reflection for the soul. My hope is that it will beckon you deeper still. As you engage with this Examen, may you receive a renewed and personal invitation to explore the updated version of "A Soul’s Review," BGS Podcast Episode 151. While this exercise can be done individually, many allies have found it to be an especially transformational experience when shared as a couple or small group during a half-day or full-day retreat. Pray about it. You and your community are worth the time it takes to transition well from one season to the next.

So, as a prologue, come along. Let us slow down and dare to tune in to the still, small voice of God.

For the Kingdom,

Morgan & Cherie

"You should not be surprised when I say, 'You must be born again.'"
– Jesus of Nazareth

I had always felt life first as a story—and if there is a story there is a storyteller.
– G. K. Chesterton

Love, as Paul and the New Testament present it, is not action—
not even action with a special intention—but a source of action.
– Dallas Willard

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
Love never dies.
Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete…but Love never dies.”

Clothe yourself with compassion…
– Saint Paul

...we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,  and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts...
– Saint Paul

Who must I become to live and love well? 

In times of uncertainty, there is a special breed of warrior ready to answer our Kingdom’s call; a common man with an uncommon desire to love. Forged by adversity, he stands alongside God’s finest warriors to serve his Kingdom and to serve the people God has placed under his care, and to protect their way of life. I am that man.

Discipleship is the process of restoring secure attachment to God.
– Morgan and Cherie Snyder

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 times when…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.

For the Kingdom,
Morgan

If you don’t like the person you’re becoming, you still have time to change that.
– Sam Eldredge

We are safe. 

We belong.

We are loved outrageously by a God who is creatively crafting our lives into the ongoing redemptive Story he is authoring. 

The fundamental human experience is that of compassion.
– The Hero's Journey

It starts with God.
– Proverbs 1:7   

The only tragedy greater than the deep fatherlessness our soul experiences is that we have come to accept that sense of fatherlessness as normal.

Above all else, trust in the slow work of God.

In the morning, long before dawn, he got up and left the house and went off to a lonely place to pray…  (Mark 1:35)

“Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace.” (Matt. 6:5-15 MSG)

Pray without ceasing.
– St. Paul

Prayer is never the first word; it is always the second word. God has the first word.
– Eugene Peterson

Father, thank you that our story begins with you, and we will return to the restoration of all things. 

We choose to trust that you love us with the same love you have for Jesus. 

Therefore we will not give way to fear.  

We agree with who you are. We agree with what you are doing. We agree with how you are doing it. 

We ask for a revelation of your affection today. 

We ask that you would make the impossible possible.

God is perfectly capable of saving the world he created.
– Dallas Willard

And when you come before God, don’t turn that into a theatrical production either….Here’s what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace. (Matthew 6:5-15 MSG)

There is no power in hell
Or any who can stand
Before the power and the presence of the Great I Am.
– Jared Anderson

The male must be taught "the tears of things" before he is given any power.

Where is God?

What is God doing? 

Why is this happening? 

Where do I go?

God, ANSWER ME. 

“I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face, questions die away. What other answer would suffice?”

Things that matter most must never be at the mercy of things that matter least.
– Goethe

Home is both an origin and a destination.

I came from the Father. Now I come home to the Father.
– Jesus of Nazareth

God’s cheatin’ in our favor.
– Shia LaBeouf

When the son is ready, the Father appears. 

He trusts her without reserve and never has reason to regret it.
– Proverbs 31:11 MSG

“...you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (3:28 NIV)

As a man matures and increases in power, he is absolutely dependent on
the integration of feminine love
for him to flourish, mature, and thrive in God’s Kingdom.
– Morgan Snyder

God loves you more tenderly and more irrevocably than the best of mothers.
– Stasi Eldredge

Friends,

Boyd Varty’s life has enticed me into ever deeper waters of my masculine initiation. His stories of tracking animals in wild spaces offer stunning insight into the experience of tracking our souls as men during this bewildering hour on Earth.

Boyd's insight offers particular treasure for our community of apprentices to Jesus, inviting us to become men whose wise hearts and skilled hands can engage in our Father’s intention to share his power and authority on earth as it is in heaven. 

One Kingdom irony is that our Father invites us into this risky endeavor of power-sharing through the unlikely doorway of losing track of our lives. As Boyd suggests,

“There is a last track, and then it's gone. Trails can be like life in that way. You are clear on a path one minute, and the next instant, it's gone. You get fired, you lose a loved one, the company fails, you retire, she dumps you, and you get divorced. Where you thought you were going vanishes. Who you thought you were is lost….More than any other part of tracking, losing the track might be the most metaphorically rich.” 

What if losing the track—and what we do with being lost—is an essential practice to engaging in the unbroken line of God’s masculine initiation of our souls? 

If we are to dare greatly and fail forward, we must practice accepting that losing the track is an essential part of tracking. We must courageously accept that to admit we are lost is to discover we are found by a good and strong Father lovingly leading us home. 

