Soil and Roots

Most people who follow Jesus have heard that God loves them.

But do we live in the idea that He actually likes us?

By “like,” we don’t mean that God merely finds us agreeable. We mean something much deeper: Does He enjoy being with us? Does He delight in us? Does He welcome our presence and desire our company—or does He mostly tolerate us while waiting for us to become more disciplined, holy, useful, or spiritually mature?

In Episode 148, Brian explores another hidden idea of God that can quietly shape our spiritual lives even when our theology says something very different.

We look at David Benner’s simple but revealing question: Imagine God thinking about you. What do you assume He feels?

For many of us, the immediate answer isn’t joy. It’s disappointment.

We explore how family patterns, churches, performance cultures, and the false self can shape us to believe God’s approval must be earned. We also consider why genuine spiritual transformation doesn’t begin with becoming impressive enough for God to delight in us—it begins when we experience His delight before we change.

God not only loves you. He likes you.

Join us online! 

Web: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

Substack: ⁠⁠⁠https://soilandroots.substack.com/

Most Christians would say that God does not have favorites. But do our hearts actually experience Him that way?

In this Greenhouse follow-up to Episode 146, Brian is joined by Handsome Kyle and Dr. Tim to explore why God can still feel partial even when our theology says otherwise.

The conversation begins with transference—the unconscious tendency to carry patterns from past relationships into new ones. Experiences with parents, pastors, teachers, employers, and institutions can shape not only how we see God, but how we imagine God sees us.

From there, the discussion moves into performance, usefulness, the “looking-glass self,” the masks we wear, suffering, and our tendency to assume that successful or influential Christians somehow enjoy greater access to God.

Why do we sometimes prefer a transactional relationship with God? Why can His delight feel difficult to receive? And what happens when we stop trying to earn love and allow ourselves to be fully seen?

Join us online! 

Web: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

Substack: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.substack.com/

Most of us would never say that God likes some people more than others. We know grace can’t be earned, and we believe God loves ordinary people.

But do our hearts actually experience Him that way?

In Episode 146, Brian explores another hidden idea of God: the idea that God is partial—that greater success, usefulness, discipline, or spiritual maturity earns us greater affection and access.

We explore how this idea can show up in performance, suffering, comparison, spiritual celebrity, and even how we treat other people. And through the practice of Heartview, we consider what our resentment, striving, anxiety, and comparison might reveal about the God we actually experience.

Deep discipleship invites us beyond simply believing the right things about God. It invites us to bring our hidden ideas into the light and allow Jesus to re-form them through relationship and experience.

There is no spiritual first class. And with God, there is no back row.

Join us online! 

Web: ⁠⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠⁠ 

Substack: ⁠https://soilandroots.substack.com/

Why do many Christians find support for learning about God but little guidance when faith becomes difficult, disorienting, or deeply personal?

Brian is joined by spiritual director Rhonda Jenkins and pastor and coach David Smith to discuss the previous episode (The Story Beneath), performance-based Christianity, the Wall, double knowledge, spiritual friendship, and the need for communities that can accompany people through the inward journey.

They also share how Soil & Roots is developing the Greenhouse as a two-year guided pathway into deep discipleship.

Join us online! 

Web: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ 

Substack: https://soilandroots.substack.com/

In this bonus episode, Brian steps away from the usual Season 7 format to share the personal story behind Soil & Roots.

Episode 144 traces the last five years: betrayal, loss, the dark night of the soul, chronic Lyme disease, financial uncertainty, and the slow emergence of a deeper calling. Brian shares how Dallas Willard, Richard Foster, A.W. Tozer, C.S. Lewis, the Critical Journey, and the language of hidden ideas helped shape the Soil & Roots vision for him - and for you.

This episode also explains what has been happening behind the scenes this summer, including the emerging two-year pathway through the inward journey for the next generation of Greenhouses.

Join us online! 

Web: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ 

Substack: https://soilandroots.substack.com/

What do we do when we find ourselves doubting God’s goodness?

In this Greenhouse episode, Brian and Doc continue the conversation from Episode 142 by exploring one of the most difficult tensions in deep discipleship: how to affirm God’s goodness while honestly grieving the pain, injustice, and suffering of the world. Doc brings his own struggle into the conversation, naming the friction between experiencing God’s kindness in his own life and seeing deep suffering in the lives of others.

This episode is not a philosophical defense of God’s goodness. It is a conversation about lament, authenticity, doubt, secure attachment, and the kind of community where people can bring their rawest questions without being rushed, corrected, or shamed. Brian and Doc explore why modern church culture often struggles with lament, why easy answers can fail the heart, and why the deeper question beneath “Is God good?” may be a cry for withness.

Join us online! 

Web: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ 

Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

Is God good, and do our hearts actually experience Him that way?

In Episode 142, Brian continues Season 7, Deep Calls to Deep, by exploring one of the most powerful hidden ideas many followers of Jesus carry: the suspicion that God may not actually be good. We may consciously affirm God’s goodness, love, mercy, and faithfulness, yet our lived experience can tell another story.

