Q&A With Koloff- #107

This is Andy Thomas from the masculine journey podcast where we discover what it means to be a wholehearted man. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just seconds.

Enjoy it, share it. But most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network. The following contest is set for one flaw. Introducing first, from Lithuania, he weighs 123 kilos, the Russian nightmare, Nikita Kolob.

Now, the devil's nightmare. Welcome back to another episode of It's Time to Man Up. I've got two gentlemen in the studio today, happy to have in studio with me today, Jon Bonick. Jon, welcome to the Q&A show with Kolob. Nice to be here, man.

And Ed Snidecki. I nailed it, didn't I? Yes, you did. You nailed it. Come on. Great to be here.

Great to have you guys in studio. You know, for the Q&A with Kolob, it's always fun because most of the time I have no clue what I'm going to be asked, you know? And so it's a pretty organic conversation. But before we get there, though, Ed, I want to talk about this trilogy that's sitting in front of me here. These books that you've written, Overcoming Unbelief trilogy, A Body Rising, People in Place, and Redeeming the City. You're a business guy.

Yes. You've authored some books. How has that worked coming from the marketplace, you might say, or the business world? You have, I think you said, a construction company.

That's correct. And how long have you had that, by the way? I've been in the industry over 40 years. I incorporated it in 2005.

Okay. But I've done a lot of subcontract work in between there. I know you're Charlotte, North Carolina area? Yes, mostly.

Okay, mostly in Charlotte, North Carolina. And I know you've celebrated not long ago an anniversary, a wedding anniversary of how many years? Forty years. Forty years.

Wonderful years, yes. Now, I know they call it 25. Isn't that like silver and 50s, like golden or something? It's 40.

Is there anything for that? I don't know. I'm just... Wife's anniversary. Wife's anniversary. It's always wife's anniversary. That would have been John, by the way.

That would have been John. So, wow. Well, congratulations on 40 years of marriage and, of course, success out there in the marketplace, it sounds like, as well. But inspired to write some books. Tell me about that. I know John was instrumental in helping getting these books into print form, but what brought the inspiration? What brought the desire to... Well, it never was on my bucket list to be an author and write books and do any of that stuff. I always looked at those people as those people that write books. I hear you.

Yeah. And I started having encounters in the morning at my morning devotional time. The Lord showed up, and through him showing up, I was able to record these encounters and we put them in the books. And I didn't know if these were for me or if they were for the body of Christ. And I said, Lord, one morning, I said, Lord, are these just for me or are they for the body? And I'm standing at the window of my kitchen, looking out the window, making a cup of coffee, doing the man thing, making the coffee. And Holy Spirit says, you see that flower out there? And I'm thinking, flower. I said, yeah, I see the flower. He said, that flower is just as beautiful for one as it is for many.

And I got my answer just like that. And that's how he spoke to me through the whole trilogy. I would ask him questions. He would give me answers. Holy Spirit would be on my left side. The Lord be on my right side.

They'd be leading and guiding me through adventures in the spirit realm. And it was just absolutely amazing. And I got to record that. And through that, the books came. And the word adventure. And I think sometimes people don't realize that serving God, having a relationship with Jesus, is really just that. Or at least can be and or should be, maybe we say, right? An adventure, right?

Because it really is, it really can be an adventure. And John, that's where you kind of tie into this. So Ed then, I think, approaches or starts sharing some of these encounters with you? He just shared these with me. And I knew something was on them. I mean, we're together at Morning Star. We're elders at the church. And so when he shared this, I knew something was on it.

And I said, give me more detail. And so when he started, every morning, and he goes to work after this, but he'd be getting up early and early or every day. Now he's up at five or 445 or whatever. And he puts aside his communion or his coffee or whatever. And he just starts with the Lord. And these big things start happening. He starts seeing them. And he sends them to me. And all I could do is say, send me more.

And I just, as an editor, I just started editing them. We didn't know what was going to happen. As it just continued, this was something that neither of us had planned. Didn't know where this was going until basically we were almost done with it.

And we just saw how profound the complete story was that the Lord had been showing Ed day by day by day and building the story about the body of Christ and what the Lord is going to be doing and is doing now in his body on earth. And just may I jump in here a minute? In what was so hysterical, I think, about this. John calls me up and he said, do you know what you're doing? I said, yeah, I'm waiting on the Lord and I'm just recording what he's showing me. He said, no, do you know what you're doing?

I said, what do you mean? He said, you've developed the plot. You've developed characters. You've developed the theme. You've developed this whole story. I said, I'm just scribing for Holy Spirit.

