PRAISE
“You prepare a table before me…My cup runs over.” (Psalm 23:5)
PRAY WITH CULTURAL INSIGHT
This is a Moroccan Ramadan f’tour (breakfast) table. During Ramadan, nights and days are switched so, breakfast is at sundown and Muslims are allowed to eat during the dark hours of the night. The traditional f’tour meal will always have harira (a tomato-based soup), dates, figs, hard-boiled eggs with cumin and salt, shabekia (a pastry fried in honey) and lots of other local pastry goodies. Families gather around the table right before the sundown prayer with the table set and their ears tuned to hear the sundown call to prayer. As soon as it rings out, they may begin eating. “Bism Allah” (“In the name of God”), they say, as they reach for their first bite.
Although Moroccan f’tour is delicious and very satisfying after a long day of fasting, nothing will bring eternal satisfaction like the table of the Lord for only HE can “satisfy them with the bread of heaven” (Psalm 105:40). His Table is set for them, let’s pray today that they choose to gather around it!
PRAY THE BOOK OF ACTS
“So I sent for you at once, and you have been kind enough to come. Now therefore we are all here in the presence of God to hear all that you have been commanded by the Lord.” (Acts 10:33)
Father, as families sit down around the table to eat together, please stir many hearts of heads of households in Morocco, like Cornelius, to gather their family to hear the message of the Good News of Jesus. May those around the table who know the Truth to speak it boldly.
PRAY FOR SATURATION
In a society very comfortable with social lines that separate the genders, there are not a lot of contexts where one will find a whole Moroccan family gathered in one place. The f’tour table is perhaps one of the very few exceptions, and because of this it gives a poignant opportunity to ask the Lord to draw whole households to Himself. As long as Believers remain isolated, cut off from their families or believing in hiding, there can be no movement in this nation. But, if heads of households open the door to Truth in their homes, then all can study the Word without fear. This, as with many other things, is something Moroccans will do in community, not as individuals with a right to choose for themselves. And it’s these families of Peace that will bring transformation and saturation to the nation of Morocco.
Ask Father to appear to the men who head these households—women, children, unwed sisters, widowed aunts, siblings, aging parents—in dreams and visions, chance encounters with Your Word or Your followers, internet searches, and in the midst of their own broken circumstances and doubting thoughts. Ask for whole families, gathered around these circular tables, pouring over the Truth of God’s Word, ears tuned to the Holy Spirit, in the same singularity of focus they hold in waiting for the call to prayer that allows them to eat. May their souls be truly satisfied, together, in the Word that brings life that lasts forever.
WORSHIP
God, we worship You because You are preparing a place for each of us, and every Moroccan that chooses to accept Your invitation, at Your table…
“The Table” by Chris Tomlin