WHOA That's Good Podcast - How to Not Tap Out When Things Get Hard | Sadie Robertson Huff & Nick Vujicic

Episode Date: January 11, 2023

Nick Vujicic, known as the man without limbs, is living proof that God can use a man born without arms and legs to be His hands & feet in the world. Sadie and Nick talk about staying humble and how an attitude of gratitude is one of the best ways to pull yourself out of a dark, even depressed season. Nick shares his struggles with depression and loneliness and how being bullied when he was a kid led to believing the lie that he should take his own life. Thankfully, he wasn't successful and his mission now through his organization, Life Without Limbs, is to share the Gospel with as many people as possible. The next time you want to tap out because it's too hard, start counting your blessings, naming them one by one, and remember that Christ didn't call us to an easy life, but to love God, love others, and share the good news to everyone!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up, Phil? Welcome back to the Well That's Good podcast. Happy New Year, everybody. And welcome to the first episode of season eight of The Well That's Good podcast. You guys are so amazing. I hope your year has started off so strong. Let me just tell you, it's about to get stronger. it's about to get better, because we are kicking off this season 8 with an incredible person. Nick Boyachich, and I'm so excited to get to interview him. I've learned a lot from his life from afar. If you don't know about him, get ready. You're going to be totally inspired by the end of this podcast, and you have so many more resources after this. He's written books, he runs a nonprofit, he speaks all over the world

But I'm excited to have him on this podcast. So welcome, welcome to the show. Say, thank you so much for having me and hello to everyone and happy new year 2023. Here we come. Let's go. This is a great way to start the new year. We were trying to figure out from our team just who are we going to get to kick start the new year, the new season, and we thought of you and we're like, wow, this is the best, this is the best it gets. So we're so excited. All right, so you know, I have so many things to ask you, but I'll ask you the question and ask everyone who comes on the, well, let's go podcast first. And that is, what is the best piece of advice that you've ever

been given which I know big question to just drop on you. Yeah no look remain humble. If you if you step out of the umbrella of the covering of God's grace and mercy because of a lack of obedience or any source of entitlement. Deep down we know will never be perfect but man as soon as you feel that you've stepped out of the covering of the umbrella that's you got to just keep close to God. Never add or subtract to the gospel and be humble. Wow that is so good. We were just talking that last night we had a little house church. My grandma started a old school house church with a neighborhood. It was so sweet and so good.

And ultimately one of the biggest things we talked about was just the importance of humility. And I mean, it talks about it all throughout scripture. And so it's so important to keep that before front of your mind and your heart and I think it's hard because you I think also whenever you're really close to Jesus it's a natural actual response to be humble right if you're really close to the presence of God it will humble you and so I love that you said that it's fresh off of my mind from last night's conversation so that's super cool. You certainly are extremely humble for all the things that you do. Like I mentioned, you have written a book, have a

non-profit, speak over the world, all the things that you do, but you have such a humble spirit about you. And I know that comes out of your relationship with God and the mission that you're actually on to achieve what you're trying to achieve. And so I want to ask you for those who don't know your story. Tell us a little bit about your story and your life and what it looks like. Sure. Thank you.

For having me on your show, I love you and congrats and praise God for your ministry. I have to say that. It's such a honor to be here. Back in 1982, that's when I was born. I was born to immigrant parents from Serbia who fled communism Yugoslavia in the 1960s. I was their first born son. My dad was 27 when he planted his first church and then 11 months after the church plant I was born. My mom was also a nurse that she knew everything about medical pregnancy, both defects

when she saw me though. And everyone knew that I had no arms and legs was actually not during the sonograms or her pregnancy was actually once I was born. Every time they had an ultrasound, they got so excited that they forgot to make sure that I had my arms and legs. And the bone without limbs, there was no medical reason as to why this had happened. The medical terminology is called focumilia, meaning a baby born with limb deficiencies for no medical reason.