That's what I'm doing. And like I said, I'm just a common everyday guy working construction and the Lord did this. And he's going to do this for more and more people out there. I'm just telling people, get ready because the Lord is opening up the spirit realm for us to have more contact with him. So your target audience, would you say, Ed, would you say your target audience is anyone, and John, you can jump in on this too in a minute here. Anyone who would have a desire to draw, I'm reminded James 4-8, right?

Draw close to me, the Lord says, and I will draw close to you. And sounds like that's what your desire was. So would you say your target audience is man, woman, or child, anyone desiring to have a closer walk with Christ, a closer, more intimate relationship with Jesus? Would you say that that's your target audience? I would say that's part of it. I would say this is even targeted for the unsaved audience.

And the reason I say that, and do we have time for a little testimony? A guy by the name of Robert. Robert puts gutters on for me on different job sites. He's about six foot four, he's got a long gray beard, almost down to his stomach, piercings, tattoos all over his body from when he was in prison. Okay, so he's a rough guy. And so I says to him, I felt like the Lord said to me, ask him what he thinks about God.

So I'm thinking, okay, this guy's pretty rough here. So I say, hey Robert, how's your relationship with God? And he looked at me and he said, I'm all right. That's all he said.

I'm all right, leave me alone. I said, well that's good. And he said, I got more Bibles at my house than I can even take a look at.

People give me Bibles all the time. He said, I ain't opened up one of them. He said, but I can't open a bookstore. I said, well that's really good.

He said, then he looked at me and he said, I'm more of a spiritual kind of guy. Okay. And that's what I said, okay. I said, I got a book for you. He said, you do? I said, yeah. I said, and I turned, I said, see those windows?

I pointed up to where our house was. And I said, see those windows up there? He said, yeah. I said, one morning I was sitting there just minding my own business. I said, then the next minute I was in a totally different realm and I was seeing things from God. And he shuddered, this guy, he shuddered and he goes, really? I said, yeah. And anybody that gets the books, I said, the first thing he showed me was a body laying on the ground with no head on it. I'm telling this to Robert.

He goes, no head? You know, I mean, he's, he's seeing. You had his attention at this point. Yes, I did.

Yeah. And I said, I'll get you a copy of the book. He said, you're an author? I said, yeah. I said, I wrote it all down. And then I handed it to him. I wrote it in the front of it. I said, Robert, enjoy the ride, Ed. I said, you're going to love this, Robert.

I said, starts with a body with no head and it ends. I was going to give this away here. Book one ends. Are you going to be the spoiler? No, no, this is good. This is going to draw people in.

I hope. Okay, come on. It ends with Grand Funk Railroad singing, Can I Get a Witness?

Grand Funk Railroad. Come on. He goes right on, man. Right on.

So I got to get back with him and see if he read it. But he was a basic unbeliever, but open to something spiritual. So I believe this will get that mark as well. And obviously by all the Bibles people gave him, he was stereotyped because of all the tattoos and just his outward appearance, right? Yes. Man looks at the outward appearance. God looks at the heart, right?

Yes. So John, real quick, so your thoughts on the target audience. Who should go get copies of this book? I saw this. We know in our church lives, I mean, I'm 78, I've lived through the charismatic movement. You named the movement. I've been in it, out of it, through it, right? We've been that in the church. I've been wounded in the church.

I've been healed in the church. We've lived all those experiences and we know there's more, but we don't know what it is. We sense there's more. We're in church. We want to do God's will.

We don't know what it is. We're trying to live good lives and all these things. And this book will bring the hope back. Oh God, you are alive.

You are moving in me. This is going to restore hope and direction in the body of Christ to everyday people, us. I'm just an everyday person in the body of Christ. I've been a, quote, pastor, unquote, for like 10 years now because that's what happened at Morningstar.

My whole life I've been in many careers. This is for His body. Those, whether you've lived a long life and you want more, those who have been hurt and wonder what's going on, anybody in the body of Christ who really wants more, these books will take you there. Yeah. And, or as Ed said, maybe you're not part of the body of Christ and you're searching.

You're looking for answers and, you know, what's life all about or why am I here or those types of questions we hear about. Right. And so really it's a trilogy of books, Overcoming Unbelief trilogy, A Body Rising, Ed Snidecki, People and Place, Book Two, Redeeming the City, and written in somewhat what I call an allegory form. You're going to really be thrilled. And they can find them on Amazon, Ed.

And if they're in Fort Mill, South Carolina, they can stop by the Morningstar Bookstore there in Fort Mill and pick them up right there. So that's awesome. Well, wonderful.

