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The Conversation Podcast with Roxanne Grace
The Conversation Podcast with Roxanne Grace
Nick Vujicic | The Conversation Ep. 53
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Entrepreneur, internationally known speaker, and author, Aussie-American Nick Vujicic shares how to live a life for Jesus, how to overcome obstacles, how he overcame depression and much more on this week's The Conversation with Roxanne Grace.
*This episode is a re-edited version of our 2022 conversation with Nick Vujicic.
Hosted by Roxanne Grace, The Conversation is an interview show discussing music, faith and issues of the day with influencers, artists, entertainers and more.
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Hey, what's up? I'm Roxanne Grace, the host of The Conversation. Today we are chatting with Nick Voichich. You don't want to miss it, so sit back, relax, and enjoy the conversation. Today we're sitting down with the incredible Nick Voichich. Born without arms or legs, Nick has defied every expectation to become a world-renowned speaker, best-selling author, and entrepreneur. In today's episode, we're having a raw and inspiring conversation about the Great Commission and what it truly means to live a life for Jesus. Let's dive in. How are you doing, Nick?
SPEAKER_03I'm doing awesome. So lovely to be here with you. Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_00Well, the privilege is definitely mine. You have to be one of the most inspirational people around, so I'm crazy excited about today's conversation. We usually begin with a series of personality type questions. And yes, a lot of our listeners probably feel like they already know you quite well. Um, but today they're gonna get the opportunity to know you even better and hopefully learn something new about you. So don't think too much about the questions I'm gonna ask you. Just respond with what comes to your mind first. Are you ready?
SPEAKER_02Ready.
SPEAKER_00Let's go. First question: what is your favorite color?
SPEAKER_03It's either purple, red, or blue. It it just keeps on cycling.
SPEAKER_00Really?
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00We're already learning new stuff about you, Nick. What is your favorite food?
SPEAKER_03Uh lobster.
SPEAKER_00Nice. What is your favorite word?
SPEAKER_03Jesus.
SPEAKER_00Hallelujah. It's amazing how beautiful his name is. We can never grow tired of the name of Jesus. Nick, what makes you sad?
SPEAKER_03Um two billion people going hungry, 60 million slaves, 32,000 veterans in Dallas, homeless, 100,000 churches in America representing 480 billion dollars worth of debt while we have 440,000 foster care kids waiting to be fostered, 112,000 children waiting for an adopted home. And I think that the church is in a coma. That's what makes me extremely sad.
SPEAKER_00Incredible answer really makes you think. That's a very thought-provoking response. Definitely heartbreaking realities, and those statistics are certainly overwhelming. To flip the coin, what is on the complete opposite end of the spectrum for you? What makes you truly happy?
SPEAKER_03I know when I'm saved and I get to go home tonight and um and be with my wife and four children.
SPEAKER_00That's beautiful. Thank you for the reminder of what matters and priorities. You've already shared so much already. Okay, Nick. I know that you hear the voice of God in so many different ways and often, but if you could hear the audible voice of God today, what question would you ask him?
SPEAKER_02I don't have any questions. I don't have no questions, but I'll be listening when I see him.
