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By Mallory Mattingly
North Carolina State pitcher Luke Hemric has relied on one Bible verse since he became a Christian: Proverbs 16:3.
It reads, “Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans.”
“I feel like that’s the first thing when I prayed about back in my junior year when I was going through that struggle, was like, ‘God, if you can just establish my plans with baseball.’ And I feel like once I saw that quote, it was in the fall of my freshman year here, I was like, that’s one I need to stick with, that’s the one that is in my heart,” Hemric shared on “The Walk” podcast.
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During on game in his junior year, Hemric gave up seven runs in two innings. From then on, he began to struggle on the mound.
“Every single thought’s going through my head like ‘Oh my gosh, am I going to get cut?’ or ‘Oh my gosh, like what am I going to do?’ Like I thought I was this good. I thought I would be good enough to play at a power five school, and I can’t even compete in my own conference in high school. So like all these thoughts were going through my head, and I remember like just praying that night. I wasn’t really where I was expecting to be, and I worked so hard that offseason to try and get better, and I was just praying to God, like, ‘If you have a plan for me, I want to have my mind and my heart open.'”
Hemric recalled praying to God every day and being open and honest in his prayers.
“And I remember praying about just in baseball stuff, like just because I really at the time didn’t know how to pray,” the pitcher said. “I would just pray for God to have me have some success in baseball, just be there for me, and those little things like that, because when I pray, I always just want to have an open conversation with God. I don’t want it to just be structured, you know, the same prayer every day, because you get to a point where you just like go right through it, and then you’re not really talking, you’re not really opening your heart to God.”
Heading into the summer of his senior year of high school, Hemric saw the goodness of God play out in his life.
“I remember just that summer when I saw Him move through my life throughout summer ball, throughout going through that fall of my senior year, deciding if I wanted to play basketball or not, like just continuing to read the Bible and getting [in] His word every night and praying before I went to bed was big. And it was really big for my heart because I saw Him continue to move through my life,” he explained.
By anchoring his faith in Proverbs 16:3 and embracing open, honest prayer, Hemric found the spiritual resilience needed to navigate his baseball struggles and witness God’s guidance leading into his college career.
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