I’m an intercessory missionary, and it’s the end of the age
I just wanted to make sure. You never know with these things, and I wanted to make sure that the expectations are reasonable. I can already picture your knowing nods in my mind’s eye - and the image really helps rest my weary mind.
David
4 comments July 2nd, 2008
How much do I talk because of my loneliness?
Since I recommended it this past weekend to the teens, I’ve been thinking about Henri Nouwen’s Clowning in Rome. It’s a fantastic book meditating on solitude and reflection and the power of solitude to form authentic community and intimacy amongst believers. There is more to the book, of course, as it is a rich, deep, flavorful piece of meat that is worth chewing on for long hours as you take in its ideas and thoughts. It can be a helpful transition to the prayer room reality that we live in here in which socially-driven, lonely creatures longing for comraderie and community descend upon a room which has, simultaneously, much of both and none at all.
It is Nouwen’s contention that the richest community flows from intimate solace in which one first communes with God. I happen to agree with that contention. It makes perfect sense to me, of course - only in the place of quiet prayer and meditation on the word can one apprehend the necessary tenderness of heart to begin to love and appreciate those whom you may have written off, ignored, or overlooked as potentially glorious comrades in the race that we run together. As my heart comes alive in God, it prepares the way for deeper connections and conversations than I ever could have had from the dry well of my own boredom.
Which leads me to wonder - how often do I seek connections and companionship because of my restlessness? How often do I initiate conversations simply because I am lonely and searching for an escape or a salve? How many wasted conversations have I had in my life, simply because I longed to be heard? I am stirred on this issue because I feel as if I am on the verge of gaining real ground in a seemingly unrelated area of my life if I can find grace in this area. The area I am looking to conquer in my life is my speech. I want to do more than restrain my tongue related to negative or wasted speech - I want to train my tongue to be a precise instrument with words that have true, measurable impact on my own heart and the lives of those around me.
My tongue is an untamable and unruly evil, full of deadly poison
It is the tongue that commands the attention of the apostle James in his letter. I wonder if there was a specific circumstance that led James to address this issue so strongly with his brethren in that day? In my thinking, the way that James arranged his letter leaves us with the tongue and the issue of speech as one of the premiere issues on his mind as it relates to wisdom, sin, obedience, faith, pride, lust, humility, and patience, and particularly prayer. The issue of speech is critically related to the issue of sin and lust. If one can restrain the speech, one has hope in restraining all manner of wickedness. If one is overly free with their speech, one is providing fuel to a fire that threatens to consume our lives in the fires of hell.
It is thus one of the central issues of our lives. The manner in which the tongue is “ordered” or “set among our members” is that it is, in God’s perspective, the rudder that steers the ship. It has the ability to defile the whole body in a manner that is unique amongst the other members of the body. This reality is why James asserts a “stricter judgment” upon teachers: the teachers function as the “tongue” of the body of Christ, and as such can defile entire congregations or movements if they are not precise and measured in speech. This is why James urges us to pursue “the meekness of wisdom” in 3:13. The fruit of righteousness in our lives and the lives of those around us is sown in peace by those who make peace.
The road forward, then, is “peaceful speech” that lacks contentiousness, bitterness, or boasting. Gentle speech, willing to yield in a dispute, with merciful words and good fruit borne of true love not partiality or hypocrisy must be our continual goal in prayer. This is partially due to the fact that prayer, praise, and proclamation are the instruments that will fuel our devotion and intimacy with God forever. As difficult as it is to imagine, there is a coming day for us in the age to come in which 100% of our speech will be God-ward, holy, pure, and filled with immeasurable power. Every conversation, every word whispered in prayer, every truth proclaimed about the beauty of God will cause the heart to melt love and affection for our King.
My tongue is the pen of a ready writer
Thus I want to take the words of Jesus seriously: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles, but what comes out of it. I must fight to have a heart flowing with God, living waters coursing powerfully within me that flow out with forceful gentleness that refreshes the hearer. I want my life to be a fountain that cleanses and restores, a fire that burns and purifies, a lamp that illuminates and awakens. My tongue must be a ready pen filled with glorious words consumed with the beauty of God. The fountain of my heart can only be purified in prayer and fasting. As fasting cleanses the outer man, it restrains and tempers the inner man as well. When I fast with water, toxins come out - often in a very uncomfortable way. The same process happens within me, as the toxins of my thought life seep to the surface of my thinking, as I lack the strength to supress what is so often hidden just beneath the surface of my desires.
