Become Good Soil

By Morgan SnyderReligion & Spirituality Christianity

Become Good Soil episodes

April 04, 2018 037: Contemplative Prayer – Episode 1 of 3
All men desire peace, but very few desire those things that make for peace.
–Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ

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I find it fascinating that when Jesus speaks of eternal life, it's less often about a specific time or place where we transition into some other state of being and more often about a quality of life—robust, deep vitality—that is being made available to us, right here and right now. He offers this invitation to a rich young man who has found his trust in things of this world. (1) He regularly teaches the thirsty that the Kingdom of God is at hand. (2) He leans into this idea on the night of his betrayal and abandonment by the men closest to him.

In intercession for these same friends and for us, he cries out to his Father, "The goal is for all of them to become one heart and mind—just as you, Father, are in me and I am in you." (3)

If deep, whole-person union with God is the invitation and inheritance of Christianity, what are the means by which we respond to this invitation? How exactly do we go about entering into this union?

Join my wife, Cherie, and me as we explore some deep waters in part one of a three-part podcast series on the practice of contemplative prayer. Our hope is that together we can recover one of the greatest means of deeper union—and through it, deeper life—embedded in the rich history of God’s people through the ages.

(1) Matt. 19:16-30
(2) Matt. 3:2
(3) John 17:21 MSG

If you'd like to go deeper, here's one resource that helped launch our journey into centering prayer: Open Mind, Open Heart by Thomas Keating.
39 min
February 16, 2018 036: Jonathan David Helser – Episode 3 of 3
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Spontaneity is the fruit of preparation.

– Jonathan David Helser

"Did you bring me out here in the storm to kill me?"

This pained and brutally honest prayer poured from Jonathan David Helser's heart in the midst of a moment of exposure and hand-to-hand battle with the living God.

Jonathan explains,

Over the years, the Father has engineered circumstances to expose some of the core beliefs and lies that have tried to silence my heart. He has led me on a journey of initiation to excavate and transform these deep-seated beliefs in order that I might come into the fullness of life as it was meant to be.

Praying my most honest prayer gets me to my core beliefs.

And in response to “Did you bring me out here in the storm to kill me?” the Father spoke back this truth:

"I did not bring the disciples into the storm to kill them.

I brought them into the storm to kill their fear.

Son, I have brought you into the storm to kill the fear that lives in you."

Join me in this final installment of a three-part journey of receiving more of the wild love of our Father alongside songwriter, musician, father, husband, and son, Jonathan David Helser.

If you haven’t listened to part one or part two, you’ll want to start there.

Explore more of the treasures in this three-part series here:

JonathanHelser.com

18InchJourney.com

For the Kingdom,

Morgan
51 min
January 27, 2018 035: Jonathan David Helser – Episode 2 of 3
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If we have a crisis in this country. It’s more than a fatherless crisis, though. It’s a crisis of manhood, of masculinity. It’s affecting our families, our schools; it’s filling our prisons, and it’s killing the hearts of our women.

– Donald Miller

Check out the news on any given day and you’ll find stories that illuminate a crisis of masculinity. It's a crisis rooted in the loss of effective masculine initiation, for a boy does not become a good man on his own, but by the soul-food of loving mothers and the soul-forging of loving fathers.

Yet we are not without hope. God is ever faithful to supply provision for every problem. In pockets of redemptive communities around the world, God continues to turn the hearts of Kingdom-oriented fathers and mothers back toward those under their care and influence.

Jonathan and Melissa Helser are part of God’s provision to manifest the love of God on earth as it is in the Kingdom. Together, they offer servant leadership for a redemptive community in North Carolina and kingly care for an apprenticeship school for the next generation of Kingdom leaders, songwriters, and musicians.

Join me for part two of a three-part conversation with my friend and hero Jonathan David Helser.

If you haven’t listened to part one, you’ll want to start there.

Here are two options for digging deeper:

JonathanHelser.com

18InchJourney.com

For the Kingdom,

Morgan
55 min
January 17, 2018 034: Jonathan David Helser – Episode 1 of 3
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When we worship, we silence the fear and declare who our father really is.

– Jonathan Helser

"Messy could describe the first moment that God has with man. He gathers dirt in His hands to form Adam. There is dirt under God's fingernails and then on God’s lips as He draws Adam close to breathe in His Spirit. What is it like for Adam when he opens his eyes and sees and feels God’s face pressed against his? Surely God is both willing and ready to get messy with us as He brings us close and breathes us to life…”

Friends, I am thrilled to invite you into an experiential journey in this three-part Become Good Soil podcast with songwriter, musician, father, husband and son, Jonathan David Helser. Through question, story, and worship, we will practice together venturing along the narrow road and the holy and sacred path of initiation as men.

