Why God Burns Our First Drafts

Or: When Your Life’s Work Goes Up in Smoke

Early in my time coaching writers, I met Dr. Sara Worley.

Sara has a passion for education. After teaching for many years, and then training teachers at the university, Sara realized something was wrong with today’s typical education system.

According to Sara, the vast majority of students aren’t learning at the highest level of thinking, that is, they are not accessing imagination and creativity in their typical academic classes like math or science.

Sara is an artist and realized that if students could engage their minds through applying some kind of art to their academic lessons, they could unleash their true giftedness. Though only 6% of students in the typical school are considered “gifted,” Sara understands that 100% of students are gifted in some area.

The key is to find it. Sara is a human treasure hunter, searching for each student’s gift and documenting the process along the way. Her mission is to spread the word about this new thing, Smart Art, by writing books and blogs, speaking, and evangelism for the topic.

But Sara had two problems when I met her. First, Sara is dyslexic, making writing a book a tremendous challenge. But as we’ve discovered over the last three years, that is a challenge solved by hard work, consistent feedback, and a supportive group of other Christian writers.

But the second challenge was the hardest to overcome, practically and emotionally: Sara’s house burned down with decades of research.

What do you do when your life’s work literally goes up in smoke?

Sara will tell you she cried. A lot.

Then she got up, prayed to discern that her calling was still her calling, and she started over.

Sara is publishing her groundbreaking book early next year and it will change lives.

I talk with writers every month who have gone through something like this… many don’t start again. They quit.

But I think that’s a mistake, because the truth is that for many, the old research may actually be a hindrance.

As a ghostwriter, I often have clients who want me to take twenty years of notes and fit them into their book. All of it. No matter how much some of it is tangential to the core message. No matter how many times they will repeat themselves as a result, people have a hard time letting go of the past’s hard work.

But it’s like trying to wear every outfit you’ve ever owned at once. You can’t move, can’t breathe, and nobody can see who you really are underneath all those layers.

A house fire is a horrible tragedy and Sara wouldn’t wish it on anyone. But one thing is true: if we’re holding on to too much, the fire will purge all of it and more.

And when it comes to metaphorical fires, very often we’re trying to save everything we’ve ever learned instead of distilling what He’s actually asking us to say right now.

The Prophet’s Second Scroll

That’s what happened to Jeremiah.

He spent months dictating the words God gave him to his scribe Baruch. It was a lifetime of messages: warnings, laments, and hopes. Then King Jehoiakim took that scroll, sliced it with a knife, and burned it piece by piece in his fireplace.

Everything gone.

Then God said something remarkable: “Take another scroll and write on it all the former words that were in the first scroll.”

And Jeremiah did. He dictated it all again, and Scripture adds this stunning detail: “And many similar words were added to them” (Jeremiah 36:32).

The second version was richer. More refined. More complete.

The fire wasn’t the end of the message. It was its refinement.

When Everything Burns

Viktor Frankl knew this devastation intimately. The Nazis destroyed his manuscript, his life’s work on logotherapy, when he entered Auschwitz. He had sewn it into the lining of his coat, believing he could protect it. He couldn’t. They found it, and it was gone.

But what emerged after? Man’s Search for Meaning became one of the most influential books of the 20th century. The loss forced him to distill everything down to its essence.

Frankl later said, “What is to give light must endure burning.”

Malcolm X’s home was firebombed while he was writing his autobiography. He lost notes, drafts, everything. Yet the book he completed with Alex Haley became a cornerstone of American literature.

Thomas Carlyle had to rewrite his entire first volume of “The French Revolution“ after John Stuart Mill’s maid accidentally used the manuscript as kindling. Carlyle said the second version was better: clearer, more powerful.

Here’s what I’ve learned from Sara and these literary phoenixes:

Your message isn’t in your notes. It’s in you.

The Fire as Gift

We fear the fire because it takes away all we’ve worked so hard to build. But sometimes it’s mercy.

Those decades of research? They shaped Sara into who she is today. The insights didn’t burn. They’re encoded in her nervous system, refined by experience, and ready to emerge clearer than ever.

Sara’s new book isn’t just a reconstruction of what was lost. It’s a resurrection of what matters most.

The first draft of your life’s work is rarely the truest one. God often burns away what is excess, leaving only what’s essential, what carries eternal weight.

The loss becomes the editing process of Heaven.

And if you don’t experience a loss like Sara, Frankl, or Jeremiah, consider burning it yourself. It may be holding you back. Pray about it and see if God might not prompt a fire.

The Courage to Start Again

Rudyard Kipling wrote in my favorite poem “If”:

“If you can watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools...”

That’s the work of faith. To stoop and build again. To take another scroll.

If you’re sitting on decades of notes, paralyzed by how to organize them all, maybe Sara’s story is your permission slip.

Start fresh. Write from who you’ve become, not from who you were.

Take another scroll.

The second one, the one born from loss, is almost always the one that changes lives.

Reflection for the Week

1. What “scroll” have you lost or outgrown in your creative life?
2. What old notes are you clinging to that might actually be holding you back?
3. How might God be asking you to start again, not as repetition but as resurrection?

A Prayer for the Writer Starting Over

Lord, thank You for the fires that refine what I write and who I am.

When I face loss, teach me not to cling to ashes but to take another scroll.

Give me courage to begin again, and faith to believe the new work will carry Your light.

Give me the courage to light my own fire if necessary.

In Jesus’ name, amen.

P.S. Dr. Sara’s book on Smart Art releases early next year, and I’ll make sure you know when it’s available. If you want to see what rises from the ashes when a teacher refuses to quit, you won’t want to miss it.

P.P.S. If you want to try formatting your book and you’re looking for powerful software, my team at Indie Christian Book uses Vellum. It’s intuitive and does a beautiful job. Check it out HERE.

Writing this from my home office in Normal, IL, where I’m learning daily that God’s editing process, though sometimes painful, always leads to better stories.

Jeff

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