I will not become consumed by Jesus via stimulating conversation. I will not awaken my heart to deeper yearnings for God through the way of empty speech. I am weary of wasted words born from a barren heart. I must conquer the issue of loneliness and satisfaction in the love of God if I am to have any hope that I will lay hold of words that have true power to arrest the heart and captivate the imagination. I long to go deep into the place of barren, dry, dusty emptiness of words so that I can wrestle with my thought life and hold every stray thought captive until my mind fully rests on the glory and majesty of the Risen King. I long for the day in which every thought is about Him and Him alone.
Thus I give myself again to a prayer for grace and power to restrain and redirect my words. I want a social life that is driven by a pierced and tender heart, not a barren dryness longing for companionship, conversation, or approval. I want to have long, satisfying conversations with my Friend and emerge different every time. I want to hear His voice, which means I have to silence mine. No matter how much it hurts on the front end.
David
2 comments July 1st, 2008
Reflection #1: I’m normally on vacation right now
As June comes to an end and July is around the corner, I find myself sitting on one of the most unusually eventful yet stunningly mundane June 30th’s I can ever remember. For years, this was our family vacation time. Going back eleven years, I made a point to take (when I was a staff pastor) my allotted two weeks with my family around the July 4th holiday, so that I could sneak in a few extra days of rest. When we moved to Kansas City, this time of the year always coincided with the end of the Onething Internship that I directed for a year and a half; my wife took over and led the internship for another four years. Last year was really the first time we found ourselves free to take our family vacation wherever we wanted to on the schedule, and to be honest the freedom led to a poorly planned family vacation last year. I’m not sure what our fate will be this year, the proverbial jury is still out.
Taking over this year as the Executive Director of Awakening Teen Camp meant that this time of year was not an option for our vacation. Which, as an instructor at the Forerunner School of Ministry, means that my options for time away with my family are severely dwindling. Which is, in itself, ironic - because if I were anywhere else in the nation I would want to take my family to the prayer room for our vacation. Now, we’re forced to come up with restful options that begin with fleeing the city. Back to the matter at hand, I am now finding that nine months out of the year are now really “off-limits” for vacation time, including the much coveted month of January in which a surprising number of birds fly south during the relative lull in activity. By “lull”, of course, I mean “lack of new initiatives” not “lack of numerical growth” or “lack of activity”, since, as I’ve noted here before, there really isn’t a “good time to get away” in my world.
Reflection #2: Conferences can be both easy and exhausting at the same time
If you’re wondering why my “reflections on Fascinate 08″ is beginning with an extended homily about good times for a family vacation, you probably haven’t led a national conference before. Of course, the conference itself was a surprising amount of fun for myself and those that helped me make the logistics work, particularly the platform logistics of look, feel, and content. As I’m sure you have guessed, a fairly large amount of work and time goes into making these things go; yet at the same time there is a surprising ease to implementing one of these. There are always things that can be improved and tweaked, but I am a bit in awe about how skilled folks around this place are at putting one of these things on. Again, as you can imagine, the labor of moving and seating and navigating two thousand people between three locations (between main sessions, prayer rooms, and breakout locations) is quite an undertaking. I am in awe of the mechanisms that are in place to pull a conference off here and, in the words of the very skilled Lenny Laguardia, how “turn key” all of those mechanisms are.
Thus I found that the conference was both surprisingly easy and still non-surprisingly exhausting. Having found this out, I now am finding myself spending my first day of the forty-day fast staring out into space, trying to figure out optimum family vacation times. Reflecting slightly randomly (but surprisingly intentionally - this submission is filled with paradoxes) this morning leads me back to the most eventful, mundane, strange June 30th’s I’ve ever had. Again, it’s the first day of our corporate fast. The conference is now behind me. Yet we are about to begin session 2.0 of Awakening Teen Camp - and this time we have 400 teenagers descending upon our little missions base. We had 300 for the first session, which culminated with the conference. For most normal people, that would be a fitting conclusion to a succesful season of youth ministry. For me, that’s the beginning of my non-stop summer that doesn’t really conclude with the Call DC, since I have to turn right around and begin my semester on August 18th (the day after my birthday). In case you weren’t sure, I’m really not complaining - I am reflecting…though at the moment I am sure that you are a bit skeptical about that assertion.
