#161: Prayers for Outlining Your Book

Let's pray for wisdom as you outline your book. Once you know your book idea, the next step is organizing it into a clear outline. But sometimes structuring your chapters can feel overwhelming. Can I get an amen? And you might wonder if you're doing it right. The good news is God is a God of order, and he will help you bring structure to your message. Whether that means you get it all at once, or you. It just comes to you chapter by chapter, section by section. If you're a, a, a detailed outliner or a panster, however God wants to give it to you, he will bring that structure to your message. So we want to pray for you, for wisdom and direction as you create your outline.

Yeah. So the, the. There's two scriptures found in Exodus that I want to share. Exodus 25:8 and 9. And this is where the Lord told Moses, have the people of Israel build me a holy sanctuary so I can live among them. You must build this tabernacle and its furnishings exactly according to the pattern I will show you. And that's key. That's the key phrase right there. According to the pattern I will show you. And then just several verses later, Exodus 25:40, again re. Affirming this, the Lord says, be sure that you make everything according to the pattern I have shown you here on the mountain. And Father, we do desire the outlines of our books to be according to the pattern that you would show us. That one step at a time, that outline would be filled out. We'd have the skeleton, so to speak, that all of the muscles and the tendons and the sinews and all the organs and the skin and all those things can form around that and be filled in. We're asking, Lord, that you would give us the outlines that you want us to go off of based on these book ideas that you've birthed in us. We're asking, Lord, that as we embark on this journey, this book idea journey, that the outline would become more and more clear with each day that passes. That as we sit down and, and we place ourselves in a place where we're in a writing posture. We're before you, we're listening to you, we're hearing from you these plans according to the pattern, Lord, that you give us. And so for each one of these kingdom writers, Lord, would you give them the pattern that you have for each one of these books? We know it's going to look a little different with every single book. We know there's even a little different process for each person in terms of how they carry this out and fill this outline in. But I ask that you would give them clarity. I ask that when they look back, they would see your fingerprints all over this pattern, this outline that you have. And may that lead to the next step of really being able to write the content that you have. And we ask this in Jesus name, Amen.

Amen. As I was praying for you, for those of you writing your outline now or in the future, I saw a picture of a scaffolding and I felt like the Lord said it represents a construction zone. How many of you have ever been around a construction zone? It's messy, right? There's stuff everywhere, there's dust there. No one is meant to live in a construction zone. We're not meant to live in this place of the outline or the. Even the messy, ugly first draft. But sometimes we want to have perfect perfection. And so we don't even start writing the book because we don't have the perfect outline yet. Can anyone relate to that? Because I just sense that there's some of you that are waiting for the perfect outline or the perfect words or the perfect this or the perfect that. And you just need to get started. Embrace the messy construction zone. Amen. So let me pray for you, God, thank you so much that you reveal things to us step by step. And many times you don't give us the entire thing all at once. You may not give us even the entire outline all at once. It may just be one section of one chapter. And that's okay. We can start with that. But Lord, help us to embrace the messy that you would break off any spirit of perfectionism right now in Jesus name, over each of the Kingdom writers listening right now, I pray you would break perfectionism in Jesus name. Help them to move forward to embrace this messy construction construction zone and realize you're create. You're going to create something incredible, something beautiful, something impactful. But they have to live in this construction zone for a short period of time. They have to embrace the dust and the, the sounds and the messiness and the feeling of being uncomfortable because it's not going to be perfect just yet. And Lord, I just pray you would give them breakthrough, help them to finish their outlines. And we thank you for this. In Jesus name, amen.