My mom and dad had a son and a daughter after me. Some first born of three, I'm the only one with disabilities and definitely tested, you know, my parents' marriage. Stretched them had to go through a lot of emotional grieving and shock, as you can imagine. And I knew I had no limbs, but I was always loved, loved in the church community with my 24 first cousins. I knew I had no limbs, I didn't think it was such a big deal until I actually went to school. God used my mom to change the education system of the state of Victoria in 1989,

allowing special needs children to go to a normal mainstream school. So for that I was actually named Citizen of Australia of the year in 1990 was on television and allowed pathways for people with all sorts of disabilities to be actually not segregated but integrated. In that went through bullying felt like God didn't make sense to me age eight I went into depression as much as I had a loving home I didn't feel like I had purpose or worth and especially the bullying magnified all the fear in my life about the future. I convinced myself I'd never get a job be independent be happy never get married never find true Age 10, I attempted suicide in my bathtub in six inches

of water and I was stopped by one thought realizing I'm going to leave just more pain with my parents. So age 15, I gave my life to Jesus. And it was a turn around of years of starting to be thankful for what I had, instead of being angry for what I didn't have. And the scripture that changed my life, Sadie, was John chapter 9, where Jesus heals a blind man from birth. And people asked Jesus, why was he born that way? And Jesus said it was done so that the works of God will be revealed through him. And what changed my life was not that he healed the blind man.

What changed my life is that the blind man didn't ask any questions and he didn't stop Jesus from doing the miracle. And that's when I realize whether God will heal me or not. If I don't get a miracle, I can still be one. And the greatest miracle of all is my soul being saved knowing Jesus and helping other people know that he loves him too. That's so powerful. My God. I am like, I can throw these notes out the window because you literally just in one wrap up of your story

went through so many things that I had even put down to talk to you about. And so I'm excited to kind of dig into some of the things you just said because you just said so many things that we can learn a million things from. I think one thing I do want to talk about is that age 10, you know, you had this moment where you were ready to commit suicide, which is such a prevalent thing that we're facing today and seeing this happen to so many people. And I think that

it's powerful that it was this one thought that kind of got you out of that. But coming out of that with this thought, how did you begin to just move forward in life? Did you still like suffer with that depression for a while? How did you begin to kind of come out of that darkness? Wonderful question. I was depressed between ages eight and 12 and by God's mercy and grace because I love soccer. I actually was on just a playing field with my friends and I actually hurt my little foot. Now I have no limbs, but on the

bottom left of my torso I have an appendage about two toes, little foot. I'm able to type 53 words a minute on a normal computer with my big toe and walk around to be mobile and swim and all these kinds of things. But I hurt my foot so bad, Sadie, that I was in bed for three weeks. And literally bed ridden. I felt disabled for the very first time, realizing in the context though that you don't know what you got to let's go on. realizing in the context though that you don't know what you got to let's go on. And I realized in life that many people have arms and legs, but arms and legs itself doesn't give anyone happiness. And I was hanging my hat on if I just had arms and legs and everything would be different. If my circumstance changed,

then I could be happy. And I realize I'm missing out on just being thankful for what I do have and doing my best and trusting God in the rest of however my life would look at that point. And so I think realizing the attitude or gratitude, counting your blessings, naming them one by one. And I had parents that were in refugee camps. My mom was kicked out of her own home at age six by the government. And so we talked about how blessed we are to have food in the table, that we have a roof over our head, that we have the freedoms that we have.

And so I think the attitude of gratitude was the beginning of just being and like saying okay maybe my world isn't crashing around me now but that didn't mean that I didn't have fear about the future. I mean I never thought I'd get married I thought even if I got married, I can't even hold my wife's hand. And me and my wife, we've been married now nearly 11 years. We have four biological children. We're looking at adopting possibly in 2023,

if God wills it. And it's amazing that God can use a man without arms and legs to be his hands and feet and travel around the world. And it was just, I think, though, the foundation of love and thanksgiving that started getting me out of that depression. I have to ask you this because, you know, a lot of young people listen to this podcast primarily in their 20s. A lot of people are trying to date, a lot of people are trying to find their spouse. And one thing that I've heard you talk about is just, I feel that you dated really well.

You set intentions. I don't know, all of the ins and outs of your dating life, but one thing I heard you say is, you know, it was never an option just to date to date. Like I always had the intention of getting married and I think that we've kind of lost a little bit of that I feel like when we were younger that was kind of grown into us, you know, like don't just say to date like date for marriage You know and I feel like we don't I don't hear that language in this generation a lot and when you said it I was reminded of you know what that's just a great thing to say.