To explore more of the treasures in this three-part podcast series, check out these other pages:

JonathanHelser.com

18InchJourney.com

For the Kingdom,

Morgan
51 min
November 15, 2017 033: The Slow and Steady with Dallas Willard and Michael Cusick
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The whole point is presence, the with-God life. That’s the real substance of our relationship with God.

– Dallas Willard, 1935-2013

Amidst the clamor of contemporary life, there is the narrow path of slowing down and setting our souls before the insight of the elders. We can take heart: there are wise ones who have gone before us, men and women who have recovered the lost treasure of the Gospel and can effectively communicate it. Wise ones who now make known to us the path of Life.

Join me in this deep and rich interview with Dallas Willard and Michael Cusick and spend some time in the company of true elders. Michael is an ally of our Wild at Heart team. As both president of Restoring the Soul and lead counselor of a team of like-hearted warriors, he is devoted to the restoration of the hearts of men. You can find out much more about Restoring the Soul and the retreats, intensive counseling opportunities, and marriage ministry they offer at RestoringTheSoul.com.

Here is just a sample of the realities Dallas and Michael touch on in this conversation:

How do God and His Kingdom usually work? What is God’s preference in the “how” of uniting heaven and earth in the kingdom of God? Rather than focusing on the ways God can work, what if we focused our energy on participating in the ways God prefers to manifest His kingdom on the earth?

Pascal said "all the troubles of the world come from the fact that people cannot go into a room, sit down, and be quiet." Why is stillness important, and how can we participate in the art of sitting down and being quiet?

Solitude is a radical discipline that breaks the hold the world's system has over us. Solitude suspends the activities that pull at us, distract us, and energize our unaware-of-God identities and habits. Dallas and Michael explore how solitude is a reliable activity—within our power to do—that enables us to experience the with-God life through interactive knowing and being known.

Wholeness is the functioning of all aspects of the self in harmonious union. It's what enables a person to be truly good, doing good under God.

If you're interested in deeper restoration, I encourage you to connect with Michael Cusick and his team at Restoring the Soul.

Strength and Honor,

Morgan
48 min
September 26, 2017 032: One Giant Leap for Mankind – A Conversation with Brad Beck
The important achievement of Apollo was demonstrating that humanity is not forever chained to this planet, and our visions go rather further than that and our opportunities are unlimited.

- Neil Armstrong, NASA astronaut

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Brad Beck has spent a lifetime offering strength in a myriad of roles in countless missions. As a flight surgeon in a supersonic jet for NASA, a crew member in international theater performance with YWAM, a physician in private practice, a coach of high school football, and a co-leader of men’s missions with Wild at Heart around the globe, Brad has left his fingerprints on the lives of many and much.

Yet none of these powerful roles inspire the breadth of redemptive pause as his role of Dad and his path of loving his family, particularly loving a special needs child through her short years in this world and gently and lovingly into the next.

Join me in a podcast that will surely lead us back to the Narrow Road.

Recently we featured Brad and his wife, Lisa, in a beautiful short film that echoes the story of hope infused in John’s most recent book, All Things New.

As a complement to this interview, I strongly encourage you to check out the film as well as All Things New.
57 min
July 21, 2017 031: 100 Miles with Dave Eitemiller
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Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.
– John Muir

Piecing together a string of single-track trails that meander through a dry, rocky, cactus-strewn landscape, it’s possible to make a 48-mile continuous trek across Zion National Park.

For most people, this trek would be one of the epic adventures of their lives; if you’re Dave Eitemiller, you count it as a solid training workout for yet another 100-mile adventure race.

Nearing the sixth decade of his life with a frontiersman’s heart akin to the likes of Lewis and Clark, Dave is partnering with God in the corners of the globe to father leaders in the Kingdom.

With experiences spanning corporate executive roles in Shanghai to adventures with fly rod and skis in the backcountry of the West, Dave’s the kind of man with whom it’s good to share a campfire.

I had the privilege of hosting a conversation with him prior to his recent venture into the wild of Zion National Park. Join us as we savor a conversation sure to beckon each of us forward along the frontier of the masculine journey in unique and collective ways.

