His Hand is on the Door

The Forty Day Fast - June 30th through August 8th

June 11th, 2008

My wife totally busted me a week ago.

She looked me square in the eye and said, “You told me that I could tell how your prayer room time is going by the volume of things you write on your website.”  I gave her a sheepish smile and sighed.  She was, of course, absolutely right.  I’ve been backsliding and spending my internal “oil” of devotion to Jesus rather foolishly.

Losing My First Love

The past two months has been a whirlwind of preparation for Awakening Teen Camp (and hundreds of teenagers invading IHOP-KC for five weeks), traveling on weekends for ministry and teaching, building and establishing a city-wide High School Prayer Initiative, and the final press for the upcoming High School Conference: Fascinate 08, to be followed by next year by “He Is Mine 09″ and “In the Lions Den 2010″, culminating with “Headin’ For Heaven 2011″.  Not really.  We’re actually calling next year’s conference “Fascinate 09″, but that is besides the point here, isn’t it? Well, the diversion of the past few sentences is actually a great metaphor for the entirety of my point.  It is astonishing how often really minor things become major diversions.

I want to be clear and precise: while I am thankful for the impact that our conferences have and the fruit they produce, and I am serious about seeing fiery, passionate, revival prayer meetings on High School campuses, I did not sign up for this life to run a conference ministry or be a conference speaker.  While seeing prayer return to schools (and, hopefully, in a far more dynamic iteration) is a critical cause in this time and the Lord is opening up many doors, this can never be my primary pursuit.  It’s an assignment.  I take assignments from the Lord seriously.  I will encounter the pleasure and grace of the Lord in significant ways related to the assignments He gives me, and I will find significant rewards related to faithfulness in the little in the age to come.

I can never lose sight of the fact, however, that these are “little things” that the Lord is inviting me into to give me a context for faithfulness.  What often happens is that I (and all of humanity) lose perspective along the way.  The “little assignments” from the Lord take on an importance that is far more connected to my ego than it is a divine assignment.  That’s why I so rarely talk about what I am “doing” for the Lord on this space - these articles form the journal of my heart and a picture of my pursuit.  I should probably be a bit more informative at times related to what I am doing and what is happening (and I try to be), if not for my own memory and record later on - but often it’s hard to write about those things.  I try to write about the things of the scripture or of the Spirit of God that are moving my heart.  That is why I made that observation to my wife (who then later made the observation back to me) - when my heart is connected, thoughts and ideas that interest me about God, life, the world we live in, the scriptures, and well, all manner of surprising things emerge from my mind and heart when I’m in the place of consistent prayer for long hours.

Remembering the First Things

Thus, this is my confession.  I’ve been in the prayer room sporadically but intentionally not writing much over the past month or so attempting to regain a flowing, tender heart alive with ideas and zeal for the beauty of God.  My heart has been alive to a measure with ideas and plans related to my assignments and ministry, which is fine.  It just happens to be far short of the vision that I have established for my life and the pursuit of God that I have declared to be the primary focus of my heart.  I do not want to see Jesus face to face and offer Him a vibrant ministry or a completed assignment.  I want to see Jesus face to face and give Him a heart established in meekness and obedience fueled by extravagant devotion and affection.  I love Jesus.  As such, I am happy to serve Him - but at times the details of my service have become the main focus of my time and energy.

That’s why I am excited about an upcoming 40-day fast that Lou Engle has invited many to participate in.  For me, it’s a gift from the Lord.  In the current season that I am in, there is no good time to go on an extended fast.  I had been trying to figure out my schedule and lay out the most “convenient” time to give myself to a long fast.  Of course, when that is the mission statement, no such time will ever be found.  I was growing discouraged, and I could feel the gnawing and growing desperation in my heart for a time to immerse myself in the scriptures with prayer and fasting.  So when Lou proposed to a small group of us the series of fasts that he desired to call folks to, my heart lept.  I can’t say I’ve been this enthusiastic about a long fast before.

