#197: Burdens and making rough places smooth

As I was praying for you all, even just this morning, I really sensed that many of you are burdened and you're carrying burdens. And it might be just things going on around in the world, the things in your family finances. And all of those burdens are shutting you down. It's causing you to not move forward and not make progress. Yeah. And health burdens, all of the things that can come. And so I think that was very prophetic, C.J. that you prayed that.

Because I think that many people need that. And if you need that today, just put your hands out and say, God, I give you these burdens to you, and I release them. I let go of them into your hands and cast your burden on the Lord. I just encourage you all to do something physical, too, that you're just releasing that maybe you write these burdens down and then you throw them away or you burn it or obviously with safety precautions.

All of the things. But I just feel like some of you need. That you need to be freed from the burdens today. And I do, too. In my prayer closet, I even have something written on there. Jesus takes all of the residue, I call it residue of the world, and he washes it away. He forgives my sin, and he makes me clean. And so I think sometimes we're just carrying burdens where have residue from things we've seen or a news article or something someone's told us, or looking at our bank account. That happened to me this week.

Triggered by the bank account. We just had to pay taxes.

But there's so many things that can cause that residue. And just ask the Lord to remove that, to release that. And I do that on a consistent basis, especially being an empath and a highly sensitive person and very highly creative. I think a lot of you are similar, maybe not exactly the same, but we're sensitive. We. We take things in. And so if that's. You, just ask the Lord to cleanse you of the residue and to take all your burdens. But as I also was praying, just even just now, I saw a picture of a. Almost like marble or some sort of rock that you use to chisel away a statue. And I just sensed a roughness, like there was a rough.

Surface. And I just. I have a sense that for some of you, you're on this journey to write a book, but right now you just see this big slab of rock, and it's rough, and you might bump up against it, and it causes. It causes cuts or scrape on your arm because it's still rough. It's not smooth yet. It's ugly, messy. First draft. Anybody there? And you're just like, I could never publish. This will never be good enough. Or, how will this ever be a published book? Or you're in the process of thinking about hiring an editor and all the things and just publishing and all the. On all of the decisions. And I just sense that the Lord wants you to know, like, it's okay to be uncomfortable. And I used to have a mentor, and she would say, let's learn to be comfortable in the uncomfortable. So I think sometimes just embracing this is the phase that I'm in, but also asking the Lord to smooth it out, to smooth out your path. And Isaiah 44 says, Every valley shall be lifted up and every mountain and hill made low, and the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. I sense that today God wants to come in and smooth out some of those rough places in your heart in the way that you view this book project, the way that you view your viewing life and all of that. And so know that block of rough, ugly stone is going to become something beautiful in time. It's every little thing that you're chipping out and you're writing and you're adding and you're subtracting and you're smoothing. It will get there. But right now we have to embrace that rough to get to the smooth. So let me pray for you, God. Thank you so much for all of these kingdom writers. I pray that anyone who's feeling the residue or the burdens of the world, Lord, that they would just be able to release them in Jesus name, that they would not cling to those things, that they would let them go and release them and say, God, I give everyone and everything to you. It's what John Eldredge calls benevolent detachment. We can detach from those things in a loving and kind way. We don't have to carry it emotionally. And I pray that there would be a spaciousness and a freedom in each of their hearts that they haven't felt in maybe months or years, that there would just be a spaciousness again to hear from you, to receive from you, to write, to do the things that you've called them to do because they are unburdened. So we thank you for that. And we also pray for anyone who is just discouraged in the ugly, messy first draft phase or in the process of trying to edit or publish wherever they're at, or even in the marketing, and they're looking at this big rock and it's rough and they're scratching themselves on it and they don't see how it's ever going to become anything. Lord, help them to take the next faithful step to steward this ugly, messy first draft, this ugly rough rock, marble or whatever it is that they would steward that and just keep chipping away day after day, week after week. And there will be seasons of acceleration, there will be seasons of joy as they start to see a face emerge or they start to see things happen but in that statue. But Lord, we thank you that you make the rough places smooth, you make the uneven ground level and we ask that you do that today in our hearts that and you would give us a vision. I pray for each kingdom writer to have a vision for what this will become, for what their book will become for the people that it will impact, for the way it will transform them as they continue to write. And we just thank you for this Lord, in Jesus name, amen.