Are you intrigued by the idea of making your own mattah (staff of authority), like we talked about Wednesday? If so, Madaline’s personal testimony today will make you even more excited. You’re going to love it!
In the post below, my friend Pastor Madaline McFarland of Igniting Families shares how God used a mattah in restoring her life.
Pastor Madaline had been through divorce, single parenting, and lots and lots of yuckiness and hard times.
The Lord had been restoring her life for 12 years. But then, seemingly out of nowhere, the Lord gave her a mattah to help her remember who she is, so she would cast the past aside!
We all need that; don’t you? To remember who you are? To let the past be the past, and to walk in the total freedom and newness of life that Christ guaranteed for us with His blood?
I believe that Pastor Madaline’s story will encourage you today.
Before you read, remember this: a mattah is a staff of authority, also called a prayer staff.
When God told Moses to stretch forth his rod over the Red Sea, and it parted–that was Moses’ prayer staff.
A staff of authority is an incredibly helpful tool when you are interceding and making prophetic decrees. Madaline even uses the making of a mattah as a coming-of-age rite of passage for the children she disciples.
One more thing: Pastor Madaline and I are co-hosting a Make Your Own Mattah workshop on March 18, here in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
I still feel Holy Spirit’s excitement over this word about mattahs!
I hope you will take the jump and make your own mattah, even if you do so at home. Your prayer staff will bless and encourage you.
My mattah was given to me by a dear friend as I first embarked into the world of bloggers.
I had been asked to join a group of ladies (whom I highly respected), helping to start a website that would encourage women all over the world. I took some time to think it over, and I looked at some of the topics they had suggested to write about.
The Lord immediately dropped something into my spirit and I sat down and begin to write. I knew then that this was something I had been called to do, although I lacked the confidence that I could measure up or keep up with the others.
After I had agreed to join the group we meet for a nice lunch to pray and make plans for our new adventure.
At that meeting, each lady was given a stick, called a mattah, with a verse engraved into it. We knelt down like one becoming a knight as the others prayed over each member. The verse on my staff immediately grabbed my attention because it was a verse the Lord had recently given me, and which had become my silent heartbeat.
As a knelt for prayer after receiving my mattah, my friend did something unexpected. In her prayer, and by prophetic declaration, she placed upon me a spiritual mantle of purity.
I accepted that mantle because I could feel it was from the Lord, but I didn’t really understand what was happening.
What was the purpose in all the pomp and ceremony? What kind of purity could she bestow on me that God had not already given? What was I supposed to do with this stick? I knew it had purpose and so I sought the Lord to discover what that purpose was.
I wanted to know what was going on, so I began to study.
that I should pray and ask God to give it a name. This name would represent my calling and area of spiritual authority given to me by the Lord.
I had also been told that the word AMEN was burned into the end that struck the ground, symbolizing agreement with God’s Word when declarations were made.
But I learned more when I began studying God’s Word about the mattah!
The most insightful things I learned were from Scriptures regarding a shepherd’s staff, and from men of God who were known to carry staffs in the Bible. You can read more about what I discovered regarding the mattah here, in How To Make a Mattah for Prayer and Declaration.
First, though, I want to tell you the rest of my personal story.
and given me another baby who was on the way.
I knew I was pure before the Lord; He had washed me, filled me and restored me. So what was this new purity?
The answer came to me as I was driving one day, listening to a praise song called Overshadow. While I listened to that song, I realized that the Lord was asking to invade every part of my being.
I had been promised Act 17:28–the verse above, about how in Him we live and move and have our being–and now He was ready to give it to me.
In the Lord’s eyes I was righteous; but in my own eyes, I still carried guilt and shame over much of my past. God was asking to let His glory and purity overshadow every shadow that lurked within. He wanted to show me a deeper cleansing that required more accountability.
To have what I was seeking, I needed to be overshadowed by purity: purity in mind, thought, action and speech. God wanted everything.
Lord, my God, lords other than you have ruled over me; only because of you can I call upon your name. Dead they are, they cannot live, shadows that cannot rise; Indeed, you have punished and destroyed them and wiped out all memory of them.