Join Boyd Varty and me for Part 2 of this daring conversation. 

For the Kingdom,
Morgan

P.S. If you want to journey deeper with Boyd, visit www.BoydVarty.com.

I have no idea where I’m going. But I know exactly how to get there.
– Boyd Varty, The Lion Tracker's Guide to Life

What does it mean to be a man in this hour on earth?

Where is the path to wholehearted, integrated masculinity today?

Amidst the poison and disintegration of postmodern life, is any of it concretely possible?

“Where are you, Adam?”

– Genesis 3:9

Friends,

Something is over. Something is next. How do we choose an intentional pause in the in-between to recenter our soul in the heart of God and in his Kingdom, which is at hand?

Last year, we invited our tribe to engage in a soulful transition from one year to the next. As a result of the responses we received, we've made some updates to the guided exercise and are bringing it back to help you navigate the transition from the year behind to the year ahead. 

This is another fresh invitation to slow down and thoughtfully consider the lives we find ourselves living in light of the generous offer of sonship to a good Father. 

Together, we will look back to look forward.

You are worth your time. Set aside a day retreat or a half-day break from the routine to give yourself to this exercise. Better yet, invite your spouse—or a brother or three—to join you in this soul’s journey. Before you make a decision about what of yourself you’ll give to this, ask God. Because you’re worth it. And his invitation might surprise you. 

You can download the free guided reflection here.

For the Kingdom,

Morgan

The only thing which we may take with us from our life on earth are those things which we have given away.
– Babette’s Feast

All the stories we tell borrow their power from the Great Story God is writing.
– John Eldredge

Then our sons in their youth
    will be like well-nurtured plants,
and our daughters will be like pillars
    carved to adorn a palace.
– Psalm 144:12 NIV

The glory of children are their Fathers.
– Proverbs 17:6 KJV

Who is he? 

What is he like? 

Is he available? 

Deeper still, is he interested? 

 I have no idea where I’m going. But I know exactly how to get there.
– Boyd Varty, The Lion Tracker's Guide to Life

Salvation is a process, not an event.
– Resilient

Pointing to his disciples, Jesus said, “These are my brothers and sisters, my true family. Whoever does the will of my Father is my family.”
– Matthew 12:49-50 (paraphrase)

Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.
– Hebrews 2:11 NIV

Answers before questions do harm to the soul.
– Henri Nouwen

We’re lost males, all of us, cast adrift from the community of men, cut off from our masculine heritage—abandoned to machines, organizations, fantasies, drugs.
– Gordon Dalbey, Healing the Masculine Soul

It's all up to me.

I’m way behind.

It’s too late. 

I am all alone.  

It’s not up to me.

I’m on time.

I have more than enough.

I am being led by a good, true, and beautiful Father who is brilliantly orchestrating my rescue, redemption, and masculine initiation. 

In fiction, we should have no agenda except to be truthful.
– Winn Collier, Love Big, Be Well: Letters to a Small-Town Church

I can remember those early years when it seemed to me I was cut completely adrift, and times when, looking back at earlier 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.

How do I become the kind of man whose ever-increasing inner experience is that of being led?

We become what we behold.
– Eugene Peterson, A Burning in My Bones

He beheld the Presence of God.

Discipleship to Jesus is the greatest opportunity individual human beings have in life and the only hope corporate mankind has at solving its insurmountable problems.
– Dallas Willard

Churches are not the kingdom of God…but they are primary and inevitable expressions, outposts, and instrumentalities of the presence of the kingdom among us. They are "societies" of Jesus.
– Dallas Willard

You can easily enough see how this kind of thing works by looking no further than your own body. Your body has many parts—limbs, organs, cells—but no matter how many parts you can name, you’re still one body. It’s exactly the same with Christ. By means of his one Spirit, we all said goodbye to our partial and piecemeal lives. We each used to independently call our own shots, but then we entered into a large and integrated life in which he has the final say in everything. (This is what we proclaimed in word and action when we were baptized.) Each of us is now a part of his resurrection body, refreshed and sustained at one fountain—his Spirit—where we all come to drink. The old labels we once used to identify ourselves—labels like Jew or Greek, slave or free—are no longer useful. We need something larger, more comprehensive…..The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as a church: every part dependent on every other part, the parts we mention and the parts we don’t, the parts we see and the parts we don’t. If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing. If one part flourishes, every other part enters into the exuberance.
(1 Corinthians 12:12-13, 25-26 MSG)

"Tell me your story" is the most revolutionary phrase you can ever say to a man.

– John Eldredge

Friends,

The revolution ignited by Wild at Heart and Become Good Soil is well under way. Though hidden from many, it is irrevocably life-changing for the men who have risked their lives to enter in. 