Well, let's shift gears here. It is Q&A with Koloff. So let me give you guys the opportunity to ask me a question or two. And don't try to stump me here now. So give me something I can answer. OK. So, Ed, I'll start with you. You said you had a question for me. So throw out your question. OK.

I know we generally speak to men on this program. So you being a world class wrestler, famous, known all over the world. And some people loved you.

Some people hated you. So I'm just going to leave it at that. But at a point in time, there was a transition in your life where you had a move from the fame of who Nikita Koloff is to Nikita Koloff, the dad of your four daughters, living a average, whatever average life is. So how did you handle that transition of moving to all this fame and fortune and a lot of activity to, OK, it's just me now.

It's Nikita. Because I know there's a lot of guys out there who are in that transition period. They're moving from the, you know, the great job or the mundane job, but they're going to be moving into not having that position. And you spoke earlier about identity. You know, is our identity wrapped up in who we are, what we do, or is our identity wrapped up in Christ?

And how did you handle that transition? That's my question. That's a great question. A friend of mine by the name of Perry Tuttle, who won a national champion collegiate football championship with Clemson University, I actually had him on the Man Up show a while back, and he wrote a book called After the Applause. And the challenging thing, especially for men, especially for men, I think more so than women personally, is what happens? Like for athletes, in this case, your question, you know, once the applause is over, like, right, the roar of the crowd, if you will, you're no longer, you know, the center of attention, for me, the center of the wrestling ring. Or, you know, in football, the guy throwing the touchdown passes or catching the touchdown passes or, you know, whatever endeavor, even in the marketplace, even out there in the business world, right? You talk to a lot of guys, and one of the very first questions is, well, what do you do for a living, right? Because it's like their identity is wrapped up in what they do, right?

And so it's a great question. I mean, once I left wrestling, I was on this quest, if you will, of what life held next for Nikita Koloff. And it was during that time period, 1993, that I recognized, you know, I had a level of, as you said, quote, fame, and the fanfare that came with it, but I'm like, what's life hold for me after? And I recognized something was still missing in my life, and I found out 17 October 1993, what was missing was a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

And I'll say it this way. I feel like I knew who he was historically, philosophically, and even socially. In other words, you know, I knew the stories and had run in certain circles of guys who, you know, said they were Christians, you know.

But the story never made the trip from my head down to my heart. And on the 17 October 1993, at an altar in Concord, North Carolina, that story made that trip, and it transformed my whole life and gave me a whole new identity to where wrestling I can now look at and say, OK, that's what I did, but it's not who I am. It's just what I did for a living. And so as I have grown and matured in my walk with Christ, to more and more realize that it's always going to be a part of who I am, the wrestling, the wrestler is always going to be a part of who I am, but that's not where my identity lies. My identity lies in Christ.

And so it's that relationship with Christ that helped me navigate life after the applause. I really love how you put that. I love how you put that, that that was what I did, but this is who I am.

And that's really, really good. Thanks for answering that question. And I just encourage the listeners out there, you know, maybe you're struggling with your identity and your identities wrapped up in what you're doing. And I just want to encourage, you know, going back to the books that the books may open your eyes to not just not just what you're doing, but you know who you are or I'll say it's who's you are. Oh, yes.

Amen. Who's you are. So great question. So, John, you got a question? I had a different question, but I just want to do a follow up question with you from what you said. OK, so there's a switch.

You're at the altar, something happens. Tell me the benefits of the identity switch. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. Nikita Koloff here and I am excited. Did you hear the huge announcement, the big announcement?

Well, maybe it's a minor announcement. Anyway, Facebook, go look up my new fan page, Nikita Koloff fans and like it and follow today. If you would like to support Koloff for Christ Ministries for a gift of twenty five dollars, Nikita will send you his two CDs, Adoration and Declaration. For a gift of fifty dollars, Nikita will include his book Wrestling with Success. And for a gift of one hundred dollars or more, Nikita will include a signed copy of his newly updated life story. A Tale of the Ring and Redemption.

Go to www.koloff.net and donate today. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. Comparing to your fame and all these other things, now you've now, whoops, I just found out who I really am.

What is that? What are the benefits from from that time forward in who you are as you've matured in him? Yeah, great question, because I'll give you a little more back story on that you may or may not know. But so at age 12, I had it all figured out. And you believe that I had it all. I have my whole life figured out at age 12.