To connect with fathers in the Kingdom, consider applying for a future Become Good Soil Intensive. And for all of us, let this podcast be a reminder of this Kingdom reality: We are each invited to become what we did not have.
1 hr
June 16, 2017 030: Coming to the Center (The Marriage Podcast Series – Part Four)
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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

Kelly and Phil are getting a divorce.

The email from a mutual friend sharing the news hit me like a punch in the stomach.

Brandon and his dad are in deep contention. It’s the kind of painful, two-sided misunderstanding that could finally sever the strained relationship.

Tragic stories of ruptured relationships continue to stream into my world, and I’m sure into yours as well. My heart never builds resiliency. Rather, it seems to break even more with every fresh story.

But increasing ever more are the stories of restoration.

Resolution.

Resolve.

And many, through the miracle of validation—a practice of coming to the center of the soul of another—through which God’s life seems to flood in like morning sun.

This practice of seeking experiential heart knowledge of another for her or his own sake is perhaps one of the most courageous and loving acts a spouse, a friend, a sibling, or a parent can ever take.

I will go as far as to say that the breakthroughs in our marriage over the past 16 years have often been directly proportional to the process that has begun with my capacity to come to the center of the present reality of my wife’s soul. And to offer her the same access to mine in crazy, risky love.

In Renovation of the Heart, Dallas suggests,

The hidden dimension of each human life is not visible to others, nor is it fully graspable even by ourselves. We usually know very little about what moves in our own soul, the deepest level of our life, or what is driving it. Our ‘within’ is astonishingly complex and subtle.

And within this complex, hidden dimension is the power and possibility of love.

The practice of coming to the center of another involves putting aside—for a time—my own pain, my need, my presumption, and my agenda in order to know and enter into the experience of the hidden dimension of another for his or her own sake. It is a participation in the Life of Christ, who does unendingly what we intend to do for a moment: enter into the internal experience of another.

That is the space of transformation.

Join Cherie and me as we head back into deep waters.

Let’s become the kind of people—the kind of marriages—where we can cause the world to believe, as Paul says, though much is not as it should be, the Kingdom of God is growing. The Message bears fruit and gets larger and stronger, in us and through us. (Phil. 2:15, Col. 1:5-8)

This is the fourth of a marriage podcast series. If you haven’t heard the first three, I’d encourage you to start at the beginning.
44 min
April 17, 2017 029: Plank and Speck Wrap Up (The Marriage Series – Part Three)
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The offer is Life.

Yet that abundant life is often found in the least likely of places.

What is the most effective path toward the much looked-for restoration in the heart of your spouse?

Join Cherie and me in this second half of a conversation in which we reflect on the particular elements of Reality as Jesus reveals what can bring more life to our marriages than we ever thought possible.

Jesus, we choose to pause.

Jesus, we open the gate of our soul and trust that you are reliable and fully capable of providing a way where there is no way.

In this episode we offer some reflection questions for deep consideration. Take the time to stay with God in those questions until you are led into the more he is making available.

With deep anticipation,

Cherie and Morgan

Note: If you haven't listened to the first portion of this conversation on the plank and the speck, you'll want to start there.
17 min
April 04, 2017 028: Plank and Speck (The Marriage Series – Part Two)
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Jesus and his words…are essentially subversive of the established arrangements and ways of thinking. That is clear from the way they first entered the world, their initial effects, and how they are preserved in the New Testament writings and live on in people. He himself described his words as “spirit and life” (John 6:63). They invade our “real” world with a reality even more real than it is.

– Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy

Where are Jesus and his words subverting your established arrangements and ways of thinking? How are his words and way invading your “real” world with a reality more real than it is?

A mentor encouraged Cherie and me to immerse ourselves in the four Gospels, taking our places as Jesus’ apprentices, attentive to what he said and taught. We are discovering much treasure, including Jesus’ teaching on what is wonderfully Well in the Reality of the Trinity; and we are discovering much challenge, including sobering insight into what is still unwell within and between us, where is it not “on earth as it is in Heaven.”

Yet even in the revelation of what is unwell, Jesus’ words insist on the Good News that the Kingdom is open to us right here and now, even in these places.

Particularly, Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 7 on “the plank and the speck” has revealed something unwell in our marriage and illuminated a way back into the joyous Kingdom-Among-Us.

Join Cherie and me in this second episode of conversations reflecting on the particular elements of Reality as Jesus reveals that are becoming the new and reliable foundation for the house of our marriage.

Jesus, we give you permission to subvert us. Open our eyes, subversive Christ.
43 min