SPEAKER_00Wow. Most of us would probably come with a list, and and kind of naturally so, right? Wanting to know like, is this right? How? Why? But choosing to wait and listen is incredibly powerful. That's profound. Thank you, Nick. And that's it for our personality questions. I feel like I know you a lot better. I think our listeners probably feel the same way. So let's go ahead and switch gears. I've heard quite a bit about your ministry throughout the years, and I know that my husband knows you as well. He and I both just love all that you're doing for Jesus. Could you tell us a little bit about your ministry, Nikki V Ministries, formerly known as Life Without Limbs, and how it all got started?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we are so blessed that um, first of all, when I was in high school, the janitor of God's gonna use you to go to the nations and preach the gospel. And I said, You're crazy. Uh, he asked if I would uh come to a talk that he would arrange there, and I said no for three months. Then I said yes, and people were quite deeply touched. Uh, by age 19, um, I said yes to some invitations that were birthed from that uh to churches and youth groups, and I was an ordained minister at age 19 as an evangelist to preach the gospel. Um I preached uh the gospel to about one-fifth of my city's population, uh, and then went around the world, uh, came to America at age 23 uh for 10 weeks at a time, twice a year. So part-time here and then full-time 05. Um, our nonprofit organization has four ministries to preach a gospel. We have the uh the outreach events in person, uh, including a big Jesus tent, which seats 6,500 people. Um, and when we have nights, uh hundreds of thousands of people tune in um live stream. We also have uh the burden to not just preach the gospel, but to help them grow in their relationship with God. So we have 300 videos in process right now to uh children, teens, general audience, and seniors um knowing how to grow their faith journey with Jesus Christ in a personal walk. Uh so discipleship videos, video library, digital ministries. Um, and then uh we've got our prison ministry. So we're in 114 prisons where 2,200 inmates gave their life to Jesus, went through our training program to then preach the gospel to other inmates and then hold Bible studies afterward. And lastly, we have a prayer and encouragement ministry um and a whole coaching, uh spiritual coaching team when they give the life to Jesus uh to talk to a real person. So out of nine and a half million people who've heard me speak on 3,500 stages in 74 countries, we've seen 1.1 million give their life to Jesus Christ, of which digitally 733 million people heard the gospel of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00Wow, praise God, hallelujah! You know, I just love that you're out there, truly out there doing the Great Commission. I mean, go big or go home, right? Um, no, that's crazy inspiring. When I watch your your life and when I hear the stories, I realize I have no excuse. I have zero excuses. We we don't have any excuse not to be doing it. And of course, it's the Lord that anoints us to do what we do. I mean, the Bible says in him we live, move, and have our being, but he's looking for our obedience as well. And he's looking for ones that will partner with his heart, and it's just beautiful because he's definitely found that in you.
SPEAKER_03Because of Jesus, you know, when people think, oh, Jesus could never have understood what I feel, really. Have you sweat blood out of fear? Because he did. So don't, you know, don't think that God don't know what you're feeling. Um, and sure, you know, he uses people like you know, you know, human beings that we can all name off the head of uh out of the head, you know, over the last 200 years that have been, you know, the big um, you know, um ambassadors of God along the way. But you know, we're all to stand in front of the gates of hell and redirect traffic. And if you're in a life that is going smoothly, you may not be standing where you should be. And so when it is rocky, we are not here to uh live the comfortable, smooth life. Uh, we are here not just to exist and coexist and love on God and God love us, but it's literally on mission. We are soldiers under command, and uh, we're really excited uh to encourage people how to also in the future uh become evangelists and street evangel do street evangelism. So our vision is to equip a million uh people to go and preach a gospel uh monthly, one day a month to 10 people. So 10 million to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ monthly. So that's that's our next goal and vision.
