NO ARMS, NO LEGS...GREAT SMILE, GREAT HEART.

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.

2

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


3

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doorpost_Film_Project

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doorpost_Film_Project

http://www.lifewithoutlimbs.org/

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,


4

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


5

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


6

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.


7

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.


8

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


9

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


10

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


11

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


12

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)


13

NO ARMS, NO LEGS...GREAT SMILE, GREAT HEART.

Documents

Transcript of NO ARMS, NO LEGS...GREAT SMILE, GREAT HEART.