Reflection #3: I need to get better at my job
Many of you who have been following this space for a while, which means you probably could write this next paragraph. If it seems hoplessly redundant in a strangely Sysiphean way, I understand. Sysiphus was, according to Greek mythology, the Corinthian king who was doomed to roll a boulder up a hill (having it promptly roll back down again) for eternity. I don’t feel that way about my current plight. The plight, of course, for those of you who are new to this space and wondering what I am rambling on about, is my constant fight to carve out a true life in God amidst the noise and traffic of life. It seems that I have written here at great length about the difficulty of serving in a prominent way at a national ministry that also happens to embody everything I’ve longed for in terms of sitting before the Lord. The tension of work and prayer and prayer as work is one of the most magnificent dilemmas I could have stumbled into. I have never been so consistently bad at something in my entire life. I’m in year seven and I still can’t quite figure it out.
The tagline of this particular website does not read, “I’m a conference speaker, and it’s the end of the age” after all. No, I’m an intercessory missionary, and I’m not particularly good at my job. That is how I am feeling on the first day of this forty day fast. I don’t feel exhilarated that the ministry I am a part of was helpful this weekend. I feel the same way about being on television this weekend as I did after my first book was published: nothing. Nada. No sense of accomplishment, no sense of arrival, and no sense of satisfaction. Nope, I mostly feel bad at my job. I suppose if my job was to put on conferences, I would feel thrilled right now. Since my job is to pray and fast, I’m not really excited about my performance review.
Now, the conference itself, in my humble opinion, was exactly what I hoped it would be. I don’t know if I would change much, in regards to the main sessions. Beyond the expected hiccups, how can you go wrong with a conference that begins with Corey Russell, hits the first night with Eddie James and Lou Engle, goes the very next morning to Allen Hood? I mean, that to me is a great first three sessions. That evening was Mike, the next morning was Misty - for me, I was seriously enjoying how things were going. The worship sets were fantastic and intense. The teenagers were hungry, receptive, and persistently joyful. Then we culminated with the final session, and what I thought was the best time of worship at the entire conference with Matt Gilman and Cory Asbury. I can’t even really complain with how my preaching time went, other than potentially offending half of the God TV viewership with some of my blunt statements about the pre-trib rapture, money, the condition of the church, revival, and a small handful of other controversial topics. So don’t get me wrong - I am thankful to the Lord and tender about His zeal for teenagers around the nation. In terms of serving my Friend, I enjoyed myself. In terms of being a true friend of God, however, I have a ways to go.
Reflection #4: I cannot be consoled or comforted
Again, this means that, when it comes to my primary job description, I’m not that happy with myself. My job before the Lord carries a secondary assignment related to the next generation. I am well aware of the implications of doing badly at my first job: it means I end up being pretty bad at the assignments and jobs that flow out of my main occupation. It’s the nature of what I have signed up for - I will never imagine that the succesful event or the great testimonies vindicate my prayer life and lead me to a place of true rest. True rest, for me, is knit to what I preached about on Saturday evening: I will rest when the Lord rests. He will rest when He has found a resting place. Therefore, I will be continually restless until He brings heaven to earth. For some, this may seem like a particularly miserable way to live - I have seemingly signed up for a lifelong reality of deep frustration and discontentedness. For me, the alternative (pretending that successful ministry equals a good conference, pretending that things are fine, pretending that there is no shaking and trouble coming, etc.) seems quite miserable. I refuse to imagine that I am successful until I have the confidence of Paul at the end of his life.
I want my last words to be like his - that I fought the good fight.
This is a lifelong fight to truly walk with God as His friend, His bondservant, and, in the occupation He has chosen for me, His priest. I have signed up, willingly and joyfully, to mourn. He promised me that if I would, that I would be comforted. I would much rather go that route than be comforted now only to mourn later. Such is the wisdom of the hour, as bitter as it may be for many to swallow. And so I will lead and build as I have been commissioned to by the Lord in this season. 400 teens are coming. Thus I must partially fast and mourn that I cannot go deeper. I must partially serve and mourn that I cannot be more effective. I must partially pray, study, and write, and mourn that I cannot be given and abandoned in prayer the way that my heart longs for. As I tug on the natural restraints that the Lord has placed on my life to keep me focused and reigned in, I truly am beginning to feel, a little bit, like a bondservant - constrained and restrained from the yearnings of my heart to put my hand on a plow and not look back.
Reflection #5: I press on
“Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”
- Philippians 3:12-14
Such as it is, I “press delete” on the conference, the last session of ATC, I forget all that was of yesterday to press on yet again. Time to joyfully begin a 40 day fast by tenderly receiving 400 hungry teenagers and attempting to charge them to “follow me as I follow Christ,” though I am not particularly pleased with how I am living that charge. I am thankful for the divine irony and tender at His perfect leadership, which means that, on the first day of this 40 day fast, I am joyfully miserable.