SPEAKER_00I seriously praise God for all that you're doing. I mean, you're all in for the one who's all in for us, and you're absolutely right. This life is not for us just to be comfortable. I mean, if we call ourselves believers, if we're Christ followers, then we are definitely here on a mission. I mean, think about this. If we were in school and our teacher or professor comes to us and says, I need you to do this assignment, we do it. Or if a boss tells his or her employees to do something, they do it. And of course they should be doing it. But how much more should we be obeying the one that we call Lord? Jesus is our Lord, and he gave us a great commission. You know, the Bible says in Matthew chapter 28, verse 19, he says, Therefore go, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Then Mark chapter 16, verse 15 says, He said to them, Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. You know, it's very simple. It's not always easy, but it's very simple. I mean, we're called to share the good news of Jesus and to help others follow him. Really, really simple. And uh, it definitely was not the great suggestion, it's the great commission. So you mentioned earlier a janitor. And it sounds to us like essentially he prophesied over you and spoke the word of the Lord over you. It's something really cool when something is from God. It kind of just breaks something open in your world and inside of you. And so I gotta know, would you say that's the defining moment that your desire to live for God was birth? Or were you raised in a Christian home?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so no, I was raised in a Christian home. My dad was 27 when I was born, and my mom was 25 when I was born. I was their firstborn. Uh, no limbs, no medical reason why. They had a son and daughter after me, my brother and sister with limbs. Um, they told me God had a plan. Uh, I went to church every Sunday, didn't understand why God would, if a loving God would be loving, why would He allow this to happen? Furthermore, where is my miracle if I have faith? Uh, I had faith, uh, and a miracle didn't come my way. Um, I was bullied at school, like most of us anyway, somewhere in the world. Um, but you know, my brokenness isn't more uh than others. You know, I I would be very sad for my friends whose parents were divorcing. I believe it's worse having your parents split in their marriage than having no arms, no legs. I know my friends would give up their arm or leg to have their mom and dad never fight. Um, and so brokenness is brokenness, but hope is hope. And for me, I was wondering where is that hope plan of future for me, according to Jeremiah 29, 11, of which I was seeking God and he didn't answer me. And so for two years, ages six, seven, eight, even though I was the first disabled student uh to not be segregated, uh, but to be integrated in the state of Victoria because my mom brought me to the education system and changed the law. Um, I was looking ahead of my life and everyone asked me, what do I want to be when I grow up? And I'm thinking, well, I'm never gonna get a job, never gonna get married, never gonna be a good father, I'm gonna be a burden to my parents. Uh, I just might as well disappear if I'm gonna be bullied for the rest of my life, and I have nothing to look forward to, no worth either. Feeling isolated, depressed, alone, and action, anxious, um, I attempted suicide at age 10. I went into my bathtub and tried to fill up my lungs with water. And the first two times I couldn't go through with it. The third time I was stopped by the mercy of God, seeing uh a picture in my mind of my mom and my dad crying at my grave. And I realized there's only one thing worse than having a son who has no limbs, who has no hope of future, it's that son committing suicide. So I didn't want to leave them with that pain, and so I decided to stay by the grace of God. Age 13, I was playing soccer on the field, and I hurt my little foot. So if you can't see me, you've never seen a photo of me. I'm 80 pounds heavy. Uh, and on the bottom left of my torso, I have a little left foot, uh, six inches long, two toes. I can type 53 words a minute on a normal computer. It's my mobility. Um, I golf, swim, fish, surf, scuba dive, and snorkel and all those kinds of things too. Um, and it's been an incredible um journey where coming out of that depression started with an attitude of gratitude, hurting my foot on the soccer field. And I realized I had a choice either to be angry for what I don't have or be thankful for what I do have. At age 15, I read John chapter 9, a man was born blind, and no one knew why he was born that way. And I related to that obviously. And Jesus said it was done so that the works of God would be revealed through him. And what he did was he spat in the dirt, made a clay, put it on a man's eyes, on the blind man's face. Now imagine if you're blind and you hear a chum, and then someone comes to you and they're giving you a facial, right? We say, Hey, wait, who are you? What do you want? What are you doing? Give me the plan, and then I'll tell you if I trust you. And that was my same disability. I wanted God to show me his plan, then I'd decide if I trust him. But here's the acronym for faith: F-A-I-T-H, full assurance in the heart. You know what that is? That's believing despite what you see, despite what you feel, and despite what you know. That everything you are is contrary to what God actually has for you. That's our nature, and so it's our nature to want to know, but he doesn't want our nature, he wants his nature in us, which is supernatural, which is faith. And so, what changed me was the blind man didn't stop Jesus, the blind man didn't want any disclosures of what's about to happen, and he allowed God to do his miracles, more than arms and legs, rescue my soul, restore my soul, give me your Holy Spirit and give me eternal life. Take my sins, my shame, my guilt, my past, and heal me. And if you heal my physical body, great. If you don't heal my physical body, great, just use me if you don't change the