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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

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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

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Start by doing what's necessary;

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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.

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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.

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“Love and relationship are the bottom line of the Kingdom of God. And they must be ours if we are to establish a Kingdom culture in our homes.”

-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.

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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.

Dear Sirs,

I am.  

Sincerely yours,

G. K. Chesterton

What’s right with the world?

I am.