That's a great thing not to say, but to live by. And so what did that look like for you? And how do you feel like that led you to your spouse? 25 years ago, Ish, I was very inspired by Rebecca St. James, who at that time was the number one leading, at that time was the number one leading purity message of a megaphone to the world. Good friend of mine now. I haven't seen it for a while but it was something that was drilled into us through her apart from our family and our conservative background. It me and and my wife, we've actually

covered in a book called Love Without Limits. And we talk about her life, my life, and our dating and coming together and basically helping people to believe that true love is still out there, that your spouse is out there. If that's what God has given you desire for, not everyone is to be married,

but this is a book to encourage everyone who still believes in that. And we open that up in our book. But Sadie, definitely I've had a unique time where when I was teenagers, you know, you like a girl, you got a crush on a girl, she just don't like you. Or you liked her before and you don't like her. Like we're not talking teenage stuff, right? I do talk about in that that there was someone that I was dating, but I wasn't good enough for her family. And it was a very heart-wrenching two years

after four years of being in love with her. And that was really, really hard. But at the same time, we know that when one door closes, another one opens, and when God says, notice something, it doesn't mean he's just going to leave you hanging there with free will, everyone has free will, and every story is different. For me, though, at that time, it was good because I was a bachelor running like crazy. And so I traveled 275 days a year for four years straight. I've done 2500 airplane rides in my lifetime. If you put all my flights together, I'd be up in the air for six months straight. And so with that, I was also wondering how am I going to meet my wife if I don't stop.

And along the way, I had a speaking engagement we met. And fell in love, love at first sight, couldn't fill my hands. And six months after that we started dating. And what was amazing was three months into dating I Lost I went through a personal financial crisis in 2011 and I said babe I lost all my money like lost most of the money lost my money She said that's okay. I'll get a nursing job and support the both of us and that that's when I'm like, oh my goodness, I want to marry you so badly now.

And so we talk about, yeah, 12 months of dating, six months of engagement, you know, we hear about all these stories of, well, everyone else is like, you know, we know we're Christian, we know we're gonna, you know, we know we're Christian, we know we're going to, you know, eventually get married. So it's okay if we live together. No, it's not.

It's okay if we sleep together. No, it's not. If your man of God can't put show you in action, God first now, how on earth do you expect him to show God being put first in your marriage if you can't put God first now? Do not fool yourself. You are believing an absolute lie, but that shame and guilt and condemnation. I want you to know that there is no shame in guilt and condemnation for those who increase Jesus because those are in Christ Jesus repent of your sin and find restitution for your soul. Stop with your unbelief. Yeah, that's great. God, it's so good. I heard you talk

about some of that in another podcast, but it's just so rich and so much of what you just shared, so many people need to hear. Well, something that struck me, I was watching your 60-minute interview and it was so good and your positivity was just like overflowing. I don't know if it's more positivity or just absolute joy as a strength from the Lord, but I was going to ask you like, is that something that comes naturally to you, but it obviously doesn't if you walk through depression, but it's more something that has been cultivated

in you. And so I think that that's a really cool thing because I think sometimes you look at people and you're like, oh, well, they're just naturally positive or they're just glass half full people or they can just take the worst of circumstances and just make a message out of it. But it's not that you've done that. You've worked through that. You've walked through it with the Lord.

And I think that that's something that is really cool to hear about your story that these things they don't come naturally to you, but they're cultivated in you through hard work and through faith. And that is so inspiring. Like with your foot, one thing that's so cool is I was watching that interview is you really do it all. Like you're golfing and you're swimming and you're typing and it's like this is so cool. As you started to do that with the, you know, the foot that you have, did you know you could do that or how did you even take a step of faith to be like,

I'm going to go swim because that seems so daunting, you know, even if you do have arms and legs for the first time. Yeah, look, my dad, he taught me how to float even before a new that I could float. Like at 18 months, he taught me how to float in the bathtub and it was more out of safety But then I would kick and then at age six I wanted to do what everyone else was doing and my parents always said you don't know Where you can achieve until you try and so it's embracing the fact that you know, you don't know What God can do until you you you actually hand over what you have to him. So when you look at the word disabled and you walk by faith and not by a sight, you put

a G-O in front of disabled, it spells God is able to do what? To do it, exceedingly, you're bundling more than you can ever ask, imagine or attain. And that doesn't mean though that I don't go through depression. I went through depression again in 2020 and 2021. I actually went through counseling in February 2020. Sorry, counseling, February 2021 and 10 hours of, a 10 one-hour sessions of just needing to talk about, you know, the people that made me feel betrayed over the last 20 years of my life.