circumstance. At age 17, that's when the janitor came. Age 19 was my first international trip. I gave away $40,000 of my own cash to African orphans in South Africa. I saw blind see, deaf hear, lame walk exorcisms. Um, I've seen it, um, and I know that God is real. Um, and so when we walk by faith and not by sight, you know, He'll use the foolish things of this world to confound the wise. So I was not supposed to be an evangelist in my own brain, nor my parents' brain. Um, I was a mathematician, I was a chess player, um, I was an options stockbro uh stock trader uh at age 16, real estate investing 19, did a double major in accounting and financial planning, graduated 21. Um and so none of that, you know, was was lost. It's all used for the glory of God. Um, but you know, when when you when you when you put all this together, the knowledge, understanding, the wisdom, and discernment, and you answer the calling from the Holy Spirit, and you're in waltz, you're in dance, you're in lockstep with the Holy Spirit, not a step ahead, not a step behind, you know, God's glory is revealed. And and not to say that that I don't have fear, depression, and anxiety. I still go through ups and downs. In fact, 2020, when the crap hit the fan, uh, I think we all needed some counseling. I went through counseling and it actually unearthed 20 years of nine separate betrayals in my life uh over 20 years. I never got to talk to anybody in full. Uh, and I needed some healing. Um I was angry. I went through different emotions, and we all feel, and allowing the Holy Spirit to heal us of emotional things doesn't mean you don't feel it. It means that scars from the past became wounds from the past actually seal as scars. Uh, what we attend to to what we tend to do sometimes is continue to keep the wounds wounds and and choose not to forgive and choose not to uh move on uh in ways that we don't know on the subconscious until we actually have a Christian psychologist help us through.
SPEAKER_00We're taking a break from the conversation from OceanhouseMusic.com distribution 30 seconds spotlight. Today's spotlight is on a song titled Dive Into by Living Again.
SPEAKER_01Here's a little taste, dive into the ocean, dive back to your shore.
SPEAKER_00You've shared so much vulnerability about your personal journey through the challenges. And you've also shared so much with us already during our time together today. But for listeners out there who might be navigating their own dark times right now, what is some very specific advice you would offer them?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, great question. So, how not to get stuck in the yuck? Number one, write out 10 things that you're thankful for that you do have that did go well in your life, and then five last bad days that you've had that could have been even worse. So let me tell you my last five days, five five bad days. I found a grenade at my house, a spying drone, I got kicked out of a bank, I had a threaten of a lawsuit, um, false article published about me. My dad died in 2017, I nearly died in 2016. So, how could it have been worse? Uh, well, that I could have died. Number 20, 2017 with my father, I maybe didn't have the option of saying goodbye to him. Um, I got to say goodbye to him. We had many months together while he was suffering with cancer. Um the list goes on. You know, what if my child picked up the grenade that had a pin in it instead of my gardener finding it, right? Um, so many, many things that could have been even worse. And so what we really got to do is really acknowledge the miracles of God. And if you only pray for 20 seconds a day, you don't have a relationship with God.
unknownThat's right.
SPEAKER_03I'm sorry, but you don't. And so um, and so you gotta have that relationship with God and foundation, um, and having in-step relationship with the Lord. Um, in that. So, number one, attitude of gratitude on those things. Number two is processing your emotions. So, journaling, what I had to do is I called two different friends, alternating weeks, seeing how they're doing, they're seeing how I'm doing, they're praying for me, I'm praying for them. We all feel yuck. We all are stuck together, and we ain't gonna let each other be stuck for too long. And so, allow God to allow yourself to feel that stuck and yuck, but there is a point where you need to stop binge watching, binge drinking potato chips and getting up off that couch and doing something. Okay, uh, God ain't gonna do what you gotta do, He ain't just gonna give it to your lap. Uh, you gotta do what you gotta do, and um you gotta do your best, and then he'll do the rest. Okay. Uh, and so you gotta, you know, uh uh talk to some process emotions, but then short-term, mid-term, long-term goals, uh, do something. You know, how if you live in Dallas like I do, how many homeless are you going to feed that's veterans of the 32,000 homeless veterans in Dallas, 2 billion hungry, 60 million slaves? Uh, what are you going to do with all the unaccompanied miners that just crossed the border? Uh, national security threat. It ain't a political thing. It's not a political thing. Uh, it's a humanitarian disaster, national security threat. And so, how do we talk the way where that we talk and walk the way that we walk in a way that we love people, but we unapologetically stand on the truth? Um, you know, when you do these things where you're thankful for what you have, you process your emotions, you help someone else in need, that's the recipe, if you will, with a relationship with God and talking to the Holy Spirit, uh, memorizing scripture. I don't think the church has how many memories, how many scriptures have you memorized these last four weeks, right? And so, how do we do that? And and if without that, then we don't have what we really need to have. You know, when the devil tempted Jesus, you know what he said? He said scripture, and you know what else he did? He fasted for 40 days. Uh, when was the last time you fasted of food? Name the Christianese New Year's resolution. That's not what fasting was about.