Bryan Byrd of Wild Courage and Jay Heck of Being Sons are two of our Kingdom allies at the fore of Wild at Heart Fires, taking new ground in this revolution by inviting men into the ancient practice of story-telling and question-asking around an open flame.

We believe hearing authentic stories from the front lines of this movement will spur you to join us. 

After 70 years of apprenticeship to Jesus, Tim Keller said, “What worked for our generation to proclaim and live out the Gospel will not work for yours. I don’t know what will. My time is coming to a close. You will have to figure that out for your generation.”

Brothers, I believe Wild at Heart Fires offer a fresh dimension of Heaven’s provision for Kingdom-living in our generation. These come-as-you-are spaces welcome all men to risk, love, listen, ask, share, and get their hearts back. They offer a context for the authentic masculine community essential for our hearts to thrive. 

As we launch this episode, we know of almost 30 Fires under way. God willing, there will be 300 this time next year, with more to follow. Imagine a day when every man in the world is within driving distance of a monthly Fire shared with like-hearted men.

Join us. Come along and dream about starting a Fire in your community. Put the word out. Invite a few others who are interested in recovering the ancient path. Then light the flame. Low bar, good risk. Masculinity restored.

For the Kingdom,

Morgan

You can find out more at https://www.wildatheart.org/fires

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?
– Matthew McConaughey, Greenlights

Christ is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
– Colossians 1:17

So many times I have longed to gather your wayward children together around me… (Luke 13:34 TPT)

Like a city that is broken down and without walls [leaving it unprotected] is a man who has no self-control over his spirit [and sets himself up for trouble]. (Proverbs 25:28 AMP)

They will forget their shame and all their unfaithfulness….When I have brought them back from the nations and have gathered them from the scattered countries of their enemies…then they will know that I am the Lord their God, for I will gather them to their own land, not leaving any behind. (Ezekiel 39 NIV)

I will not leave you as orphans.
– Jesus of Nazareth

In the last days, the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established
    as the highest of the mountains;
it will be exalted above the hills, and all nations will stream to it.
Many peoples will come and say,
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
  to the temple of the God of Jacob.
He will teach us his ways so that we may walk in his paths.”
– Isaiah 2:2-4

Friends,

The compulsive reach for relief from a false comforter. 

The teeth-gritting heroism of doing the "right thing.”

The addiction to appearance and reputation. 

Our regular rage against authority or our unquestioning posture of a bended knee before it.

Life is not about you.
– Adam's Return

“I have come to heal the broken hearted….I have come to set the captives free and release prisoners from darkness.”
– Isaiah 61

I am overtired but under-rested.

I am overworked, yet I feel unproductive.

I am overweight but undernourished.

I am overstimulated yet under-engaged. 

I am working to make a meaningful contribution, yet I often feel under-celebrated.

Spiritual transformation in Christ is the process of all of the essential parts of the human self being effectively organized around God,
as they are restored and sustained by him.
Its result is love of God with all of the heart, soul, mind, and strength, and of the neighbor as oneself.
– Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart

Friends, 

We are made in the image of God; we carry within us the desire for our true life of intimacy and adventure. To say we want less than that is to lie.

– The Journey of Desire

Friends, 

It started with an ocean lifeguard dory boat race. Two-man teams set to row from the coast of Catalina Island across the twenty-two-mile open-water channel back to the mainland near San Pedro. To add to the adventure, it was the opening of lobster season. In response, Jared and his buddy cooked up an off-the-couch adventure to dive for lobsters all day around Catalina, camp on the beach, wake up in the predawn, and launch their self-powered dory at 4:00 a.m. to complete the epic race back home.

This is a glimpse into the heart of Jared Sayers, a trusted friend of mine who has consented to the path and process of becoming a king. Husband, father, waterman, entrepreneur, recovering business executive, adventurer, artist, and craftsman, Jared is a man who seeks to drink deeply of life in the fullest possible measure.

Above all, he has taken risks and carries scars of failure, heartbreak, and triumph that tell a story of masculine initiation. 

Through the doorways of pain and desire, Jared is passing through his initiation into an adventure with God he would never have imagined. 

And he’s inviting us to do the same. 

The invitation is to allow the Father to use Jared’s story as an interpretive grid to shine a light deep into your heart as a man and to attune you to who God wants to be for you and what he is up to in calling you out to deeper waters and bigger surf.

Join us for this unique but universal story of masculine initiation. Locate your own heart and take the next risk, if you dare.

For the Kingdom,

Morgan

To dig even deeper and glean from all Jared is stewarding, check out more at his blog, A Blue Mind, and his Salt & Sea Camp for kids.

Enter through the narrow gate.
For wide is the gate and broad is the path that leads to destruction,
and many enter through it.
But small is the gate and narrow the path that leads to life,
and only a few find it.
– Jesus of Nazareth

We don't believe something by merely saying we believe it,
or even when we believe that we believe it.
We believe something when we act as if it were true.
– Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart 

Rule with the heart of a servant. Serve with the heart of a king.

