Nick Vujicic is a preacher and motivational
speaker of repute. He is in a class all by himself.
His passion and energy is experienced when you
encounter him. Whether it is a 500 or 5,000-
man crowd, the feel is the same. He conveys his
message with such vibrancy that you have no
other choice but to be moved to decision and
action. His joy is almost palpable. He is a
walking fireworks exhibition. You could call him
mischievous and sarcastic. He is known to be
naughty and full of pranks. In a nutshell, there is
no dull moment with Nick.
From the Americas to Asia and down to
Africa, the voice and testimony of Nick has
resonated with distinct tonality. His words
reverberate of hope, joy and confidence in God.
His has affected the lives of almost everybody he
has ever encountered. You could say Nick is has
a perfect life. You would almost envy him until
you saw him. Despite his large, joyful heart and
strong convincing voice, Nick strikes a rather
unusual stature: HE HAS NO ARMS OR LEGS!
Nick Vujicic was born on the 4th of
December 1982 to a Serbian family. He was
born with a rare disorder: Tetra-amelia,
characterized by the absence of all four limbs. In
early childhood, he contemplated suicide, but
later became grateful for his condition when he
realized his life and accomplishments would
inspire others to strive for an even better
excellent life. In 2005, he was nominated for the
"Young Australian of the Year" Award. In 2010,
he published his first book, Life Without Limits:
NO ARMS, NO LEGS...GREAT SMILE, GREAT HEART.
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Inspiration for a Ridiculously Good Life. Vujicic
also has a motivational DVD (Life's Greater
Purpose) amongst other media, and a short
documentary filmed in 2005 highlighting his
home life and regular activities. He won the
award for Best Actor in a Short Film for “The
Butterfly Circus” which won the Doorpost Film
Project's top prize of 2009 and the Best Short
Film award at the Method Fest Film Festival.
Butterfly Circus also just won the Best Short Film
at the Feel Good Film Festival in Hollywood in
2010. In all, despite his limitations, he has lived
a full life characterized by joy, laughter and
impact.
You can read more about him and his work
at “www.lifewithoutlimbs.org”.
Someone once said that the problems we
have are not really problems in themselves,
rather it is our perception of difficulties and
strains that constitutes our greatest challenge.
We tend to focus more on what we don‟t have
and hereby, loose focus of what we have. Due to
our selfish nature—a nature that always aims to
acquire and hoard—we look out our windows
for more things to acquire rather than keeping
our sights locked on what we have and the
possibilities they hold within them.
At the beginning of this present economic
recession, I heard a rather disturbing story. A
billionaire that committed suicide because he
went to bed a billionaire and woke up a
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millionaire. He was so upset, he took his life.
That, to me, was one of the most pathetic twists I
had ever of. This man had hundreds of millions
of dollars stacked up in bank or locked up in
assets, and just because he lost a few millions,
life had no meaning for him. Talk about focusing
on what you do not have. Some have everything,
but one thing and will work themselves to a halt
wishing they had that one thing.
I challenge you to REPENT, and by that I
mean this: Change your thought pattern. Take
your mind off your inadequacies and focus on
what you have within and around you, and work
them until they bring out the best in and for you.
I can‟t recall exactly when I developed my
speech impediment, but I attribute it to a bad
habit of imitating my dear friend who was an
established stutterer. For as long as I can recall,
after my string of bad jokes and pranks, I have
had to stammer my way through words. It has
come with the almost usual anger management
issues probably because of the difficulty of
expression associated with the disorder. The flip
side was a life of characterized by fewer words
and more actions—fewer words because I chose
which of the two options took the less time to
accomplish. I would rather than hit someone that
annoyed me than explain how they had upset
me. I was an angry teenager, withdrawn,
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because I didn‟t want to suffer through many
words, and edgy, because I chose action over
words. It was a dark season of my life, but there
was light at the end of the tunnel.
It took years for me to shift my focus off my
speech limitations and unto other strong areas of
my life. I was almost forced to repent when I had
to answer my call to ministry. I was asked to be
the Pastor of my church on campus. Being a
Pastor meant having to speak publicly at least
twice every week. How was I going to transition
from hardly ever engaging in long discussions to
joggling leadership training meetings, counseling
sessions and sermons? Those were too many
words—too fast, too soon! There had to be a
radical change in my mentality if I was going to
pull this off! God sent me the much needed
help.
