Preparing the Staff Part one

So since my last post I have been working on the staff. I haven't completed all the steps yet but thought that I should share with you what I have gotten done. I am going to kind of give the steps as I am taking them and why God has told me to do this, and any prophetic meaning HE has revealed to me as I go along. Oh there are photo's of each step as well.

Step 1. Removing the bark.
 As I was doing this step God told me that the bark on a tree or limb is like the walls and shields we put up in our life to keep people from seeing and hurting the real person who is inside. He told me that I was to strip this staff just like he would strip those barriers from the lives of His people. "Once my Children are laid bare to those in the world I will use their realness and openness to draw the broken and hurting to me."  As you will see I stripped off all the bark laying bare the wood underneath.

Step 2. Grind down the Knot holes.

 After removing the Bark God told me to smooth out all the major knot holes out on the staff. I found it interesting when i counted them that there were seven major Knots where small branches of the limb had been on this staff.  God has revealed to me through my prayer times as I prepare for this walk that there are seven major demonic spirits active against the followers of God right now. They are Pride, Fear, Apathy, Religion, Self Righteousness, Tradition, Worldly Wisdom, and Separatism. He told me to smooth them out not to remove them but to make them less than they were because there would be those who claim his name who would choose to remain bound to those spirits but that he would make them less influential than they were before.  So I began to grind them down not until they were gone but until they were much less than they started out. I found myself praying as I worked on them that God would do the same in every church family that we walked past and got to preach for the same as I was doing for the staff. 

Step 3. Sand the staff smooth.

The next step was of course to sand the whole staff.  God asked me as I was sanding "What does this do?" My response: " It makes it smooth."

"How?"

"By removing the rough spots."

"Yes", God told me " and that is what I am going to do to my people. I will remove the spots that makes them uncomfortable to those longing for me. As we break those 7 bonds off of my people then I will Begin to smooth out their rough spots making them like me full of compassion and mercy. They will begin to see themselves as no more deserving of my love and forgiveness than anyone else. They will begin to represent me and my unconditional love to those they come in contact with."  Again as I sanded I found myself praying God do the same in me remove my bonds and make me smooth and comfortable to those I come in contact with. 

That is as far as I have gotten in the last two days but I will start on the last two steps tomorrow and will post about them and more pictures as soon as I get them uploaded. I hope that you think about your own life as you read these steps and join me in praying that God will do them in your life and in the life of his "Church"