Amazing! God had healed me of the pain in my past where I had let others lord over me, but now He was saying that even the memory of that past could be wiped out!
After writing the word PURITY on my staff, the next thing I wrote was the word FREEDOM with this Scripture reference around the bottom so that my freedom in Him would be declared every time my staff hit the ground.
Over time, I’ve added other names to my staff. The other names written on my mattah proclaim the call that God has put on my life and positions of authority in which He has placed me.
This is a name that the Lord gave me as I was first going through the process of restoration after my divorce. He restored my virginity and gave me a vision of myself as a bride in army boots. On the outside I was in a beautiful white gown, and underneath I was fully geared for warfare.
I wrote this name one day after driving to work at the church. I was so fired up that I told the Lord I wanted to be a sheepdog and just rally all the people–the sheep–towards Him.
When I got to work, I was met by a co-worker who took me aside and said that the Lord had told her to give something to me. Her gift was a beautiful statue of a shepherdess holding a lamb, with an adult sheep at her side.
To bring the story full circle, the ladies with whom I began this mattah story with have all been called to new adventures.
However, the experience of writing with them was a stepping stone in creating my own blog at www.ignitingfamilies.com. I am also forever thankful for the encouragement and training I have received from Jamie and thankful for this opportunity to share with you.
I know that I have more to write on my mattah, and I am excited for what the Lord will reveal to you as you make your own.
I hope that my mattah story has been an encouragement to you, and I can’t wait to hear yours. Father God wants you to know who you are in Him, without any doubts or reservations.
He wants you to walk in power; to be fully restored; and to be completely, radically confident. I believe He will use your mattah in your life to help you become that way! It’s an amazing tool of encouragement and hope. It’s a visual reminder of your faith and of your authority in Christ.
So let me know if you make your own mattah, and leave a comment below if this story encouraged your heart!
What an interesting story and I love Acts 17:28, and Isaiah 26:13,14 I found interesting, I realized that I had forgotten a lot of things but God remembered them, it is an interesting visual aid, like how they carved the genealogy on it, but with new names.
I found this story/testimony very stirring. Especially the part about firgetting your past and embracing your real identity. That you are “pure”. You are “free”. And free from what? Those who lorded over you in your past. God has been showing me lately that demons have attempted to lord over us but God has set us free from their “bullying”. He showed me that they act like bullies trying to shove you into doing, “that which I would not do.” Like Hosea’s wife he has cut off our former lovers and ended our desert walking by restoring us to status by paying the ransom and then marrying us. The fact that he put a staff of priestly judgment in your possession to me was symbolic of you waking up to the memory who who you were before the fall of the Garden. For God in that day before the sin said he made us and saw that we were “GOOD”. We were a perfect thing wrought in Love, not in evil or condemnation. This was beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing. May we all awake in CHRIST and know our Fathers character, Amen.
Thank you for sharing this inspiring part of your journey. I read “how to make your own mattah” the other day, but your personal testimony sort of sealed it. I will leave it up to God to speak to me on what needs to be on my mattah! Bless you and enjoy the time you and Jamie are going to spend with others making mattahs!
God bless you for sharing your experience. I am praying that the Holy spirit will lead me to make my mattah to help me build up spiritually. I often look back to my past which make my heart bleed with tears.
I m using this rod for prophetic declarations.. just started using.. feeling a responsibility in the Kingdom business, as long as I carry the rod of God, He will carry me!!
Praise God, Rejitha! I’m so glad you did this! THANK YOU for sharing! God is so good and these Scriptures are wonderful! Yes, Father God wants us to wield our authority in Christ and make those declarations! It’s in His Word!
Thank you Madaline. That is a beautiful testimony. I’ve been looking on YouTube about the Mattahs, but your testimony has inspired me to make one of my own. I will listen to the Lord’s leading for my own scriptures and the naming of my Mattah. I am excited to get started. I appreciate you sharing your story.
I am definitely going to gather women here and do this! This is a timely testimony. Thank you for sharing!