Become Good Soil

207: It Starts With God – Become Good Soil Foundations Series (Part 2)

“This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us…”—St. JohnHenri 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, others 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

206: Our Common Faith – Become Good Soil Foundations Series (Part 1)

“We are greatly strengthened for life in the kingdom now by an understanding of what our future holds, and especially of how that future relates to our present experiences. For only then do we really understand what our current life is, and are we able to make choices that agree with that reality.” — Dallas Willard, The Divine ConspiracyWhere 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

205: Where Am I Going? – Origin Story (Part 3)

“We are greatly strengthened for life in the kingdom now by an understanding of what our future holds, and especially of how that future relates to our present experiences. For only then do we really understand what our current life is, and are we able to make choices that agree with that reality.” — Dallas Willard, The Divine ConspiracyWhere 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

204: Where Am I? – Origin Story (Part 2)

You are here.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

203: Where Am I From? – Origin Story (Part 1)

“In the darkness, something was happening at last. A voice had begun to sing. The hills were coming up. The earth was heaving and swelling like a wave of the sea. ‘Man, I give you the rule of this land. Treat it gently and cherish it.’”—C.S. Lewis, The Magician’s NephewIf home is both our origin and our destination, the soul is always searching for a path back to where it was born. Though precarious and fraught with danger, that path is also saturated with the Life of God—life that is not only intended to guide us, but to be our sustenance for the epic quest.Recovering our origin stories is essential to our apprenticeship. They are seeds that are planted, becoming the identity of today and the vision of tomorrow.So what are the seeds of your origin story? What patterns or progressions do you notice as you slow down and reflect? How might God be inviting you to consider what He is forming in you today, in light of where He is leading you?We’re on this journey with you.Join us as we unpack some of the seeds of the Become Good Soil story—and, in doing so, help recover and strengthen 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