I wouldn’t have it any other way.
David
3 comments June 30th, 2008
After all these years, I feel as if you are going to be introduced to my first actual “blog post”. What do I mean? Well, this is one of the few things I’ve ever written on this space that has ever felt “bloggy”: a slightly random, stream of consciousness, flowing jumble of thoughts that lack organization while functioning as a glimpse into a slice of someone’s life. Blogs have functioned for many as another form of “reality television” in the manner in which they provide such an intimate glimpse into the life and thoughts of another human being. When I write the things I write they post immediately, first draft, with little to no pre-planning or thought - but they are still devotional articles that flow from my heart versus an autobiographical glimpse into the actualities of my life. Since I’ve already come this far, I’ll plow ahead with this little parenthetical insertion into the typical format of this space. I have no illusions, however, that these paragraphs will be memorable in any way.
It’s quite bizarre to write the words of the title of this little aside as if I’m writing about doing laundry or washing dishes - but quite honestly that’s what it feels like and it’s probably all the same before the Lord in terms of “pulling weeds in the hot sun”. In other words, it’s tiring, helpful, restraining, sweaty, keeps me out of trouble, and forces me to pursue sustaining life in God continually related to serving the youth of our generation. Secondly, I’m not going to act like God is impressed. In other words, whether it’s laundry, dishes, or a national conference, God cares about what my heart looks like in the doing - not the size of what I’m doing. I never want to imagine that God is suddenly impressed with me because I’ve doubled the number of my laundry output or I now am able to wash thousands more dishes than last year. I would be so bold as to say that God delights in me far more when I am serving my family washing dishes when no one is looking than when I’m pulling weeds in front of 2000 teenagers.
Of course, when you’re pulling weeds on God TV, that becomes an oddity in itself. Of course, God still isn’t impressed, even when you’re on the television channel that bears His name. My viewership fluctuates depending on the venue, but I can always count on One terrifying Viewer to the “David Sliker Show”. My life is the ultimate reality show that God is always watching. Ugh. I am so thankful for mercy and kindness. He is outrageously merciful. Can you imagine someone watching every detail of your life while knowing your every thought? The very notion of another human - no matter how close to me - having that kind of continual access into my life, my emotions, and my thoughts to that level of intimacy is quite terrifying to contemplate. Yet God has always enjoyed that level of access into the depths of my being. I’ve come to the place, in the grace of God, where I am horrified, convicted, stirred, and focused on taking every thought captive by the grace of God and exerting all of my might to love Him well. Someday, when we re-watch the story of my life, I want to have an enjoyable ending with as little embarrassment as possible.
I’ve been thinking a little bit about late-night weekend television since the Fascinate conference is on after the Lakeland meetings on Friday and Saturday night. What is interesting to me is that my competition on other parts of the television world include the Tonight Show and Saturday Night Live. I’m preaching on the glory and “the gory” of the Second Coming on Saturday night (Mike Bickle is talking about intimacy with Jesus tonight, and I’m in the studio talking about the conference and our Awakening Teen Camp). Will the drama of the Second Coming be a ratings blockbuster? Probably not this weekend, but I’m guessing Jesus will far surpass their viewership someday - at least according to Revelation 1:7. So I’m willing to bide my time.
Short report on the conference: I want to stay at FSM as long as I possibly can, even though I’ve never seen it this packed with people. So far, no one seems to mind the difficulty, even in the morning and afternoon meetings, with finding seats. All things considered, I cannot communicate how enjoyable it is to run a conference in this building. There are fewer logistics to manage, more room to make life work as normal as possible, and comfy places to tuck away while getting work done. Hence, my ability to fire this out there on a relatively trouble-free afternoon. Secondly, I have to admit I do enjoy watching eighty to ninety percent of a building jumping up and down in unison with an anointed worship song. Outside of that, I’m quite tired.
David
10 comments June 27th, 2008
Yes, it’s another series. No, I haven’t forgotten the other ones. It’s just that I am captivated and tender in heart today as I think about Jesus, the Servant of all. Here are portions of my thoughts on the subject of Jesus the servant, through the lens of His incredible act of humility from John 13:3-9:
3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come from God and was going to God, 4 rose from supper and laid aside His garments, took a towel and girded Himself. 5 After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded. 6 Then He came to Simon Peter. And Peter said to Him, “Lord, are You washing my feet?”
7 Jesus answered and said to him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but you will know after this.”
8 Peter said to Him, “You shall never wash my feet!”
Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.”