“Where are you, Adam?”
– Genesis 3:9

Each human soul has to enact for itself the gigantic humility of the Incarnation. Every man must descend into the flesh to meet mankind.
– G.K. Chesterton

The difference is not in what people suffer, but in the way they suffer. In the same fire, gold glows and straw smokes.
– St. Augustine

In the larger-than-life, spiritually transformed people I have met, I always find one common denominator: in some sense, they have all died before they died. They have followed in the footsteps of Jesus, a path from death to life.
– Adam’s Return

However quickly or slowly the call of God comes, it is always accompanied with an undercurrent of the supernatural….If a man or woman is called of God, it doesn’t matter how difficult the circumstances may be. God orchestrates every force at work for his purpose in the end. If you will agree with God’s purpose, he will bring not only your conscious level but also all the deeper levels of your life, which you yourself cannot reach, into perfect harmony.
– Oswald Chambers

Get into the habit of saying, “Speak, Lord,”
and life will become a romance. (1 Samuel 3:9)
– Oswald Chambers 

He opened the door of the birdcage to let the eagle fly to freedom. But the eagle had been in captivity for so long it no longer believed it could fly, and it chose not to fly. It was then he realized the bird was not in the cage. The cage was in the bird.
– Jonathan Helser

God loves you unconditionally, exactly as you are and not as you "should be.”
– Brennan Manning, All Is Grace

Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am.
– Parker J. Palmer, Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation

Our stories do not define us; the Author of them does. 

So take seriously the story that God has given you to live. It's time to read your own life, because your story is the one that could set us all ablaze.
– To Be Told, Dan Allender

None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us. (8:38-39 MSG)

Without God, we cannot; without us, God will not.
– Saint Augustine

Since we are the sons of God, we must become the sons of God. 

You’re right where God wants you to be when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you, there is more of God.
– Jesus of Nazareth, to his closest friends

Sometimes we don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are….What happened wasn’t about you, it was about me.
– Superintendent Eric Marsh, Only the Brave

Don’t pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults—unless, of course, you want the same treatment. That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging. It’s easy to see a smudge on your neighbor’s face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, "Let me wash your face for you," when your own face is distorted by contempt? It’s this whole traveling road-show mentality all over again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face, and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbor.
(Matthew 7:3-5 MSG)

You are a soul made by God, made for God, and made to need God, made to run on God. Which means that you are not made to be self-sufficient.
– Dallas Willard

All you need is 20 seconds of insane courage, and I promise you something great will come of it.
– Benjamin Mee, We Bought a Zoo

Attachment begins in the first few months of life, but it is the continuous presence of a mother in the first 18 months that is the first step in building a deep and lasting sense of emotional security in a child. This security forms the basis of a child’s sense of self for the rest of life. Bonding is putting the pieces together and attachment is gluing them into place.
– Erica Komisar, Being There

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

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

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. 

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? 

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 Adams

Where 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,

Morgan

Taking 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. 

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

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

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

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

To be a man, a boy must see a man.
– J. R. Moehringer, The Tender Bar

What will they say about you when you're gone?

We see the things we want to see, the things that confirm our assumptions and our preferred way of looking at the world.

Christ from the very first moment of his existence virtually bears all men within himself....For the Word did not merely take a human body; he incorporated himself in our humanity, and incorporated our humanity in his humanity.
– G. K. Chesterton

The Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time. God became Man for no other purpose. It is even doubtful, you know, whether the whole universe was created for any other purpose.
– C. S. Lewis

Reading is the first thing, just reading the Bible. As we read we enter a new world of words and find ourselves in on a conversation in which God has the first and last words. We soon realize that we are included in the conversation.
The Bible is not only written about us but to us.
– Eugene Peterson, introduction to The Message

My old ideas were not adequate for the extremes of joy and grief I experienced. These [Bible] stories kept coming back, but they changed as if re-formed by the alchemy of time. They grew bigger and deeper, more fantastical and more astonishing. Wait, God asked Abraham to kill his own son?  I suppose this happens to most of us as we age; we get smaller, and our dependencies get bigger. We become less fascinating to ourselves, less inclined to think of ourselves as the author of all that we are, and at the same time, we realize how we have been the one shaped—by history, by family, by forces beyond awareness. And I think what came, in the most incremental, boring way possible, is that at some point I had the sensation that these stories are not fabricated tales happening to other, possibly fictional, people: they are the underlying shape of reality. They are renditions of the recurring patterns of life. They are scripts we repeat....These stories provide the horizon of meaning in which we live our lives—not just our individual lives, but our lives together....We are created and being created still.