At the edge of my ponder, I encountered this
text:
My grace (My favor and loving-kindness and mercy) is enough for you…for My strength and power are made perfect (fulfilled and completed) and show themselves most effective in [your]
weakness. Therefore, I will all the more gladly glory in my weaknesses and
infirmities, that the strength and power of Christ (the Messiah) may rest (yes,
may pitch a tent over and dwell) upon me!1
This was God speaking directly to me! My
weakness was going to showcase the strength of
God. That meant that despite my inadequacies, I
was still going to make an impact so long as I
kept my eyes off my short-comings. This was a
great encouragement to me. It spurred me on. I
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chose to harness my strengths as best I could,
while I trusted God to show up for me, filling my
inadequacies and shining my strengths. He did
just that! And by the way, I went on to deliver
some of the most profound sermons ever! I
remember one particular sermon that had me
running between cities preaching and re-
preaching it. People gave testimonies of how my
messages had moved them into new realms in
their lives. It was not my power, but God acting
through my weakness to bring about life change.
I also recalled the story of Moses. He had a
speech impediment like me, but was called to
speak to the greatest ruler in all the earth, and
he did that marvelously well and with all the
power necessary to do so.
The Midianites had terrorized the Israelites
for many years and now there was need for a
deliverance. God needed a man to champion
this cause and He saw that man in Gideon. In
God‟s sight, Gideon was a mighty man of
valor—a superhero, in our terminology—but
take a look at Gideon‟s perspective of himself.
Gideon said to him, "Me, my master? How and with what could I ever save
Israel? Look at me. My clan's the weakest in Manasseh and I'm the runt of the
litter."2
In other words, Gideon saw himself as the lowest
man in the lowest family in the community. There
was nothing lower than this. His sight was fixed
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on what he was not. He didn‟t share the
perspective of the one who had created him.
This shows that our minds can be so taken by
thoughts of our deficiencies that even God could
not change our thinking if care was not taken.
In my book, BECOMING THE ORIGINAL
YOU, I make it exceedingly clear that without a
healthy esteem of ourselves, we could never
attain all that we have been designed to. One of
the oldest tricks of the devil is robbing you of
your confidence and hence your sense of
authority. If you don‟t think you deserve
something because of a limitation you have, you
will never be able to drum up the confidence
necessary to get it. It‟s plain and simple: you
must learn to attack the world and your
opportunities from your area of strength. The
worst thing a coach could do is place an
attacking player in a defensive position. The
player will never operate to his optimum. The
player has been asked to work from his area of
weakness. In this place of weakness, there is no
strength.
We must look beyond what we do not have
and process what we do have until it can fetch us
what we want. We can‟t afford to waste our lives
in covetousness, jealousy and envy. We can‟t
waste our time depressed about what we lack
when we have not maximized what we have in
our hands.
In 1 Kings 21, a King lost his life, his wife
and his posterity all because he wanted a
vineyard that belonged to one of his subjects.
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The King had seen this vineyard which happened
to be close to his palace and wanted it. He
wanted it so bad he couldn‟t sleep or eat. He
was rich and had the wealth of the nation at his
disposal, but his focus was on a little vineyard he
couldn‟t have. His wife, Jezebel, went on to
frame and kill Naboth, the owner of the vineyard
so that her husband could get his peace back. It
is what you focus on that has the most value
before you. And in the sight of King Ahab,
nothing was as valuable as that piece of land.
Absolutely nothing! He lost everything (including
what he had) and everyone because of it!
When God was ready to use Moses, He
asked him one question.
What is that in your hand?
Moses had spent the most of the preceding text
listing out the limitations that would stop him
from achieving his assignment, and what does
God say? „Don‟t list out what you do not have,
tell me what you have.‟
In Mark 6, we see Jesus moved with
compassion for the crowd that had been
following him for days now. He thought they
needed food. When the question of feeding
arose, the disciples were more concerned with
what they didn‟t have and what they couldn‟t do
rather than what they did have. In the end, Jesus
teaches the value of the power in what you have.
He blessed the five loaves of bread and two
fishes, and when five thousand men, asides
children, were done eating, there were twelve
baskets of food left. What you have now is more
than you need to impact the world.
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Our greatest victories and conquests lie
within our abilities to discover, develop and
deploy our potentials. You are about to start that
business and you have spent weeks and even
months listing out what you do not have. I
challenge you to draw a similar list, but this time
outline what it is you have. It could be
relationships or resources. It could be your
capacity to analyze in ways nobody can. It could
even be your voice ( I am drawn to the voice
behind CNN‟s “This is CNN.”). Whatever it is it,
bring it to focus.
You have been blessed with something.
Don‟t tell me you don‟t even have one gift. Kirk
Franklin is not one of the tallest men alive, even
by a long shot, but He is one of the most
prominent voices in the music industry, and not
just for his beautifully written and produced
songs, but also for his piano-playing style. He is
respected for his strengths and we all barely
remember that his is only 5-foot, 4-inches tall! I
challenge you to develop a mindset for your
positives and watch as you rise to a place of
prominence.
