Become Good Soil

Subscribe in iTunes  |  Play in new window  |  Download 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...

Subscribe in iTunes  |  Play in new window  |  Download "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. How do we become the kind of men who have nothing to fear, nothing to hide, and nothing to prove? Our Father is making available the way to becoming this kind of man every moment of every...

Subscribe in iTunes  |  Play in new window  |  Download Friends, As we anticipate the next Become Good Soil Intensive event—we are now accepting applications—I want to feature stories of what our Father is accomplishing through this message: stories of heroic men recovering heart, strength, joy and intimacy; stories of heroic women championing those men; and stories of women benefiting from men wh...

  Subscribe in iTunes  |  Play in new window  |  Download “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 You find yourself in a world gone mad. and You have a soul—or, more accurately, you are a soul—made by God, made for God, and made to need God. You've noticed by now that...

Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes  |  Play in new window  |  Download 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 Courage begets courage.  That was my experience of Nancy Carmichael when she invited me to share a conversation on her podcast, Isle of Misfi...

Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes  |  Play in new window  |  Download 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 tra...

Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes  |  Play in new window  |  Download 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 I'm noticing questions along a particular theme surfacing more and more frequently these days. How do I find a mentor? What do I do with my disappointment in older m...

Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes  |  Play in new window  |  Download “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 u...

Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes  |  Play in new window  |  Download 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 What’s the most important thing? Over two decades ago I set out on a relentless quest to find the answer. What I found was not what I expected, and where I found it was in the most unantici...

Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes  |  Play in new window  |  Download No life of faith can be lived privately. There must be overflow into the lives of others. –Eugene Peterson Seventy-two years ago, a novel threat emerged on the earth, inciting a proportionate pandemic of fear around the globe. In that hour, it was the advent of the atomic bomb, a weapon whose potential for immediate and global destru...

Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes  |  Play in new window  |  Download 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 th...

Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes  |  Play in new window  |  Download Friends, it was Oswald Chambers who said, "We tend to use prayer as a last resort, but God wants it to be our first line of defense. We pray when there's nothing else we can do, but God wants us to pray before we do anything at all." This morning I was deeply moved in my own personal prayer time to contend for God's particular and wi...

Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes  |  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 l...

Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes  |  Play in new window  |  Download 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 narr...

Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes  |  Play in new window  |  Download Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible. – St. Francis of Assisi It has been an incredible privilege to invite you into an intimate mentoring encounter with Chuck Bolton in this three-part Become Good Soil series. Among the many treasures in this final conversation, Chuck of...

Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes  |  Play in new window  |  Download 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 One of the lenses I often use when I'm looking to recover the way back to the narrow road is to search for couples who have courageously cultivated frie...

Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes  |  Play in new window  |  Download 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 Heart strong and soul safe. That’s what I think of when I think of Chuck Bolton. I had the privilege of sharing over four hours in the st...

Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes  |  Play in new window  |  Download The questions came pouring in. From near and far. They have been rich and meaningful. What I thought would be one podcast celebrating the 50th episode of Become Good Soil is sure to turn into an extended volume of conversations over time. For this first volume and to celebrate you—the tribe of like-hearted around the globe—we are div...

“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 Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes  |  Play in new window  |  Download It was 21 years ago, but I remember the interaction like it was yesterday.   I was in the home of a mentor, and he...

Podcast:  Subscribe in iTunes  |  Play in new window  |  Download Though it is rare, there are people who have built a strong inner character, who have achieved a certain depth. In these people, at the end of this struggle, the climb to success has surrendered to the struggle to deepen the soul. – David Brooks In The Road to Character,David Brooks explains the crooked timber tradition, an ancient...

Podcast:  Subscribe in iTunes  |  Play in new window  |  Download 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 In the mid-20th century, The Times in London ran an essay contest, inviting highly respected thinkers and leaders to respond to the questi...

Podcast:  Subscribe in iTunes  |  Play in new window  |  Download 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...

Podcast:  Subscribe in iTunes  |  Play in new window  |  Download 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 What astonishes the heart of God? Join me for this sixth episode of an eight-part series where we are going behind the scenes into the most recent Become Good Soil Intensive. If you're joining us f...

Podcast:  Subscribe in iTunes  |  Play in new window  |  Download 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...

Podcast:  Subscribe in iTunes  |  Play in new window  |  Download In Renovation of the Heart, Dallas says, "Our soul is like a stream of water, which gives strength, direction and harmony to every other area of our life. When the stream is as it should be, we are constantly refreshed and exuberant in all we do, because our soul itself is then profusely rooted in the vastness of God and His Kingdom...