I’m ready for my heart to be re-oriented again.  I can already feel it happening as I say “yes” to God again related to a fresh pursuit of beauty and fascination.  The little fasts I do weekly seem to have way more punch then they have over the past year.  I have that feeling, emotionally, like I’m going to be seeing a close friend soon that I haven’t seen in a while.  If Jesus were strolling down the rocky path on His way to see me, I think I would just start running out to see Him in my great impatience.  This has been the consuming desire of my life: I want to see, know, and encounter Jesus.  The frantic pace at which I run can often distract me from that end, but I am ready to set myself with particular zeal over forty days to re-establish my heart into it’s forgotten ache.  I miss my Friend.

There are so many ways that I relate to Jesus in prayer, study, and proclamation.  Jesus the King, Jesus the Judge, Jesus the Shepherd and Jesus the Leader are some of the most familiar ways, because of my end-times studies.  I need some time to reconnect with Jesus the Bridegroom - I know that.  Yet, the stirring of my heart is to go back to the first things of my walk with Jesus, the first way I learned to relate with Him.  I want to find my Friend again, the One who has humbly served and loved me tenderly in my weakness and my lack.  What a Friend I’ve had in Jesus! The One who helped a 12-year old new believer overcome major issues of fear and oppression.  The One who patently met me in tears, songs, and sermons, at the altar at summer camp and in the trees of my back yard, walking and talking with Him alone.

Regaining the First Things

I want to take 40 days and rest in Him again.  So often long fasts that I have done have been related to my calling, my destiny, or my desire to be obedient and faithfully fervent.  This one has a different feel for me, one very similar to the second long fast I went on as a believer: the “Fifty Days of Extravagant Devotion” fast of October, 2002, that culminated with the twelve-night prophetic history.  I was fairly new at IHOP-KC and the old trailer.  I was in heaven.  I had prayed (without knowing the IHOP-KC or the Mike Bickle existed) Psalm 27:4 hundreds of times as a young man.  I wanted to dwell in the house of the Lord, but I didn’t know how to “dwell” in a church.  Suddenly, I had no position, responsibilities, obligations, and lots and lots of time.  I grabbed a dank, smelly pillow and curled up daily somewhere near Dana Candler on the far left wall by the drum room.  Those were some of the greatest days of my life, and constituted the Lord’s divine “setting” of my heart and life into a 24/7 prayer reality.

I feel the same invitation tugging at my heart again.  The “tagline” for this upcoming fast is a pursuit of the glory of the Lord, but I don’t have a typical Charismatic perspective regarding what that means.  For me, the glory of the Lord is a personal, intimate thing.  There is significant glory, power, and grace found in the place of intimate friendship with Jesus.  I long to reach that place in the never-ending pursuit of my life to be consumed by Him.  I long to know the beauty of His name.  I long to see the beauty of His face.  I crave understanding, revelation, and deeper insight into His nature and character.  I want to be a true friend.

So it is that I find myself back in the same place that I started from in 2002 in the prayer room.  I have much more history, understanding, experience, and, unfortunately, responsibility.  I have a dull heart and a deep longing.  I am much more alive yet much more aware of my poverty of spirit than I was six years ago.  I am much more devoted and much less devoted.  I am aware of the dangers of the illusion of fervency and the reputation of zeal.  I am deeply dissatisfied and tenderly thankful.  It is an interesting and unusual place to be.  Most of all, however, I simply miss my Friend.  I want to find Him again, and “reset” my heart and my life according to the first things that sparked my pursuit of God as a young boy and my life of prayer as a young man.  I want to get “re-oriented” and established in a place of safety and purity of desire and pursuit.  I want my ambitions checked, my ego subdued, and my passions focused.

I want God, and God alone.

David Sliker

June 11, 2008

Entry Filed under: life at ihop-kc, life in the spirit, prayer