Like, it's interesting, it's not just circumstances, it's circumstances that actually put on the radar screen the unearthing of things that we sometimes bury and bottle up along the way. And when you are someone that runs and is driven to see the kingdom expanded, you sometimes I think all of us at times on some level bottle up emotions and don't believe that we need always the heart and the mind to always be in the healthy connect. And that's what I actually had to go through last couple years and I want all our listeners to know that it's not about just the joy of the Lord and just hoping that 2023 is going to be good and we claim this in Jesus' name, it's going to be better. I'm kind of sick of all that as much as embracing the fact that you're going to have higher highs and lower lows.

We go through the ups and downs. Everyone in the Bible have ups and downs. And in that he ruthlessly perfects those for heroially elects. And there are Christians that are depressed, that go through different things. That I think we actually all need to tap into the gifts of what God's given us as well, meaning friendships, real friendships, counseling, real Christian counseling

and to go through that. And so it's not like you come to a point in your life and you feel like, okay, I'm stronger and are, you know, no, listen, you know, it gets worse. I'm going to share a couple of things, say, that you probably don't know. In 2020, when I stepped on the battlefield with my wife in the spirit to commit our 14 million social media fans and me meeting 24 presidents and traveling 78 countries, 35500 speeches, 1.1 million gave their life to Jesus Christ face-to-face, 750 million people have heard the gospel of Jesus Christ so far, another billion before 2028. We're so, so blessed with everything that God's given us, but when we stepped on that platform

for a life, within 16 weeks I got kicked out of my bank, I had a grenade at my house, I had a lawsuit against me, and the list actually goes on. And when we stand in front of the gates of Helen redirect traffic, it gets hot. And all these churches that are preaching, well just do this, just do this, and keep going, and you'll get to that pastor that you want to get to now some of us have been called to mountain ranges you know some of us have called to understand that there are mountains and after each mountain there's a valley and the god that I serve is the god of the mountain and the god of the valley and he teaches me and draws me into abiding him even more in the valleys than on the mountain. And so to understand that we're not here to be just comfortable and enjoy him and do what we are called to do, it's allowing him to refine us with fire to say, God, who are we? I mean, we look at Mary, right?

The mother of Jesus. Who am I? I'm not even of myself. You do with me what you want. That's the faith that we need to have in every circumstance, which guess what? None of us are there 100% ever, because we're all flesh. And so to die to ourselves daily, to understand that we're not just here to be blessed, but we're here on mission to love him.

Yes. Tell others about him, but to expect worst days ahead, I'm sorry, but you know, we can be optimistic, but when you go through that, you have that support based the counselor, the friendships, the books, podcasts, like Sadie, to encourage us along the way. Gosh, that's so good. I'm so glad you said that because that's something that we don't talk about enough. Um, even me, I mean, this past year has the past at least six months leading up into passion, comments and a couple of bigger things that we've done. Christian, I've been writing a book. We did passion, comments. We had our own conference. We had all of these things where it was just

ministry and seeing massive amount of people come to the Lord, but in our private life things that we never post on social media Is we were in the hospital for a little while with our daughter over the past three months. We You know also had a bomb threat situation happen. We've had so many bizarre scenarios and sicknesses and are scenarios and sicknesses and just scary things around us. And it was crazy because right after a passion conference this year, I got done speaking at the second one and I go back to my room and all my friends are in there and actually my counselor came to just be a part of it and my husband's there and I just start weeping. I could not stop crying.