9 Simon Peter said to Him, “Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head!” (John 13:3-9)
Infinite power is yours, now go scrub some feet
First, I am stunned by the way in which John begins his account of what happened: he states, “Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands… rose from supper and laid aside His garments, took a towel and girded Himself.” Or, say it this way: Jesus, knowing that…He had come from God and was going to God, 4 rose from supper and laid aside His garments, took a towel and girded Himself.” In other words, Jesus knew two things about Himself in that moment, and knowing those things led to an action that, in our way of thinking, doesn’t quite match the information.
I’ll use this example. You win the lottery. It’s fifty million dollars. What is the first thought that comes to your mind? If you’re like every other human on the planet, you think about what you are going to buy, where you are going to go, or what debt you are going to cancel. It’s how we all are wired to think in our carnality - once we are handed resources (money, power, honor), the first things we are concerned with tend to be 1.) how to make our life better; 2.) how to make our circumstances change; and 3.) how to alleviate stress. I am sure that there are a few other-worldly mystics reading this that commune in the perfection of godly motives, but for the rest of us, it’s simply reflexive.
That’s what fascinates me about Jesus’ reflexive, in the moment response to His knowledge of His status, privilege, security, and power base. It’s quite unlike any man that has ever lived, and there is no chance that you are I in our current condition would have made the same choice if we received the same information. “David Sliker, the Father has just given all things into your hands!” Now, because I’m not entirely carnal and, in this stage of my life, I care about different things than I used to, I am sure that I would try to do something helpful with that new information. I am also sure I would not immediately throw a towel around my waist and decide to become my student’s servant.
Servant means more than “serving”
The problem with hearing a word over and over is that it can become culturalized and overly familiar. I am certain that this has happened in Christian culture with the concept of Jesus the Servant, by which “servant” has been reduced to a cool leadership concept, a valuable lesson, and a missions project in which we raise some money to go build a church together. Our minds simply will not allow us to embrace the concept of Jesus embracing the lowliness and the meekness of becoming a true servant for His friends, lowering Himself in His outrageous humility to a place below His students in that upper room. He did not become a “servant” according to 21st Century church culture, which again is little more than being a little helpful when someone else is in need. He became a “servant” according to 1st century Hebrew culture, in which the hired attendant helped the powerful Lord make the details of his life work.
It’s why Peter was horrified that night.
It’s hard for us to relate to Jesus the Servant. That the Messiah and King of the Earth would serve us as a Friend rather than command us to obey offends our sensibilities. Much of how we are wired and how we think is similar to Peter – when one who has greater authority than we have relates to us we have a tendency to defer, honor, and take the lower place. This is not because we are humble by nature – it is actually because of the exact opposite: it is because we would expect (and sometimes demand) that others would do the same for us when we came into our place of authority. Peter was relating to Jesus in the same manner that he expected others would relate to him when he achieved greatness, thus he had no clue what to do our how to relate to Jesus when his Master and Rabbi girded Himself with a towel and began to wash their dusty feet.
Again, this was the posture of a literal servant in the circles of power and privilege in eastern culture; Jesus was taking on the role of the lowly servant – and also elevating his disciples to the place of the privileged lord or nobleman in the process. This was unheard of in eastern culture for a famous Rabbi or spiritual leader to act in such a manner. The powerful Sanhedrin had disciples with political ambitions who were glad to serve these wealthy, powerful, well-connected influencers in the hopes of being promoted into positions of power and influence themselves. Jesus radically redefines greatness, power, and authority for us all in this one act. He genuinely, and tenderly, expressed a kingdom of heaven value and a kingdom of heaven mindset by relating to His disciples in this manner.
It’s who Jesus is not just what He did (and still does)
We imagine, in that upper room that night, Jesus the Great Teacher teaching His guys one more lesson before retiring to the Garden of Gethsemane. Our minds reel and stagger a bit when it begins to dawn on us that Jesus actually thought that way and that His behavior in that moment is consistent with how He has always viewed Himself, beyond the “lesson” He wanted to transfer. He still thinks this way, as a matter of fact. His servant-hearted posture towards us did not end at the cross. That one act of service is a window into the heart of the ultimate Servant. This point is initially offensive, yet later on exhilarating and awesome to consider. It really does change so many things when we begin to relate, with holy fear, to Jesus the Servant.
