Guest Devotional #4: Trusting God
By Kirk Baker
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.- Proverbs 3:5-6
I would like to thank my dear friend Jeanneane for asking me to write this week’s devotional. The words typed in this are to bring glory to the good name of our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus.
Before you read any further, I humbly request you raise both arms open and reach out to the Lord and ask: “God, what is it that you want me to receive from this? Please show me what it is you want me to know.”
“The word of the Lord came to me, Son of man, propound a riddle, and speak a parable to the house of Israel.” - Ezekiel 17:1-2 In the video of my testimony, you will hear me say, while in prayer God said you me: “Why are you crying? End your tears. For I have saved your beautiful wife. I have given your son life. It is time for you to tell your story.”
What God is saying to me there is, Do you trust me? For if you do, lean on my understanding not your own.
Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.
Every day we wake up is a good day. The rest is what we make of it. Some days are easier than others, but it is having complete faith in God that sees us through.
Trusting in the Lord May not come easy to some, especially those who aren’t followers of Christ. For most of my life I turned my back on God, I denied God. With my faith in man instead of God I was faced with a decision no one wants to be in.
The decision I was faced with was having to choose between the life of my love, my soulmate or that of our unborn son. While pregnant with our son, my wife became ill and lost 42 pounds in one month. She was hospitalized for most of that month. Eventually the doctor told us “There is nothing more that I can do. If you don’t terminate the pregnancy you will die” We were now faced with deciding who shall live.
How does one make that decision? If you were faced with that decision, what would you choose? Earlier I mentioned because our faith was in man instead of God, we chose to terminate the pregnancy. This decision was made in 2002 and still affects us today.
While inside the abortion center God intervened. Just before we were about to sign the death certificate to our son, my wife looked at me and said “I don’t care if I die. I am not going to kill our baby”. We got up and walked out. Two weeks later God healed my wife and later that year she gave birth to Cameron. Praise God. My wife has a very special place in my heart for her. She was willing to sacrifice herself to give our son life.
We became believers but as believers we didn’t realize we had to just do more than believe. Christ calls us to be followers. There is so much wisdom God put forth in this message. Here is a link to this message. It is appropriately titled From non-believer to believer to follower of Christ Jesus.
As our faith started to strengthen, so did the spiritual warfare we have faced. Over the years we’ve had our house burn down and we lost everything we owned. My wife became disabled with a nerve disorder twice as painful as child birth.
A few years later our house was foreclosed on. I went from a stable work history to 9 jobs in 10 years with 5 of my last 7 jobs shutting their doors or laying me off.
My wife has been in multiple car accidents. My son and I were rear ended. Last year a vehicle almost hit me head on at 70 mph. We narrowly avoided a head on collision and my vehicle was struck one foot behind the driver side door.
That accident left me with herniated discs in my neck and my back which I still have today. A few months after this accident, my precious daughter became paralyzed from the neck down. She fights hard every day trying to regain use of her limbs.
There has been much more tragedy than this in our life. Without a strong faith, this would have been much more difficult to endure. Trusting God made getting through all of this much easier. There is a Scripture that taught me how to trust God. A Scripture to fall back on when times it get tough.
We made a family video about trusting God. A video to be a light to those in need. To let people know that it only takes one person to make a difference. While we may not always see the fruit of our labor, let this message remind you that you make a difference, that you matter.
Jesus was the perfect example of this when he bore our sin upon the cross. Galatians 6:2 Bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. Thank you Jeanneane for asking me to fill in the gap while you recover. Continued prayers for you my dear friend. I pray this message and the two videos I included are a blessing to everyone that reads this. Thanks and God bless.
Discussion Question
1. In the Cameron’s Chance video you saw the Scripture that helped me trust God. Part of that Scripture reads l: If iniquity is in your hand, cast it far away and let not injustice dwell in your tents. Surely then you will lift up your face without blemish.
Is there an iniquity in your tent? Is there something bringing you down that takes away your focus from God? For us it was the decision we made to abort Cameron. For 13 years our hearts were full of anger. Anger at ourselves for making the decision instead of trusting God, and angry at the doctor for withholding care to try and profit from murdering our son.
It was that Scripture that helped us trust God and in doing so God turned that anger into love. We now lift up our face without blemish and do our best to be a light to those in need.