And I was just like, I didn't realize how much pressure and how hard this has been until for a moment the pressure kind of came off for a second. It was like, okay, we did what God has been calling us to do. I mean, we're still doing so much more. This was just one of the things that God had called us to do and we did it. And then it was like, whew. You know, like, it was like, I got to let this all out. But it was so good to sit there and like, talk it out with my husband, talk it out with my friends. My counselor happened to be in the room and see me and it would be like, I'm going to be calling

you this week. And it was just so good. And so I can just attest to what you're saying that when you are following Jesus, I mean it's it's not shocking though when you read the word that we're going to walk into these things that harder days are to come. Right. But I love I just heard a message you know, Katherine Wolf. I don't I'm sorry. She's awesome. She um she had a massive stroke or aneurysm brain aneurysm right after she had her first born baby. But she's such a miracle she ended up having no baby, been married for gosh, I don't even know how long. Just speak your motivational speak. She's amazing. Love's Lord. And she's just said this at passion conference. And

I'm talking about that so much because we just came from it. And she said, you have stunning capacity to do really hard things. And I just love that. It was such a beautiful way of saying something really hard and true. You know that you have stunning capacity to do really hard things. And as a believer of Christ, don't tap out when it gets hard. You know, those are the times that you lean into the Spirit of God that's inside of you. You lean into the promise of do not be afraid for I will be with you. You know, lean into to the gospel what you're doing. So I'm just really glad you said that because

even I haven't shared a lot of those things. I haven't shared actually any of those things I just share because those are the things I keep private. There's the things I'm more like, well yeah, we go through this, but it's good for people to know. No, this is the reality of what it looks like. You know, a lot of times to respond to the mission that we've been called to. I love how you said so many of the things that you're doing and you'll have done massive things, but I know that it's not just like you're waking up and it's just happening. Like, you're setting intentions to do them. And I think that that's what's so cool. How do you push yourself to dream that big and to, because you say a billion people,

you say this many people have given up to Christ, like how do you even write that down? Is it something you sit with a Lord and a feeler? Is it just something that you're person like, you know what, as a believer, I'm called to this, this is what we're gonna set out to do. I believe we're all part of the great commission if we actually engage. It's good. And I think the church will be absolutely dead if they do not do two things, which

is reach the loss and actually disciple middle of the road, not two charismatic and not two conservative, not denying the power of the Holy Spirit, but not really emphasizing the gifts as much as the basics, which I think we've lost since 2005. So that to be prefaced in America generally. At age 19, I've had some conversations with the Lord, especially in the years of 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008. And I pressed into the Lord, he negated me a hunger for the lost. I would walk my dog, we tied the dog leash to my wheelchair, and I'd take my dog out for a walk,

but I don't go home until I told someone about Jesus. And until you're faithful with the little, he's not going to send you to the world. And that's when I bought domains like 7billionSouls.org. I knew I was called to the world. I knew the ministry in 2002 was called Life Without Limbs. And so I had a calling. It wasn't just someone sitting in the pew wanting to be part of somehow the

great commission, I wanted to be a champion for Jesus Christ and ambassador to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords and standing in front of the gates of Hell and Redirect traffic. And it was 17 years old where the janitor of my high school cleaning the toilets actually told me that I'm going to be a worldwide speaker to go around the world and I literally laughed at him. And he organized my first speech three months later and people were crying. And that's when I felt the call. And I answered the call.

I became an ordained minister of the gospel at age 19, which is 21 years ago now. And it's been an incredible ride. It really, really has. You can't do without a team. We have 17 employees. We have seven on the board or eight on life without limbs, but there's so much where I just turned 40 and it feels as though everything that's ever happened in our life to us or around us or how God's use us at this point,

to this point, it's only been actually preparation for this decade. We're really, really, really excited, really, really bullish on seeing, and yes, we do define those goals. We actually put them in board approved. We have strategy, we have blueprints of where and how with technology, translation, TV time, and we don't exaggerate our numbers. So we're really, really excited. We're now based in Dallas. We moved out of California in 2019, me and my wife, we told everyone we're moving from Cali Kelly and we're going straight to Dallas and

It's really exciting Sadie and I really believe these next two years The church is gonna have to make some really difficult decisions and I'm meeting 22 heads of denomination in five weeks from now face to face one on one back to back to give them basically The idea of Gen Z outreach. I think many people Feel like oh, I don't know even how to even think of me trying to reach someone else when my own local church just lost 30% of our attendance when my own local church just lost 30% of our attendance. So number one, pressing to Jesus, write down journal, whatever God's calling you to do, as crazy as those dreams might seem.

