Heidi

Baker

Imagine being like a little child again and believing everything you hear. There is something so wonderful about that trusting, open-hearted naïveté that God loves.

The more I have grown up, the more I realize that maturity in Christ is all about “growing down.” It is about becoming a child again. Not being childish but being childlike in our ways and our thinking.

For years, Psalm 131 has been my favorite psalm. I love the thoughts expressed here: “My heart is not proud, Lord, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me. But I have calmed and quieted myself, I am like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child I am content” (

We love our joint Harvest/Bible School graduation days — the climax of ten weeks of blending Word and Spirit together in the context of on-the-ground missions. Twice a year we bring in new students and pastors from the remotest bush, along with eager students from all nations of the world who are as zealous for missions and immersed in God as possible.

We love, laugh, and worship together, then head for our local village and the deep bush to seek the lost and see them saved. These are some of the most forgotten people on earth.

As much as possible, we bring cultures together — black and white, east and west, rich and poor. We are a cross-section of the Body of Christ. We want to see it function as it should, every person contributing their gifts from God.

It never ceases to amaze me how Jesus’ Body works. No one has nothing to bring to the table. No one has no gifts. Everyone has something they can bring. Whether that something is small, unseen, and seemingly insignificant or very visible and obvious is neither here nor there. It is irrelevant in God’s Kingdom. All that matters is the whole, diverse, glorious Body working together, each part doing its bit to achieve God’s greater purposes.

Some have the task of carrying gear, setting up the sound system, making sure everything is working, while others have the privilege of sharing the message of God’s grace with the assembled crowd. Some cook or pass out food, while others minister and pray. Various expressions of service to Jesus work together to accomplish His purposes that day.

Never feel that what you have to contribute is too small, not enough, insignificant. It’s not. What you have is needed. Without it, other parts of the Body struggle to function. Bring your offering to Jesus and allow Him to multiply it.

When God let the Good Samaritan message burn in my heart, He told me, “Heidi, I want you to stop for them all.” It was a prophetic statement. When I first arrived in Mozambique, I was on my own. Rolland was finishing writing his doctoral thesis. I went out with a one-way ticket and no possessions. After two days I ran out of money. I was sitting alone on the curbside, wondering what to do, and God met with me there and told me, “This is where I have sent you. You are going to see revival here, and all I want you to do is stop for the one.”

So that is all I did. I didn’t have some strategic plan for how to reach the city by 20XX. I didn’t have it all figured out in my mind. All I knew was God had told me to stop for the one. He told me, “Heidi, I want you to see. I want the passion I put inside you to be so full that compassion flows out of you.” So I began to sit with the poor and pick up little children and love them.

One day I picked up Gito. Gito had been beaten and raped and was dying there on the street. He was a skinny little kid who had been violated, abused and left for dead. He was dying on the road under a flyby, and I sat with him and held him in my arms and loved him. He had AIDS. I held him in my arms and said, “Come home with me, Gito.”

His was the face of revival.

There was no snazzy plan, no slick brochures. Later, God totally healed Gito of AIDS. We received the negative tests back from the doctor. There are thousands more orphans like Gito. They are the face of revival. Jesus said,

I have found that, just when I think I have surrendered my all to the Lord, He gently, graciously, uncovers a new layer of resistance in me that even I didn’t know was there. For a few years now, I have preached a message I call “Lower Still.” This sums up the process of Jesus tenderly shaping, patiently reshaping, and then gloriously filling our lives with Himself. Do we think we have humbled ourselves and surrendered everything to Him? We can still go lower; there is still more for us to give up.

Surrendering everything to Jesus sounds risky, as though it could be painful, difficult, demanding. Many ask, “If I completely surrender to Him, with reckless devotion, will I still be me?”

Here is what I have found to be true. Yes, it’s risky, but the reward vastly outweighs the risk. Yes, it can be painful, difficult and demanding, but the joy and all-surpassing peace that Jesus gives can hardly be compared to such fleeting inconveniences.

Most of all, Jesus doesn’t rob you of being you. You don’t somehow become less than yourself because Jesus’ presence is larger in you. It’s just the opposite; the more you surrender to Him, the more you become who Father always intended you to be.

This is all part of God’s upside economy, which defies the narrow-minded, one-dimensional, limited wisdom of human thinking. In choosing to become nothing, we become everything we were ever meant to be.

As always, Jesus is our model. He made Himself as nothing so His Father might be fully glorified through Him. In Philippians, Paul urges us to imitate Jesus’ humility:

We are still learning to go even lower, which is the only way forward. And we are still learning to stop for the one in the middle of a sea of need. We are still learning what it means to be a friend of God and to value fellowship with Him and each other above all else. We are not professional, high-power, efficient missionary machines. We measure the quality of our lives by the depth of our relationships. We are still learning to love.

We cannot function in this world without the power of our God. Some of us haven’t yet been brought to our extremity, so we aren’t fully and forcibly aware of our dependence. But our time will come. We need Him to stay alive. We need Him for our health. We need Him for our healing. We need Him for righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

We need more than any human being can do for us. We need sheer, raw power in the goodness and love of God. We need power to appreciate our God, to make Him the greatest pleasure in our lives. We need power to rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory. We need power to experience His Kingdom, to move in His environment.

How do we get power? It is the grace and gift of God. He plants in us a hunger that will not be denied. He opens our eyes to our poverty without His powerful presence. He grants faith where there was none. In His power we can rest, even while under demonic attack. His power fixes our eyes on Him. In His power we are able to discipline ourselves in everything. We can cast our cares on Him, because He is willing to use His power on our behalf.

How can we be sure He cares for us? The cross. We go to the cross always to find confidence to approach Him. We will not empty the cross of its power. There and only there do we find salvation of every kind. At the cross we come to know our God and His heart toward us. At the cross we learn to become utterly dependent on His power.

I used to think most of the Christian walk was about “toughing it out” — enduring suffering, living with disappointment and struggling through hardship. But I have realized something very precious, especially in the last year, as God has been teaching me and training me.

Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.”