There are two ways of seeing. One is to look at a forest, and take in a landscape, and the colors, depth, dimensions, and nuances of all of it. But there is also the act of getting on your hands and knees and looking at one flower, and one petal.
– Walt Harrington, The Everlasting Stream

Who will cry for the little boy, lost and all alone?
Who will cry for the little boy, the boy inside the man? 
– Antwone Fisher

It was the Beauty I longed for, beyond the beauty that I longed for in her...
– Frederick Beuchner

When I look at him there is a collection of awful memories. Memories I have spent most of my adult life trying to forget.
– The Kid 

Live at Home.
Love at Home.
Thrive at Home.
Family First.
– Morgan Snyder

Sometimes we have to leave what we know to find out what we know.
– Greenlights, Matthew McConaughey

Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.
– Goethe

Vulnerability is not winning or losing; it's having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome. Vulnerability is not weakness; it's our greatest measure of courage.
– Brené Brown

The Father is a wild one, undivided in his commitment to meet us where we are and father every uninitiated place in us. 

My story is important not because it is mine, God knows, but because if I tell it anything like right, the chances are you will recognize that in many ways it is also yours… It is precisely through these stories in all their particularity, as I have long believed and often said, that God makes himself known to each of us more powerfully and personally. If this is true, it means that to lose track of our stories is to be profoundly impoverished not only humanly but also spiritually.
– Frederick Buechner, Telling Secrets

A king does not abide within his tent while his men bleed and die upon the field. A king does not dine while his men go hungry, nor sleep when they stand at watch upon the wall. A king does not command his men's loyalty through fear nor purchase it with gold; he earns their love by the sweat of his own back and the pains he endures for their sake. That which comprises the harshest burden, a king lifts first and sets down last. A king does not require service of those he leads but provides it to them. A king does not expand his substance to enslave men, but by his conduct and example makes them free.
– Xeones, Battle of Thermopylae, Gates of Fire

Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in event of success.
– Ad placed by Sir Ernest Shackleton, 1915

In 70-year-old men, the number one factor in shaping who they had become was the presence or lack of strong emotional bonds with a single consistent feminine caregiver.
– Robert Karen, Becoming Attached

You speak often of my drinking, but little of my thirst.
– Scottish Proverb

For the Kingdom,
Morgan

Jesus's resurrection is the beginning of God's new project not to snatch people away from earth to heaven but to colonize earth with the life of heaven. That, after all, is what the Lord's Prayer is about.
– N. T. Wright

Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is men who have come alive.
– Howard Thurman

I haven't made all A's in the art of living. But I give a damn. And I'll take an experienced C over an ignorant A any day.

– Matthew McConaughey, Greenlights 

“I have not failed. I've just found 1000 ways that won't work.”
–Thomas Edison, inventor of electric light

Thinking about something rather than trying not to think about something is much more successful. Walking toward rather than away from something allows us to get where we want to go.
– Bill Lokey

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.

– C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves

“If you want to know how well you are doing as a parent, you can gently begin to ask that question when your kids turn 40. In the meantime, today, risk love.” They were generous words spoken to my soul by a wise guide years ago. Dan Allender is wise when he suggests that children really raise parents. Nothing in the world has the power to form us into loving parents like the steady act of parenting through the days and decades.

In How Children Raise Parents, Dan goes on to say, “We often realize that we learn as much from our children as they learn from us. So why don’t parents approach the task of child-rearing as a learning experience, rather than a mandate to make sure their kids succeed in life? To reduce the pressure and enjoy greater closeness in your family, turn your parenting upside-down by allowing God to use your children to help you grow up. Imagine what would happen if you began to prize what you’re being taught by your children’s quirks, failures, and normal childhood dilemmas, rather than worrying about whether you’re doing everything right as a parent.”

Friends, with a posture of joyfully embracing the “task of child-rearing as a learning experience,” we turn to part two of a conversation Cherie and I hosted with our mentor, counselor, and dear friend, Gary Unruh. His five decades of work with children and families have recovered some of the relational keys that can turn a catastrophe in relationship into a story that will bring us to tears with gratitude in decades to come.

In part one, we explored themes from Golden Rule Parenting. 

In this episode, we dive into LIFT for Children – Love Infusing Fear Therapy. It’s practical, accessible, and a brilliant onramp to recapture the hearts of children and deepen any other relationship entrusted to your care. To love is to be vulnerable. Having faithful, wise guides like Gary can help us keep risking in love.

Let’s dive in.

For the Kingdom,

Morgan

For Gary’s counseling services you can connect with him at GaryUnruhTherapy.com.