I mean, really - can we imagine the President of the United States showing up at our house, throwing a towel around his waist, and washing our car and vacuuming the floor? We would respond a bit like Peter did that night. We don’t know what to do about a God that loves to serve. We have to keep in mind that this mindset is so foreign to us that Jesus said plainly to Peter, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but you will know after this.” Those twelve young men, and subsequently, all of us, were not equipped to grasp the implications of what Jesus was doing. Yet, when it dawns on us that this is who Jesus is, it makes our hearts to tender and awestruck at His kindness and love for us.
For Jesus, in taking on the form of a bondservant…
(And, as a parenthetical insertion, here is the definition of “bondservant”:
bond.ser.vant; n. 1. A person obligated to service without wages. 2. A slave or serf. )
…or, to put it another way, , taking on the form of a slave or serf, Jesus did more than clean dirt off of dusty feet and teach a bunch of simple guys a cool lesson on humility. He actually dignified and elevated them with unspeakable honor, assigning value and worth to their lives that defies description. He was demonstrating who He is, expressing His character and nature - and, in turn, demonstrating for us that our Father in heaven thinks and acts this way towards us as well. He did something else that night, something so incredible I can hardly grasp it: by demonstrating who He is towards us, He also demonstrated who we are to Him. He bestowed a value upon us that is incomprehensible. When the President of the United States takes us under his wing to train us, that’s pretty cool. When the President comes alongside of us and calls us a friend and a comrade, that feels pretty good. Now when he comes underneath us in status and rank, committing to become our slave, our serf, or our bondservant…
“…but you will know after this.”
And so they did, as He hung from that tree.
David
3 comments June 18th, 2008
I’m listening this morning to Mike’s sermon on spiritual identity and standing victorious as one loved by God. I am loving it; it is refueling the declaration of my heart to stand before Jesus with a heart great in love rather than a life great in accomplishment. The things that John the Apostle cared about versus that which I tend to care about form an instructive and provocative challenge and invitation to aggressively declare again my intention to pursue my exceedingly great reward in God. I want my standard of greatness to be found in the greatness of being loved by God. I want to be fascinated by the beauty of His heart towards me - completely captivated by the movements of His heart towards me.
As such, my prayer is to pursue the primary blessing of the emotions of God touching my heart and not get sidetracked or derailed by the secondary blessings of God that come with favor on my life. I want my heart and my life to be oriented rightly with a value system that exalts Jesus and His love for me as the highest achievement of my life and the reality that sets my course and my emotions. What do I delight in? The answer to that question is the key to my longevity as one who is pursuing a burning heart for God over many decades.
David
4 comments June 15th, 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
17 comments June 11th, 2008
If you’re wondering where the regular musings of my mind are lately, remember - it’s May again. It was around a year ago this week (or so) that the Sliker family took their impromptu excursion to the Ozarks for a camping trip. Camping. Without electricity. Or running water. Yikes.
Well, we’ve done it again. We did a little getaway this week prior to a ministry trip in Minnesota next week, so we’re out of action for ten days. No camping this time, though. It was fun to camp. Once. This time, it’s hotels and dorm rooms for the Sliker family. Comfy. Cable. Pool. Internet. When it comes to quick vacations, “restful” is the operative word.
Yay.
David
7 comments May 14th, 2008
This week’s edition of Newsweek had more than a few articles that interested me for various reasons - more on that at another day (I am in the middle of a series, after all…). One little side interview on faith, however, troubled me greatly. One look at the headline and the by-line will tell you why. As a review, for those of you who clicked on the link, here’s the by-line: “An Anglican theologian explains that the resurrection really happened—and that the Kingdom is really coming.” This, of course, passes for shocking (shocking!) news in our day. What rift opened in the space-time continuum recently to unearth an Anglican theologian that believes, with subsequent gasps of surprise, that Jesus actually rose from the grave?
This assertion from Jon Meacham and Lisa Miller, however, provides the real chills and thrills: “Among many Western Christians, however, the word “resurrection” means something else: a supernatural event, a spiritual ascent, a poetic metaphor.” I suppose that it would be best if I refrained from asking for descriptives delineating “a supernatural event” from an event that, in their own words with their own italicized emphasis, “really happened.” Pressing on, however, I am curious about the truth behind their premise. Is this true? Do many Western Christians possess a terrifying ignorance about what Paul referred to a the substance of our faith and preaching (1 Cor. 15:14)? For, as Paul stated, without a truly risen Christ to set our hope upon, all we have is hope for this life only. If this is true, Paul asserted, then “we are of all men the most pitiable.”