We know that we serve a massive God and there is no more important thing today, other than to love God with all your heart, your spouse, your children, then go and tell someone about Jesus Christ. And I really believe, say that if I could just say this as an evangelist, that's been to 78 countries, that's had closed door meetings with presidents. I was with Benjamin Netanyahu behind closed doors for two hours just months ago. We need to ask God to give us again the hunger for lost souls and teach the believers how to in three minutes share your story

who were you before you meant Jesus what it meant for you at that time or what it means to you as a life change that goes beyond values that goes beyond belief systems how has Jesus changed you? And I really believe that 2023 out of all the new things you could be doing, yes, sure, read your Bible, please go to church. Great, listen to the podcast. Great. But would you just write down your testimony and give God thanks that you actually got saved and then start praying daily for the people that you love who don't know Jesus When was the last time you prayed for your first cousin? Did you actually pray for your work colleague?

This is what I'm talking about. There are people who say oh God bless you love you. Oh, okay I'll pray for you. I'm praying for you and they're lying out of their teeth. I feel like this is the moment 2023 for your decision. There's a team to section where you're going to double down with Jesus. You're going to you don't need to be an evangelist or an ordained minister to preach the gospel. You tell people how Jesus changed your life, invite them to church and even if they don't come to church Jesus change your life, invite them to church and even if they don't come to church And even if they don't come to church will you at least tell them how you met Jesus? Would you start that conversation and say hey tell me what do you believe tell me your story and guess what what's gonna Happen when they're done telling you their story. They're gonna ask you for yours

Don't make an excuse as to why you haven't reached the 20 most close ones to you who don't know Jesus. You failed. You failed them. If today you die, you have you will be accountable to God if you died this hour. You would be accountable. It's not if it's's not a maybe, I sent you that neighbor. I sent you that first cousin. No one else but you at that point, I called you and you didn't answer. That has been lost generally in the church. Well, it's a need word for us. And honestly, I feel like we've been having this conversation a lot. You hear people say, God's in revival, we won't revival.

But then you don't see people who are walking revived by the revelation of who God is. And so until you have a revival of your own freedom in Christ and your testimony from dead to life and the revival that I cannot not tell somebody, then you're not gonna see revival because that is revival. That is how it happens. This is what he's talking about is the movement of revival. And it starts with you and it starts with your circle and your

20 people and then those 20 people and then they're 20 people and I love how John Piver says it he says, you know, God says you are called to be the Light of the world. City on Hill cannot be hidden and he says you are called to be a light of world. It's not you can be if you want to be, you know, it's a maybe, it's you are called. So you're either doing it or you're failing at it. And I think sometimes you really have to hear the harsh reality of that. You know, you are either doing it or you're failing at it. You know, as a Christian, as a disciple of Christ, are you doing what you're called to do? Are you engaging in the great commission? Or are you just sitting back and watching the world, you know, spiral? And I think it's hard because so often we get into this, we get into this fear-based mentality of where the direction of the world's going and how bad everything's looking. And I'm like, what are you doing? What are you doing to be a part of it? I always say, because so many of my, you know, people my age, we're all getting to the point

where we're having kids and they're like, say to you, are you just so scared to have kids in this time? I always say, you know what? No, because I'm raising image barriers. I'm raising the people who are going to lead others to Christ. I'm confident in what Christ has done in me and in our home

and how we're going to raise them, not there, not going to be perfect. I'm not expecting perfection, but I'm not scared of, you know, creating life that God's allowing me to create, that God's created in me because what is God going to do through them? I mean, even last night, honey was, you know, just being herself and she came and talked yet, but she just did something and Christian said, you know, she's going to be a gap bridge for people.

She's going to bridge the gap for different things. It's just I can see it and it's just such a leader. And we're just already seeing things and speaking them over her. Like, this is what we see in you. This is who you're going to be and it's not, you know, making her be anything other than who she is. It's just calling out what God actually did put in her, you know, that we already can see in her. And so I think, you know, you're so right. So let's stop for a second.