He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another obscure village where he trained and worked as a carpenter until he was thirty. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never went to college. He never traveled more than two hundred miles from the place where he was born. He did none of the things usually associated with greatness. He had no credentials but himself. He was only thirty-three. His friends abandoned him. He was turned over to his enemies and went through the mockery and humiliation of an unjust trial. He was nailed to a cross between two thieves. While dying, his executioners gambled for his clothing, the only property he had on earth at his death. He was laid in a borrowed grave. All the armies that have ever marched, all the navies that have ever sailed, all the governments that have ever governed, and all the kings who have ever reigned have not affected the life of humankind on earth as powerfully as that one solitary life.
– Author Unknown

“What grieves God most is not our sin but our refusing to believe that he is so kind, and that he desires to be with us so much more than we do with him.”
– Rankin Wilbourne, Union with Christ

There is no good trying to be more spiritual than God. God never meant man to be a purely spiritual creature. That is why he uses material things like bread and wine to put the new life into us. We may think this rather crude and unspiritual. God does not: he invented eating. He likes matter. He invented it.
– C. S. Lewis

Shall I abandon, O King of mysteries, the soft comforts of home?
Shall I turn my back on my native land, and turn my face towards the sea?
Shall I leave the prints of my knees on the sandy beach,
a record of my final prayer in my native land?
Shall I then suffer every kind of wound that the sea can inflict?
Shall I take my tiny boat across the wide sparkling ocean?
O King of the Glorious Heaven, shall I go of my own choice upon the sea?
O Christ, will you help me on the wild waves?

(excerpt from the Prayer of St. Brendan)

“The intention of God is that we should each become the kind of person whom he can set free in his universe, empowered to do what we want to do. Just as we desire and intend this, so far as possible, for our children and others we love, so God desires and intends it for his children. But the character, the inner directedness of the self, must develop to the point where that is possible.”

–Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy: Recovering Our Hidden Life in God

God, grant me character greater than my gifts
and humility greater than my influence.
–Scott Sauls

“God, if this is not your will, may it be rendered fruitless.”

Who  prays that kind of prayer? Very few indeed. Yet Zach Thomas does, and he has prayed this prayer again and again and again.

A husband, father of seven children, author of Leader Farming, and Kingdom entrepreneur through and through, Zach is a man who has consented to the path and process of becoming the kind of man to whom our Father can gladly entrust the care of his Kingdom.

It’s my joy and privilege to invite you into this soul-strengthening conversation with a fellow Kingdom apprentice.

Let’s dive in.

For the Kingdom,
Morgan

"We must empty ourselves of that with which we are full so that we might fill ourselves with that of which we are empty."
–St. Augustine of Hippo, 425 A.D.

nothing to fear,
nothing to hide, and
nothing to prove?

What was it about Jesus that allowed him to become quite possibly the most relaxed and lovingly unpredictable person who ever lived?

Join me as we explore part two of an eight-part series in which we're going behind the scenes into the most recent Become Good Soil Intensive.

If you haven't listened to episode one, start there.

You can find the Part One, Part Two and images I refer to in Getting Naked—and much more—here.

Through October 12, we are accepting applications for the next Become Good Soil Intensive. Find out more.

For the Kingdom,

Morgan

“There is one spectacle grander than the sea, that is the sky; there is one spectacle grander than the sky, that is the interior of the soul.”
–Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

For the Kingdom,

Authenticity is a collection of choices we have to make every day. It’s about the choice to show up and be real. The choice to be honest. The choice to let our true selves be seen.
–Brené Brown

If you’ve hung around these parts for any length of time, you know that we hold dearly to our core principles, beginning with the dearest of the dear: the clarion call to “Own Your Awkward.”

I gotta tell you, though, in this particular episode with Morgan Snyder from Wild at Heart and Become Good Soil, that little value of ours was put to the test, and I was tempted to edit the H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks out of it.

Don’t get me wrong. It was a great conversation, not just about Morgan’s new book, Becoming a King, but about, oh, a lot of things. The “new normal.” God as “genderful.” Acknowledging wounds and healing hurts. 

There is deep insight, let me tell you. In fact, so much so, that at one point in the conversation it took a turn toward the vulnerable, and I had to make a choice as to whether I’d keep that part to myself or share it with you all. 

In the end, I decided not to edit it out, ‘cause, well, sometimes a little vulnerability makes for a much more interesting conversation. 

For the Kingdom,

It is profound how different our experiences can be inside our own skin. When it comes to sensations in the body, we are not on a level playing field. To love and be loved, to know and be known, it’s so important that we practice story-informed relating with ourselves and each other. Jesus is the most brilliant story-informed and trauma-sensitive teacher and friend who has ever lived.
– Cherie Snyder

Many of us—or those whom we love—have contended with the agonizing sensations of acute anxiety. In attempts to regulate these sensations, we often reach for substances, co-dependent relationships, or control over external circumstances to mitigate the pain and upheaval we feel on the inside. Sometimes the efforts we make to soothe our bodies end up causing harm to ourselves or to those we love.

Friends, if acute anxiety has been a part of your story or the story of someone you love, there is reliable hope for encounter, comfort, and transformation. I can speak to this hope on a very personal level: over the past 18 months, God has been tending to the root of the anxiety in me and offering new freedom, restoration, and internal peace beyond what I ever dreamed was possible.

