Nick Vujicic

5 minute read

I have a lot of fun traveling around the world and, and every time I get on stage, I tell everyone that we all carry brokenness. I could turn to a teenager and say, I don’t know how it feels to be in a broken home. I don’t know how it feels to be verbally abused. I don’t know how it feels to have never met your dad or to wish you didn’t have the dad you did. I may not know the specifics of your brokenness, but I know that we are all broken and that brokenness is brokenness.

I also know that when there is hope, there is real hope. Because if the hope in God is true, which we know it to be, then it should be the same for everyone. If God is who He says He is, then He can heal any broken heart.

Again, you can have almost a perfect outward appearance, but hidden somewhere inside you there is anxiety, depression, addictions, or thoughts that oppress you. What I want to do is share with you the difficulties that I’ve gone through, not so that you feel sorry for me, but so that you understand that we all go through those dark times, and we all need that light and that truth. We all have dreams deep down within. Sometimes life gets so difficult, we don’t believe it could ever get better. Sometimes we give up on our dreams.

Sometimes we even think we should just give up altogether.

I had times like that. But then the Lord led me to read John chapter nine. There I read the story about a man who was born blind. Jesus came through the man’s village, and they asked “Jesus, why was this man born blind?” Their questions mirrored my own. “Lord, why was I born this way?”

In Jesus’ response, I found the answer that I’d been looking for my whole life.

The people asked if the blind man was born blind because he had sinned. They asked, “Did he sin in the womb?” They asked if the man was being punished for sins he committed in a former life or if his blindness was punishment for his parents’ sin. The people of the town believed that the blind man’s difficult circumstances must have been a divine punishment for some sin somewhere.

Some of us still think this way. We believe that if we are in difficult circumstances that it is because we have messed up, we’ve brought it on ourselves by displeasing God. We believe that those who are walking in blessings must have earned it. This idea goes directly against Scripture. We see this when Jesus heals the blind man. He doesn’t ask for the man to repent or to change his ways or to stop sinning. The man didn’t have to do anything to earn his miracle. God gave His love freely, prompted to act by His own goodness. The only thing the blind man had to do was receive his healing.

That may seem like an obvious thing to do. Of course he would want to receive his healing. But think of it this way. Jesus healed the man by spitting in the dirt and rubbing the mud on the man’s eyes. He didn’t ask the man. He didn’t tell him what He was doing. The man hears his neighbors arguing about what he had done to deserve his blindness. Then he hears a strange man spit before feeling Him wipe mud on his face.

I would have understood if the blind man had said, “Who are you? What are you doing? I didn’t ask for a facial.” But the blind man stood still. And then he saw! Reading that story, I asked the Lord’s forgiveness.

I was convicted by the faith of that blind man. For so much of my life, I had been bargaining with God. I wanted God to explain Himself to me. I wanted Him to tell me the plan. I wanted Him to prove to me that He was trustworthy, and then I’d choose whether or not to trust Him. But that blind man didn’t ask for an explanation. He trusted Jesus completely, no questions asked.

You see the epiphany of this side of heaven is believing that God is loving and trusting in Him. Even when things are bad, you still say, “God, I trust Your word, that all things come together for the good of those who love Him.” When you know you’re at the end of your strength, and you though still hold onto God and say Philippians 4:13, “For I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” It is not when things are going well that you feel the greatest. It’s when you know the faithfulness of God is all you need to carry you through.

I want to end with this. I want you to know that God loves you. Regardless of your circumstances, regardless of your brokenness, know that God loves you. I want to tell you, I’m sorry if you’ve ever gone through any harsh circumstances. I’m so sorry. But while God didn’t bring your pain, know that He can use it. When you entrust God with your broken pieces, He can use them to make something beautiful.