Drawing from the Soil & Roots distinction between beliefs and ideas, Brian explores how hidden assumptions about God are formed through suffering, disappointment, family systems, trauma, illness, and repeated experiences. The episode considers how distrust of God’s goodness often shows up through the Eight Indicators: control, anxiety, resentment toward reality, and difficulty receiving love.

This is not an episode about forcing certainty or defending God with quick answers. It is an invitation into honesty. If somewhere deep down we do not really trust God’s goodness, healing begins by telling Him the truth. The Good Life is not built on pretending harder, but on bringing our hidden ideas into the presence of the God who is already with us.

Join us online! 

Web: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ 

Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

What if your view of God shapes everything?

In this Greenhouse episode, Brian and Doc continue the conversation from Episode 140 on what God is really like and why our deepest ideas of God matter so much. Season 7, Deep Calls to Deep, is exploring how we become people of depth — people who are increasingly attuned to God, others, themselves, and the world.

The conversation begins with Richard Foster’s claim that the world does not need more talented or intelligent people as much as it needs deep people. But becoming deep is not always safe, comfortable, or tidy. The inward journey can involve pruning, tearing, fire, pain, and the slow process of being unmade and remade by God’s goodness.

Brian and Doc then explore how our view of God becomes the root system beneath nearly every other view we hold. Our theology shapes our philosophy, our politics, our view of creation, our understanding of the sacred and secular, and even how we think about suffering, the church, and the Bible.

This episode also wrestles with several common Christian phrases and ideas, including “Jesus is enough,” “just read your Bible,” and the assumption that God only works through explicitly religious spaces. Brian argues that Jesus is enough precisely because He is Lord over all things — not because God is limited to church services, Bible studies, or religious language.

The Good Life is not about becoming more religious. It is about becoming more like Jesus from the inside out, learning to recognize His presence in all of life, and allowing our true view of God to be healed.

Join us online! 

Web: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ 

Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

What is God really like?

In Episode 140, Brian returns to one of the founding questions of Soil & Roots: what do we actually believe God is like? Not merely what do we say in our creeds, statements of faith, or Bible studies — but what do our hearts assume about Him?

Drawing from A.W. Tozer’s claim that our real idea of God may be buried beneath “conventional religious notions,” this episode explores why deep discipleship requires more than correct doctrine or Bible knowledge. It requires the uncovering of our hidden, often unconscious ideas about God.

Season 7, Deep Calls to Deep, is exploring how we become people of depth. Brian argues that the journey into depth depends on four necessary conditions: self-awareness, story-sharing, suffering in community, and spiritual habits. The first condition, self-awareness, begins with the painful but essential work of uncovering our true ideas about God.

This episode walks through several common distorted images of God: God as the Great Taskmaster, God as the direct cause of suffering, God as a performance-based Father, and God as an angry judge waiting to condemn. These ideas may not match our stated beliefs, but they can quietly shape our emotions, behaviors, relationships, health, words, and spiritual lives.

Brian also challenges the common response, “Just read your Bible,” by reminding us that people bring their own assumptions to Scripture. The Bible is deeply formative, but discipleship is not about becoming more like the Bible. It is about being formed into the image of the One who authored it.

The Good Life begins as Jesus uncovers and heals our distorted views of God, inviting us to experience Him as He truly is.

Join us online! 

Web: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ 

Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

What if your hidden ideas about God shape your life more than your stated beliefs?

In this Greenhouse episode, Brian, Handsome Kyle, and Doc continue the conversation from Episode 138 on ideas, beliefs, and the unconscious forces that shape our discipleship. Season 7, Deep Calls to Deep, is exploring how we become people of depth — people who naturally and unconsciously think, act, relate, and love more like Jesus.

The conversation begins with Psalm 42 and the season’s theme: “Deep calls to deep.” Doc unpacks the water imagery of the psalm, reminding us that the journey into depth is not always gentle or peaceful. Sometimes God’s invitation into the Good Life comes through waves, breakers, chaos, suffering, and the painful process of being unmade and remade.

Brian, Handsome Kyle, and Doc then return to the Soil & Roots language of ideas: the assumptions, conclusions, and experienced realities in which our hearts are rooted. These hidden ideas often operate beneath our stated beliefs. We may say we trust God, believe in His goodness, and affirm His love, while our actual lives reveal a different operating system.

The episode explores modern psychology, Dallas Willard, Daniel Kahneman, Jonathan Edwards, C.S. Lewis, the difference between head and heart, and the powerful idea that “this is not my home.” If our hearts assume the Christian life is mostly about escaping earth and going to heaven someday, we may have little reason to pursue the with-God life now.

But Jesus invites us into the Good Life today — not merely knowing about God, but experiencing His love, presence, and beauty in the middle of real life.

Deep discipleship begins when we allow Jesus to uncover and heal the hidden ideas that actually govern us.

Join us online! 

Web: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ 

Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com