My bride, Cherie, has her own story of acute anxiety. Out of her own story and path toward wholeness, she has consented to the slow and steady process of becoming a trauma-informed educator. She works regularly with fellow travelers to help listen for the sacred information that the body might be conveying and experience loving and compassionate transformation.

Join her in this podcast as she shares a hopeful framework and practical steps to help us listen to our bodies, learn our stories, encounter God, and move compassionately from anxiety through transformation and toward greater peace.

For the Kingdom,

Many people die with their music still in them. Too often it is because they are always getting ready to live. Before they know it, time runs out.
–Oliver Wendell Holmes

“Make margin in your life, or life will make margin for you.”

–Chuck, from a federal prison cell

No one stops to think.

These five words, spoken over two thousand years ago,1 have the potential to change your life more than any others. 

These five words are the headwaters from which a single idea is found, an idea that might be the universal narrow gate through which all like-hearted apprentices of the Kingdom of God must travel if we are to recover the Gospel in our age.

Having nothing to do with COVID-19 or a pandemic, we find ourselves in an unprecedented time in the history of humanity in a wholly other respect.

Thankfully, every unprecedented challenge comes with its own unprecedented possibility and particular provision, for such a time as this.

Join me as we risk going after the deeper things of God and his Kingdom together.

Below, you’ll find resources referenced in the podcast that will help you dive deeper.

There is a revolution being seeded around the globe. It’s a revolution of the human heart. It’s taking hold. This is our hour.

Let’s go.

For the Kingdom,

Linear vs. Exponential Growth Curve

Human Function Curve

1Isaiah 44:19a NIV

Reflections Questions: 

1. Observe the current condition of the space that exists in your life between your load and your limits. What does this reveal, through your actions, about what you believe about margin? 

2. Notice what has happened to your attention and your affection...

     over the last year

     over the last five years

     over the last decade

3. What if this life we find ourselves in is not normal? Notice your capacity for adaptation. How has it been a blessing? How has it been a hindrance?

Margin by Richard Swenson

The Overload Syndrome by Richard Swenson

Hurtling Toward Oblivion by Richard Swenson

The great problem of the earth and the great aim of the masculine journey boil down to this: when can you trust a man with power?
– John Eldredge

No life of faith can be lived privately. There must be overflow into the lives of others.
–Eugene Peterson

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. Ever since the waves of panic and the dread of complete collapse had gripped the region, commerce had careened to a violent stop; his tenants had no means of making money, much less paying him. Who knew when the next dollar would come? The economy was like concrete—it had moved well when it was wet, but now the scorching heat of oversupply, panic, and free-fall had dried it up overnight. Later, people would swear they had seen the terror behind his eyes. But in those first dreadful days, they had refused to admit it even to themselves.

This story isn’t from 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic. It is a glimpse of the grim inner reality of a landlord and investor in 1931, a paraphrase from a story told by Timothy Egan in his brilliant and award-winning book The Worst Hard Time.

In the early 1930s, a terrible collision of deadly drought, global economic instability, and the dire environmental consequences of man’s misuse of power gave rise to a cataclysm of dust storms that devastated the southern high plains of the U.S. Nothing like it had been seen before; and to this day, the total ruination of the ecosystem of the Great Plains is often credited as the worst environmental disaster of human history.

Not surprisingly, few lived to tell the story, or if they did, it was a story too painful or shameful to recount.

I can’t help but connect the stories in The Worst Hard Time with elements of our current global challenge. No one knows the outcome of these times in which we find ourselves. There is no crystal ball; there are no material guarantees. Yet by Grace there is a brilliant, kind Teacher who wants to guide us through all of it into Life. And there is a map of human history that can educate our souls to survive, to endure, and to make the way for future generations to thrive as a result of abiding wisdom applied in the midst of an unprecedented crisis.

Which brings me to a question: In times of crisis, when life shifts in some distinct ways from normal to survival, who lives, who dies, and why? Laurence Gonzales wrote a compelling, research-based narrative exploring the mystery behind this question in his fascinating book Deep Survival.

In the hope of offering some soul-strengthening counsel from shapers among us as well as shapers of old, my aim in this podcast is to pause and consider some very practical aspects of “surviving survival” that we could lean into today in order to become even more the kind of men who can receive life and bring life, in partnership with God, for such a time as this.

Specifically, I highlight 10 ideas that can help us first receive love and then lead in love, even in this uncertain hour.

Friends, let us stand together, holding onto the hope that Paul expressed to the community of God’s people in Galatia: the hope that we who have chosen to receive the gift of God’s generously available life are given the resources we need for union with God and to express our faith in love. Not in our own strength, but in union with the Trinity today. Paul assured us that we do have direct access to remarkable qualities of God’s own life and experience:

Joy that overflows,

Peace that subdues,

Patience that endures,

Kindness in action,

a life full of virtue,

Faith that prevails,

Gentleness of heart, and

Strength of spirit.

