In this season of giving, there may be no more meaningful gift that you can give than the gift of yourself.  Wholehearted. Present.  Alive.Let’s face it: the world is chaos.  One holiday trip through ...  Read More

Ready to go deeper?We are now accepting applications for the 2016 Become Good Soil Intensive.Click here for details on the event and to find out how to apply.Click herefor an introduction to the messa...  Read More

Disclaimer: BecomeGoodSoil.com is a blog written for men who are choosing a decade of excavation. My motive is to write with integrity and love to this group of men uniquely. If that’s not you, I welc...  Read More

 Midway along my life's journeyI woke to find myself in a dark wood,the right road lost.For I had wandered off from the straight path.How hard it is to tell what it was like,this wood of wilderness, s...  Read More

The moonlight cascading into our bedroom oriented me to the fact that it was the middle of the night. I was roused out of a deep sleep to find my 10-year-old son at our bedside.“Dad, will you pray for...  Read More

I don’t know when it all went sideways.All I could see in my rifle scope was a continuous blur of brown fur. The charged voice of the older man driving the truck rang out, “Shoot your gun! Shoot your ...  Read More

Quick.There may be other words in the Scriptures more significant to receive. But in 20 years of searching, I haven’t found them.This word found me in a moment when I was ragged and pining for death.I...  Read More

The house smelled perilously like the makeup counter at the mall.  A terrific blend of scent that elicited in my nervous system a universal alarm:DANGER!  DO NOT ENTER.The Frozen soundtrack resounded ...  Read More

I wasn't doing well at all.On a human level, the equation for "make life work" seemed pretty simple. And I couldn't believe how much I was blowing it.  In reality, I had fallen under the spell that Ch...  Read More

We could barely turn the page, knowing it meant accepting the reality that Little Britches would lose his father.  At the vulnerable age of eleven, it was more for young Ralph Moody (whose cowboy ment...  Read More

Decades from now when I look back on these years of raising young children, I doubt that few memories will be more superb than the nights we have chosen to pause - snuggling up fireside or by hurrican...  Read More

We are accepting applications through January 15th for this event uniquely designed for world changing leaders of men.Click here for more details and to apply.Special Note - 5-6 spots will be reserved...  Read More

I came home from work just in time to tag team with Cherie and send her off to a regular monthly gathering of women. I took off my work-hat and donned my dad-hat, diving deep into the list of what we ...  Read More

December 1994.  The tires screeched, spinning out on slick wet asphalt as we raced around the corner in the getaway car. Mary and Joseph were securely in our possession in the back of our speeding SUV...  Read More

It was a shimmering rehearsal dinner, the headwaters of which were most certainly in Eternity.Cherie and I were basking in the midst, poignantly aware of the premium of the joy between us. You know ho...  Read More

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I still don’t get it: watching parades is like crack for my kids.  Any of you in this season of parenting know what I’m talking about: St. Patrick’s Day, Fourth of July, Memorial Day—you name it, the ...  Read More

The morning fog hovers like a shroud over the still, glassy waters.  Through trial and error over the week, my son and I have patterned the bass that once in a while work their way out of the weedy sh...  Read More

It was a $5,282.00 period at the end of a short and beautiful sentence that was my brother’s life: the cost of the permanent gravestone I saw for the first time today.  The reality of the eighteen-mon...  Read More

Winston ChurchillFew men have been regarded in the annals of recent history with more celebration than Winston Churchill.  What intrigues me is something I read recently about Churchill’s own understa...  Read More

Grizzly Adams and His Tow TruckIt was a divine disruption I didn’t have time for.  And it changed my life, forever.This unexpected encounter began over a blown-out tire on the way home from an early W...  Read More

Disclaimer: BecomeGoodSoil.com is a blog written for men who are choosing a decade of excavation.  My motive is to write with integrity and love to this group of men uniquely.  If that’s not you, I we...  Read More

It was approaching dusk on a November afternoon, and I was splitting the last of the logs we cut for firewood, when suddenly the fading light transformed the sky into a suspended ocean of luminous pea...  Read More

I was amazed.God had done so much.Yet what amazed me even more was this: God had done so much that I had already forgotten.Holy Spirit had prompted me to carve out two hours to sit and soak in our fam...  Read More