unknownThat's right.
SPEAKER_03It was about with petition, prayer, thanksgiving, presenting your request to God and putting on the armor in a way that can break strongholds that prayer itself. I don't care what prayer you're gonna pray, I don't care what gift in your prayer you're gonna have, you are disabled without fasting of food. Period.
SPEAKER_00Thank you very much, Nick, for not sugarcoating and for challenging us to live a higher standard in our daily walk and our obedience and of course our mission for Jesus. Thank you. It's so obvious that your heart is in the Lord because The Lord's heart is for people, and so is yours. Before we finish, what's one more thing you want to say to listeners right now?
SPEAKER_03Jesus loves you. And Jesus' last prayer was, May we be one. He never talked about denominations. You and I, who are not in a coma, who might be wounded, but you're awake and you're listening to the Holy Spirit now. He loves you, he'll redeem you, he'll hold you, he'll carry you, and he'll never let you go through more than you can handle. If you're struggling with sin, remain under his wing. Tendencies to sin is for all of us. But if you deliberately keep on sinning, is your choice. As we by the Holy Spirit choose righteousness and hunger and thirst, therein his mercy and grace is sufficient. He's not gonna change your heart to believe that the temptation is taken away as proof that it is sin. If he takes away your temptation, then God's a liar. But he's not a liar, and he never changes. So don't say the prayer, well, give me the conviction that it's sin. Some of our hearts are already callous, and if your heart's callous, then look up the scripture as is and see where you stand with him. And any wicked way in us can be cleansed, fully redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. There is nothing he cannot forgive nor redeem. No abortion, no addiction, no choice, and no category of sin. God doesn't have a category of sin, it's black and white written in the word of God, your sin. Find it where it is, ask him to lead you, make your life right with him today. Stop doing it your way, do it his way. Stop doing your plan, do his plan, because his plan will always be better than yours. It may not always make sense, he may give you broken pieces, but you don't know what beautiful things can come from broken pieces when you give your broken pieces a chance in the hands of the one who could do all things. And if God can use a man without arms and legs to be his hands and feet, then God can use any willing heart.
SPEAKER_00The episode you just heard is a re-edited version of the original interview that we did with Nick a while ago. So keep in mind that some of the statistics and information shared today are not necessarily up to date. Maybe you're listening right now and you're wondering, how can Nick have that kind of joy and sense of purpose without arms or legs? Well, I feel completely broken. Well, the secret isn't Nick's strength, it's Jesus. Nick found a savior who took his brokenness and gave him a brand new life, hope and purpose. And Jesus wants to do the exact same thing for you. He doesn't promise a life without trouble, but he promises the save you for the punishment of sin and give you eternal hope. If you want to step into a relationship with Jesus today and invite him to be Lord of your life, allow me to lead you in a prayer. Let's pray right now. Heavenly Father, I know that I am a sinner in need of a savior. Thank you for sending Jesus to be that savior. Thank you that Jesus died and he was buried and he rose again three days later and is now alive. I make a choice today to turn off that path away from you and to turn and to follow you as my Lord. Jesus, come be my Lord. Help me to live for you and fill me with your Holy Spirit. In your name, Jesus, we pray.