Which, of course, means that those who reduce the resurrection of Christ to a “spiritual ascent” or a “poetic metaphor” subscribe to a faith that is “futile” and leaves them “still in their sins” (1 Cor. 15:17) - such is the power of the resurrection that Paul longed to possess within himself (Phil. 3:10). The doctrine of the resurrection and our subsequent hope of glory provide the very substance of a living faith that is connected to another age and the insatiable longing for things to come. What is it that these “Western Christians” are hoping for?
The very notion of a faith robbed of an actual resurrected Christ grieves me beyond measure and intensifies my longing for a true awakening in the West.
It is becoming clear that such an awakening must contain more than power and the conviction of sins - but must be energized by substantive preaching from the scriptures that establishes an invitation to a faith and a life that is wholly different than the one being offered within some of the very walls of Christendom today, much less the fallen world that appeals to the ungodly ambitions of carnal man. In short, we must have a re-awakening of true apostolic and prophetic preaching that authoritatively and powerfully compels men to a kingdom lifestyle that resembles the faith of our fathers - or else we will continue to live in a culture where such notions as the “resurrection” serve as a bemusing surprise to the intellectual elite that long for a better life apart from God.
Isn’t this the real issue behind this interview? It seems to me that the real shock to the writers here is that, in their estimation, N.T. Wright is a rational and intelligent man worthy of their respect. Thus it is hard for them to reconcile how one such as Wright could possibly subscribe to the notion of a “literal resurrection”. I wonder what they would have done had they met Jonathan Edwards? Such a question makes me long again for voices to arise with such authority and power connected to a message of the cross that constitutes true foolishness to those who are perishing (1 Cor. 1:18). I long for God to glorify Himself in this hour through the anointing of “weak things” which shame those who consider themselves “wise”.
Oh! That the “news” of the literal resurrection of Christ would have caused these writers (and their readers) to tremble - that the days would return in which such news would be as disruptive as it was when it was first proclaimed!
David
40 comments May 1st, 2008
If anyone was qualified to write about the weakness of true discipleship, it was John Mark. As a young man, Mark received a firsthand view of the new movement that would eventually conquer the mighty Roman Empire itself. It is widely believed that it was Mark’s home that hosted the Passover meal in the upper room; it was this very upper room that would later house a night and day prayer meeting in which 120 disciples tarried until the breakthrough of Pentecost. Thus, Mark’s home would be the very one that would be a key meeting place for the early church during the imprisonment of Peter. Upon his miraculous release in Acts 12, it was the first place he went to before moving on to “another place”.
Thus, John Mark’s home was a key hub of early New Testament Christianity. He had the unique privilege of having met or interacted with, early on, every key leader of the Gospels and the book of Acts. It would soon be time for him to be summoned to the forefront of the leadership of the Holy Spirit, as it was time for the movement to begin to move westward, towards the Greek and Macedonian regions. The young eyewitness to history was about to become a part of the story in a dynamic way.
Weakness under pressure
It was John Mark’s cousin, Barnabas, who initially opened the door for him. Barnabas had been sent by the apostolic leadership of the Jerusalem Church a year earlier to Antioch to see what the Holy Spirit was doing in that city - for the reports of His activity there had traveled all the way to Jerusalem, 300 miles to the south. Thus Barnabas made the 10-15 day journey from Israel to what is now the southern tip of modern-day Turkey. Because of the astonishing revival that was taking place there, he knew that more help was needed to serve what the Lord was doing. Of course, it would be a month or more before more apostolic leadership could arrive from Jerusalem.
Thus Barnabas decided to make a shorter journey westward to Tarsus, where a young apostle named Saul had been sent by the brethren a few years earlier because of threats to his life. Barnabas himself had been a part of this process, introducing the new brother to the apostolic leadership after they had received Saul with suspicion. He became a dogged apologist for the faith, frustrating the Hellenists in Jerusalem to the point of attempted murder. Barnabas knew that this young lightning rod was only 100 miles west along the coast, so he made the ten-day trip to Tarsus and back to mobilize Saul for the revival in Antioch. After a year of successful ministry there, the two of them were sent back to Jerusalem with both prophetic information and provision for a coming famine that would strike the Roman Empire.
When the time came for the two of them to return to Antioch, they invited John Mark to go with them. Not long after they arrived, a prayer and fasting meeting preceded the in-breaking of the Holy Spirit to launch a team led by Saul and Barnabas to Cyprus and Southern Turkey, just northwest of Tarsus. Thus John Mark was appointed as their assistant. John Mark, however, had already established a history of fear and trembling under pressure. Most scholars believe that Mark was referring to himself as the naked young man that fled from the Garden of Gethsemane, leaving his expensive linen cloak behind in his terror when young men from the contingent there to arrest Jesus laid hold of him.