I have one more challenge for you. It is a
double-edged challenge. I want to challenge you
to joy and gratitude. This is the key to this new
mindset I speak of.
I challenge you to JOY because I want you
to break away from the tendency of allowing
your outward circumstances detect how you feel,
what you do and thus, what you become. I
challenge you to JOY because I want your
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confidence and expression to be the product of
your heart and not your senses or acquisitions. I
challenge you to JOY because I want you to
draw from the strength that comes from being
joyful. Joy is unattached to the prevailing
circumstances about you. Joy is your Valium® in
the storm. It naturally leads to peace. It is what
holds your head up when you have had your
application denied 10 times; it is what makes
you apply for the 11th time. Joy knows that you
have been blessed with talents that make you
unique and as such generates a level of
confidence necessary for sailing through the
storm without being beaten down and drowned.
Joy says, „Even if I don‟t have 1, 2, 3, I have 4,
5, 6, and that is enough to give me all I need
including 1, 2, 3.‟ I Challenge you to JOY
because “A cheerful heart brings a smile to your
face; a sad heart makes it hard to get through
the day.”4 and “A miserable heart means a
miserable life; a cheerful heart fills the day with
song.”5 I challenge you to JOY because “A
happy heart is good medicine and a cheerful
mind works healing, but a broken spirit dries up
the bones.”6
On the flip side, I challenge you to
GRATITUDE because even when you consider
your outward circumstances, I want you to do so
knowing it could have been worse. You have a
job you do not really enjoy, be grateful because
there are people without job for years, praying to
get a far less-paying, much more stressful job. I
challenge you to GRATITUDE because I want
you to be thankful for what you have rather than
complain about what you do not have. I
challenge you to GRATITUDE because it opens
doors for you—it grants assess to realms that
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complaining could never. I challenge you to
GRATITUDE because it says. „I thank God for
what I have now and believe He can give me
what I need.‟ If you are thankful for what you
have, you immediately begin to unlock its
potential. Thankfulness focuses you on the giver
of gifts rather than on the gifts—this opens the
doors to an abundance. I challenge you to
GRATITUDE because it multiplies what little you
think you have ( Compare five loaves and two
fishes to the five thousand plus people who were
fed by it).
Sometime ago, I read a story of a rich man
who made it his duty to taunt his poor neighbor.
He made a habit of intimidating his
underprivileged brother, but one encounter
changed this trend. The poor man had been
pushed to the wall by the egoistic mannerisms of
his compatriot, and one day, he snapped. If he
was going to remain confident and with a
healthy self-esteem, he would be forced to see
the value of what he had and not worry about
what he didn‟t have. His new reality coincided
with another bout with his rich friend and it went
thus.
Rich man: “Why have you chosen to block the
road with that your rusty old bicycle? Didn‟t you
see me coming?
Poor man: “Yes, I did, but I didn‟t know that my
rickety bicycle would proof a blockade for your
big car.”
Rich man: “What do you mean by that?”
Poor man: “All I have is a bicycle and yet I am
proving a challenge for you. What would
happen if I had a motorcycle or even a car? And
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by the way, if you are so rich, why can‟t you
afford a common bicycle?”
The poor man walked away with a broad smile
on his face. Today, he had finally stood up to his
neighbor. Never again would he feel sorry for
himself and intimidated by those who had what
he didn‟t.
One look at Nick Vujicic and you
immediately catch the image of a man who has
decided to work with what he has, no matter
how little it might seem. Today, he sits amongst
the ranks of men who have radically impacted
the lives of fellow men and women. Now, what if
he had focused so much on his lack of limbs (his
weakness) to such extent that his strong voice
and energy (his strengths) echoed the fact that he
was limbless? He would then have used his
God-given strengths to make obvious his
limitations and thus, sabotaged the impact he
now has.
“Most of us have used our strengths to promote and exalt our weaknesses. With our lips
and deeds, we have made obvious our inadequacies and downplayed the vigor of our
forte.”
The world is waiting on you to use what you
have. The whole earth is waiting on your impact.
And remember…
Isn't it obvious that God deliberately chose men and
women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses…to put the wise to shame, and what the world
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calls weak to put the strong to shame.7
References: Nick‟s story is from Wikipedia 12 Corinthians 12:9 (Amplified Bible) 2Judges 6:15 (The Message) 3Exodus 4:2 (Amplified Bible) 4Proverbs 15:13 (The Message) 5Proverbs 15:15 (The Message) 6Proverbs 17:22 (Amplified Bible) 71 Corinthians 1:27 (The Message & Amplified Bible)
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