Write down your testimony. Remind yourself of who God is, who he is in you, what you're called to do, what you're capable of doing in him. And I love you said just write it down. Gosh, we we always have a team retreat at the start of every year and we also write down our strategies and our goals and what's going to happen. And it's amazing when we look back and we see all that God did that we wrote down. And it's not like, you know, people nowadays like, oh, you manifested it. No, we didn't manifest it. No. We intentionally sought after it with the help of the Holy Spirit and worked hard to do it, you know? And so I just love that, and I love that you said that. Tonight, I interject right there before you create a heart.

Yeah. When you talk about fire, that's one, that people get upset when I say, I don't pray for revival, because the way that it's done and the way that America understands it is, well, we're just praying that fire comes from heaven, that somehow evil people stop doing evil things. That's got, it's so far removed and disconnected. To the point that through the power of the Holy Spirit, you know knowledge and understanding that if you're praying for fire, you go and chop a tree down.

He gives you wisdom not to start trying to lie to match on a wet log. Try out the law. You're afraid of fire. Build the fire. You can't orchestrate the move of God, but God ain't gonna do what you're supposed to do. That's right. That's good. I love that. I'm like, yes, because I feel like we just we want these things, but then we're not willing to work for what the things that we desire God to do, but God's doing it through you. It's

like it's like it's like someone who's crazy obese who says I want to you want to be healthy, but they don't do anything about it. You know like a dangerously healthy unhealthy We got it. We're gonna understand that we got a we got we got someone that is an unhealthy state of a church and we talked too much about Tithing we talked too much about the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Holy Spirit We talk too much about the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. If I'm not saying that we shouldn't be talking about tithing, I'm not, but we gotta start telling the youth like, hey, let's go back to keeping your pants on

and what did you read from Monday to Saturday this week? What did you 16 year old teenager? Who thinks you're a Christian, right? Sorry to get angry, but that's what I think like the direction of things. Like you said, so many people are so concerned about which way the world is going. I'm so much more concerned of where the church is going. And until we teach our 16 year olds in the church to keep their pants on and actually read their Bible from Monday to Saturday, you look at that trajectory. I'm an investor. I love stock investing. You look at the trajectory, you look at real estate, you look at the church right now. If something don't change,

man, it's gonna be a remnant. But this remnant, Sadie, those who are listening to you, those who are reading the Bible, those who understand that fasting from food is powerful, those who understand that we are nothing without God, knowing that we could go home today and be okay. Having difficulties where we bury our loved ones from cancer because Christians die of cancer too, but also know that hope is real and that Holy Spirit is our refuge, but we've got our basics covered

and we love our Lord and we know that the Lord is with us. I'm praying not for revival in the way that America is praying for revival. I'm praying for a healthy church especially in Gen Z. Sorry, I just had to. It's good. Come on. I'm like, okay, agree. I'm praying for that too. I love that and thank you for praying for that. Thank you for believing in the younger generation and not only believing in them, but empowering them and speaking truth over them, because many people are afraid to speak truth. Many people want to be relevant and not be truth bears.

And I think it's so important that we are okay with the uncompterability of speaking truth because that is the thing that sets people free. And so I'm glad that you're saying it. Thank you for that you're saying it. I wanna ask you about the conference you have coming up. I know you're excited about it. And I know it's gonna be super impactful

for, so tell us a little bit about what's coming. Look, we're so excited. As we know 2022 Most of our churches talked about it The overturn a raviway a historical moment in America That we know that pro-life God loves all life life begins a conception and there though are still some people who don't know how to talk about this political issue. How do we engage as a church? How do we see that conversation happening wherein we can be the hands and feet to stand for life. Whether that's embracing and adopting a local crisis

pregnancy clinic, it's more of a movement toward healthy approach to the family affected with an unexpected pregnancy. Coming around the whole family, being able to talk about even having small groups in the church that do talk about PTSD from having an abortion. Having that conversation and setting it up for the next generation is well, where we understand that 25% of abortions plus of America for the last 70 million abortions were actually from people who said that they regularly attend church.