(Galatians 5:22-23, The Passion Translation)

And in the midst of these unique times, may we both receive and offer this kind of faith-filled life into our spheres of influence. May the fruit of our union with God be so nourishing and strengthening to those around us that the world will know that God is with us and we will not be shaken.

As One,

Morgan

P.S. As shared in the podcast: Want to join Cherie and me for 30 minutes of refreshment and soul centering? It'd be a great gift to your spouse or nourishment for you or even a mid-day date! All you'll need is a quiet space where you can center in God and move your body in a comfortable space. Grab an exercise mat if you have one.

Join us April 9th at 11:55am MT:

https://zoom.us/j/425375870

Meeting ID: 425 375 870

If you're new to Zoom, you can find helpful instructions HERE.

In the podcast I reference the following books that I’ve found incredibly helpful:

Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why, by Laurence Gonzales

Life Without Lack, by Dallas Willard

The Worst Hard Time, by Tim Egan

If the play button below does not work, use the following links instead:

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

Much of our effort to do things for the Lord is really the resurgence of our desire to dominate and make things happen in our own strength.

– Dallas Willard, Life Without Lack

We celebrated the 50th Become Good Soil podcast by asking you like-hearted listeners around the globe to send in the questions coming up as you travel the narrow road. 

The response was far more than we anticipated, and so deeply encouraging. And included far too many to address in one podcast! 

The depth and breadth of the questions set the stage for Q & R to become a regular part of the mix for the Become Good Soil tribe.

In that vein, this podcast is a Volume 2 of responses to the original questions that listeners offered, including these:

When it comes to risks, which ones should I be taking?

I long for life-giving mentorship. How I do I find mentors?

When is it too late to begin the process of excavation for the soul?

I’ve done the slow and steady work of putting to death the false self. Yet I find myself in the deepest places of doing what I don’t want to do and not doing what I want to do. How do you put to death the final parts of the false man within?

Do you have questions you’d love to see considered in a future Become Good Soil podcast? Type your question on this form or leave a voice recording.

For the Kingdom,

Morgan

Start by doing what's necessary;
then do what's possible;
and suddenly you are doing the impossible.
– St. Francis of Assisi

Prison was so holy, because there was such a dependence on God. I had the gift of desperation. I couldn't fix anything. I couldn't do it. I had to lean into the Father.
-Chuck Bolton

I've spent 15 months in federal prison, but I can say the loneliest, darkest prison I've ever been in was my addiction. It was because I was alone and because I was living in secrets.
-Chuck Bolton

-Danny Silk,  Loving Our Kids on Purpose: Making a Heart-to-Heart Connection

“Son, God has made you strong for a reason. I love your strength. I see your strength. But do you think God made you strong to hurt or to help your brother?”

Brooks intimately scrutinizes key historical figures whose lives exuded a particularly generative power, illustrating how each of these uniquely transformative men and women consciously devoted themselves to an ongoing process of personal reformation. Through his study,  Brooks distills this universal theme: “You have to give to receive. You have to surrender to something outside of yourself to gain strength within yourself. You have to conquer your desire to get what you crave. Success leads to the greatest failure, which is pride. Failure leads to the greatest success, which is humility and learning. In order to fulfill yourself, you have to forget yourself. In order to find yourself, you have to lose yourself.”

How rare it is to sit with a man who has traveled this crooked timber way, a man who reckons honestly with our God-given capacity to participate with God’s life and offer genuine strength for the sake his Kingdom, and also continually confronts the bent places within. How much rarer it is to lean into a man who has not only been initiated himself, but has also invested much of his strength to initiate five sons over the course of more than two decades. (This video is an example, a glimpse into one of the many initiation stories of Paul's son Aaron.) Simply put, we are initiated as we initiate others.

Paul Ryan is this kind of man.

As part of the living legend series, I had the privilege to host an initiation conversation with Paul, a Become Good Soil mentor who serves as Director for Ellel Ministries in Australia, and more importantly is husband of Joanne and father to five sons and a radiant daughter.

Join us as we dive deep, excavating another layer of masculine initiation.

For the Kingdom,
Morgan

Note: In our conversation we reference Healing the Masculine Soul by Gordon Dalbey.

It is not what a man does that is of final importance, but what he is in what he does. The atmosphere produced by a man, much more than his activities, has the lasting influence.
–Oswald Chambers

Dear Sirs,

I am.  

Sincerely yours,

G. K. Chesterton

What’s right with the world?

I am.

For a human character to reveal truly exceptional qualities, one must have the good fortune to be able to observe its performance over many years. If this performance is devoid of all egoism, if its guiding motive is unparalleled generosity, if it is absolutely certain there is no thought of recompense and that, in addition, it has left its visible mark upon the earth, then there can be no mistake.
– Jean Giono, The Man Who Planted Trees

The world has yet to see what God will do with and for and through and in and by the man who is fully consecrated to him.
– Henry Varley

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