Manna

Pilgrimage today brought me manna. Wow. I mean real manna. I didn’t know it still exists. But in Iraq there is a flaky, sweet substance that gathers on the branches of trees in the dawn hours. They call it ‘manna’. It is gathered before the sun rises, and a sweet can be created out of it, which needs to be stored in flour to prevent it from melting. The consistency is similar to Turkish delight. The manna I was served was full of cardamon and pistachios. Wow. Perhaps I’ve died and gone to heaven. Someone pinch me please! I pulled my portion of manna from a cardboard box, dusting the flour from it. I would certainly not have known it was there, or chosen to take any, should I not have been invited and encouraged to do so. It had no outward appeal that I should choose it. The invitation needed to be extended, and I had to accept it. I had to believe that in that dusty box, under that powdery mess, a treasure could be unearthed.

Likewise, the setting could not have been attained without the sacrifice of pilgrimage. I am in an underground meeting with brethren from nations throughout the persecuted world. Simple people, simple pilgrims, all gathered with dusty sandals and simple Truth. For hours we have worshiped Yeshua together, led in Arabic, Hebrew, French, Turkish, Berber, and other tribal languages. We take breaks to pray for each other, eat together, and then go on worshiping.

For several days we are going from region to region in the maps of our hearts, praying for each nation, laying hands on their representatives. Testimonies are flowing from the hearts of these people. Local leaders and former prison inmates, the old and the young, men and women, from urban and rural regions, from the highly educated to the illiterate, from all shades of skin and temperaments we hear testimonies of workings that only God can do.

Manna. Sweet, complicated, satisfying, and creating a desire for more ... it takes on new levels of meaning when it’s fleshed out in the relationships that are blooming here.

Sweet, as we encounter beloved friends that have been separated from us by previous pilgrimage. Just so I met a sister I had not seen for years. While we were talking she looked at me and said that she saw that my legs, from the knees down, were covered in metal armor, right down over the feet. We prayed together and moved on.

Sweet, as we meet new souls and make incredible connections that will shape our futures. So it was as a circle of us prayed for a brother facing a very life threatening situation in a hostile nation. Compelled by the burden of my heart I knelt down and touched his feet, burdened to pray over these feet who literally bring the Gospel of Peace into incredible hostility. One brother prayed quietly for his feet as I laid hands on them. In his prayer he expressed what he saw, “Fire; transforming, loving fire.” Then he saw and spoke out the destination for this brother in the next stage of his pilgrimage. This triggered me to pray silently the word ‘holiness’ over his feet as well.

Manna is complicated too, for one’s heart travels thousands of miles in a second, multitasking, as one prays. Our brother began to weep, touched. We found out after words that he saw in his mind’s eye that his feet were clothed in metal armor that reached to his knees. That knocked my socks off. This same vision had just been seen over my feet moments before in a different circle of friends. How is that I touch his feet and pass it on? Do we who are pilgrims of the Gospel of Peace need such a unique covering? If so, I accept it. It’s Manna.

He also shared that when I touched his foot he felt Fire. And the brother praying, prayed the Fire that only Yeshua can give. Don’t you love how God provides confirmation of his Word? Not only so, but while we were praying another brother several rows away felt washed over by God’s Presence and felt the Lord telling him to write down a Word of Revelation for the brother we were praying for. So he did. He wrote because he did not speak a language this man could understand. After we had prayed for him, he had a translator share the written Word to our new friend. It was word for word what had been prayed over him in another language. Manna; refreshing Manna.

By now we see that we’re in a Rhema moment and we’re excited. I tell the brother about the word ‘holiness’ and he almost weeps again, for he had seen the Lord show him that cleansing water. It was like waves crashing on a shore and washing the sand free of all previous images, flowing like white fire out of his bosom. Saying the word ‘holiness’, and knowing his destination, and knowing his feet to be prepared for the Gospel of Peace were all knit together. Complicated? Yes, but satisfying and putting one at a place of certain rest, knowing that the journey is mapped out by the One who is in perfect control. Manna, once again.

And thus we return to worship. How could we do otherwise? For, like Manna, it is something you want more of, once you have tasted... especially when the worship is in Hebrew and Arabic, Aramaic and Ladino, Turkish and Kurdish, and unites in it’s very diversity the peoples the world so likes to divide. People who live in dusty regions and unappealing conditions, but who, like Manna, are a sweet treasure to our Lord.