To understand that we have the power of God, that what the maybe our choices or maybe even it was a rape and very evil circumstances, but to see that whatever the enemy tried to use for bad God can turn into good and to actually have faith to believe that our God can actually not only heal anyone's heart, but through the church come alongside that woman and the family with the unexpected pregnancy with no judgment, with no preconceived ideas and thoughtfulness and training in how to actually embrace someone, how to get that conversation going, how to understand that reaching the loss in Africa is important, but also reaching that 16-year-old who's about to possibly take that pill or second pill for now chemical abortions in two to three years,

becoming 80% of how women have abortions. So this is a movement called Stand for Life, founded by Lauren Green McAfee, CEO Elizabeth Graham. And I am privileged to be some part of this ambassador ship to America. We're in genius, amazing God-given wisdom plan, blueprint, Sadie, where you and I know what would happen if every denomination came together and stopped being siloed, they're doing this for every pro-life aligned life collective nonprofit organizations, where they are doing think tanks reverse engineering the current needs of small medium and large

churches. How do we help the church be the hands-in-feet in the conversation of the holistic approach of coming to a woman and her family with an unexpected pregnancy? Go to stanforlife.com. There will be an annual conference. Many things will be determined this year of an annual rhythm, but it is going to be recorded this January 18th, 19th in Washington, DC. And we're recording all these keynotes. And it's going gonna go online. We're pivoted to online. It's gonna be the most amazing movement. 50 years needed and I'm so blessed. I can't tell anyone. In better words, then,

if you're a youth pastor or you're a senior pastor executive or you're remembering your church with or without your church but within your church bring this to them if you're interested on a senior pastor level or a youth pastor level or a church member you don't need your pasta to do something different. This might be the answer to your pasta's prayer By you learning and insigating this training material and actually a small group Curriculum it is unbelievable. It's unprecedented and this is a movement that I am willing to do whatever we need to do to awaken the church and get that tree cut like that fire when we talk about moving the needle for pro life in America.

That's good. That's great. Wow. Thank you. Thank you for saying all that and also just educating the church on what that looks like. I was thinking about this because I saw something online and it was like a group of women who were pro-life and they were saying, you know, choose abortion. I mean, sorry, choose adoption, choose adoption, choose adoption. And then these abortion people came to them and more pro-choice and they said have any of y'all ever adopted and none of them had and

It was just a really sad thing because they were saying, you know You should do this you should do this you should do this But then they were none of them had done that or none of them could say that they had helped in that way That they were saying the person should do but I I had to say, even though that was sad to see, I go to a church that has just really come around women in that season of life. And even our church, we do women's retreats. And that's last time we went on, someone stood up

and they just said, you know, when I was younger, I had an abortion, I made that decision and it was really hard and I carried shame for years. But this is what the Lord has done and I have several kids and after she shared her testimony several women stood up and said the exact same thing and they've carried so much shame and they just let it out. And I just saw the church just come around them and love them and support them and it was just a beautiful thing. I also have a lot of friends who have adopted kids from others who were going to choose that

but decided to choose adoption because they had that option and a friend of mine or an aunt of mine that decided to step in and love the family. So I've just seen the power of what it looks like to love people through that choice and to love people through providing life into the world that great decision of choosing life. And so I'm thankful that I've gotten to see that side of it. And so I'm grateful for the education and the tools that y'all are putting in people's toolboxes and churches to grow and to learn that because it's so true. If we can't, we got to be able to talk about it. And it's really hard to talk about, but it is something that because it's so true. If we can't, we gotta be able to talk about it.

And it's really hard to talk about, but it is something that you have to talk about because it's not like the problem is getting fixed or better as we stay silent. So I'm grateful for that. And so thank you for that. Thank you for everything that you shared. Thank you for speaking truth boldly,

but lovingly and we're grateful for your ministry all that you're doing for your family. And thanks for kicking off season eight of the world. That's good podcast. We appreciate you. You're such a beautiful soul for Jesus Christ. May God bless. May God bless you and your ministry and your family and your pregnancy. I love you. We respect you. We admire you and we cheer you on in the spirit. Thank you so much. That means a ton. Well, we love you guys too and we appreciate you so much. you