Thus Mark did not respond well when the missions endeavor began to move to new frontiers. There were minor challenges in Cyprus, including a “certain sorcerer” named Elymas, who opposed them vehemently. Once they reached the shores of southern Turkey and the port of Perga, the young assistant left the team and returned home, to Jerusalem. This failure to see the journey to the end would haunt Mark a few years later, when Paul and Barnabas set themselves to return to the original cities where they planted churches to strengthen and encourage them. The decision of the Jerusalem Council had been established, and after a season in Antioch it was time to establish the decree among the brethren who had been troubled by Paul’s enemies. There was one problem: Barnabas was determined to take John Mark with them again.
Thus began a conflict that became a contention “so sharp” that they parted ways with one another. Paul chose Silas as his ministry partner - probably having young Timothy in the back of his mind, knowing that he was returning to Derbe and Lystra. Barnabas, of course, took Mark and returned to the place of his previous failure: Cyprus. Whatever Barnabas did on that journey, the results were remarkable.
Finding Simon Peter
John Mark left for Cyprus not long after the Jerusalem Council, which took place sometime near 50-51 AD. What was as remarkable, if not more so, than Barnabas severing ties with Paul, was that Mark signed up again and faced the shame and the sting of his earlier failure. He wanted to press on - though he had departed early from the first missionary journey, he had not quit in relationship to his calling. Thus his next assignment from the Lord fit perfectly.
No one is sure how long Mark traveled with Barnabas, but what is clear is that, sometime over the next decade he ended up joining Simon Peter and becoming his assistant. Theirs was an ironically glorious partnership - two godly men who had struggled with failure and flight under pressure - both knowing firsthand the weakness of discipleship. It is beautiful to me that they served the Lord together. This quote from Papias, the Bishop of Hierapolis in the early 2nd Century, describes their ministry together, most likely in Rome:
“And the presbyter said this. Mark having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately whatsoever he remembered. It was not, however, in exact order that he related the sayings or deeds of Christ. For he neither heard the Lord nor accompanied Him. But afterwards, as I said, he accompanied Peter, who accommodated his instructions to the necessities [of his hearers], but with no intention of giving a regular narrative of the Lord’s sayings. Wherefore Mark made no mistake in thus writing some things as he remembered them. For of one thing he took especial care, not to omit anything he had heard, and not to put anything fictitious into the statements.”
I appreciate Edgar Goodspeed’s interpretation of this fragment of information:
“…it seems to bring up the picture of Peter, an old man, visiting Rome in his later years and there preaching in his native Aramaic to the Greek congregation. They must have listened with rapt attention as the old apostle told of his walks and talks with Jesus in Galilee, and of the swift tragedy of betrayal and crucifixion which had followed in Judea. Then suddenly Peter is himself snatched from them and suffers martyrdom. It was one of the most famous of all martyrdoms; St Peter’s marks the supposed spot on the Vatican Hill, and legends like the stirring “Domine, quo vadis?” have gathered about it. It must have filled the Roman congregation with grief. No more would they hear the old man uttering his inimitable reminiscences of Jesus, for with his death a priceless treasure of such memories perished from the earth.
But not entirely. For as the old man had preached, there had stood beside him, of course, now one, now another of them, who could understand his Aramaic speech and immediately translate it into Greek for his Roman hearers. He had used these memories only to illustrate and strengthen his own preaching, and from hearing some incidents over and over a number of times and putting them into Greek, a capable and alert interpreter would come to have a very definite memory of their wording. Out of such memories, Papias means to say, one of these interpreters named Mark composed his gospel.”
What a glorious and awesome ministry John Mark had stumbled into. Peter called Mark “his son” (1 Pet. 5:13). He went from weakness and failure to a key position in the early church - interpreting the stories and sayings about Jesus. Those very accounts and sermons would go on to constitute his gospel, the first such work in church history. It must have seemed to be an unbelievable, yet happy turn of events for the Apostle Paul - who would end his life counting John Mark as one of his most faithful and loyal friends. This would be true for Paul even when all others had fled and abandoned him (2 Tim. 4:11). Much like Simon becoming “the Rock” that Jesus could build upon, a steady and grounded lover of God, John Mark would end his days as one of the most faithful, trustworthy, and bold witnesses for the gospel in all the world.
One of the glorious realities of the weakness of discipleship is that His power is made perfect in the process, and the end of the story is all the more stunning as a result.
David
1 comment April 29th, 2008
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