Right. I had this whole vision, if you will, for my life, you know, and and was and was actually on that path and pursuing a lot of that until age 34 when I found myself at an altar. And then for the first time in my life, John found out, figured out, oh, somebody else has a plan for my life. And it was at that point of realizing God had a plan for my life that I began. And it's been a 29 plus year process of submitting my will to the will of the Father and finding out what his plan was for my life. And then through revelation, whether it's through visions, like people will gather from your books, Ed, or from the word of God itself in studying the word and studying the life of Jesus and what he modeled. And then how I am to pattern my own life and who I am to become in Christ, not who I am to become in the wrestling world or the business world or, you know, as as as a parent, but who I am to become in Christ. And so there's John been a I'll say a series of steps there of me being proactive in pursuing a deeper and deeper and deeper relationship with him. And as I've done that, the Lord has then been has revealed more and more and more of who I am in Christ. And and just being then learning to be obedient to whatever it is, whatever assignment he hands me, you know, or whatever it is he gives me to do, whether it's parenting children, you know, or now grandchildren modeling for grandchildren, what it looks like to, you know, to be a man of God or I still do autograph signings. Right. So a good many of those people know about my faith walk. And the blessing for me is more of the stories are not.

Oh, I saw you wrestle Ric Flair and, you know, the great American bash as much as you preached in my church 11 years ago. And here's what you said. Yes. And I'm like, talk about a humbling thing. So I hope that kind of addresses it.

Yeah, it is. And a follow up with that also. How did your relationship with people change from the before to the after?

I mean, I know we see people in certain way very often, perhaps what they can do for us, or we're fighting against them or with them or I mean, our battle is in the world. But how did your relationships with men and women and others change from that encounter? Great. Great.

A great follow up. And immediately what comes to mind is, John, if you had if you had met me back in those days, in the wrestling days, I would say it this way. It was my world. You just happen to be living in it, John. And hey, if you don't like it, just don't let the door slam you in the rear end on the way out.

I've been in the business world and they'd say that. Yeah. Right.

So you can relate. Right. So it's my world. You're just living in it. And everything kind of centers around me.

OK. So part of that transition in coming to Christ, surrendering my life to Christ was recognizing, boy, it's not my world at all. It's it's his world. God who created all of this.

It's his world. And I am but a microorganism at best. You know, in this in this grand scale of thing, this greater story.

Right. And now I just have what I would call a small role, a small part to play, you might say, in this story. And so so in my view of others, your question was, how do I view others where it was maybe once? What can you do for me? Hey, what can you do for me?

Right. To where now, honestly, and this has been a process of learning as well. And that is not so much what you can do for me, but what what can I do for you?

How can I serve you? That's boy, is that a big one? That has happened in my life. The joy comes from others. The joy comes from loving others.

It's amazing. We were self-consumed right before. And we realize, well, it's no, it's going out.

Our joy comes from helping and loving others. And as we've seen you over the years, just absolutely walk that and do that. Yeah. In fact, in fact, here's a quick story comes to mind.

I mean, we're not long after. I didn't just jump into ministry when I first got saved. There's about a five year window of discipleship that I walk through. In fact, the first thing I want to do is go on mission trips and get and get literally get my hands dirty. And I went to Trinidad to help build a church. I went to the island of Tobago to help build a Bible college. I went to Angola, Africa for three weeks to help build the church. And what blew me away was in those first trips, those first overseas mission trips was I thought here again, I'm a brand new babe in Christ. Right.

Just young. And I thought, man, I'm going to go to bless these people. Right. Which was which was a genuine desire. It really was like, I want to just go bless these people. But here's the takeaway is, is I was the one who was blessed. I did go to serve them. But man, as much as I wanted to be a blessing to them, they were even a bigger blessing to me. And that's why that's part of the joy, part of the joy.

And that's why I really began to understand how much more joy there is in serving others and giving to others as much as, you know, there might be in receiving from someone. Right. So, yeah, great, great questions, man. So. All right.

Well, we got we got at least time for one more for you. OK, then I'm segueing in from what John asks you. And so you have this new.

Life in Christ, you find out who you are, who who Nikita really is and anybody out there, we find out who we really are once we accept Jesus, but we have the old life that we have experienced and that we are familiar with. Right. And we can easily step back in to, OK, well, the old Nikita, the old ad did it this way.

And I had results. I mean, I'm a self starter. You know, you were self starter.

And so how do you restrain or submit to the spirit of Christ in you and not let the old Nikita or the old man or the old ad jump in? Right. And just take charge.

I can get this thing done by myself. Right. Now, I don't know about others or and or about you guys, but there's a story that immediately comes to mind that I think is applicable to this question. OK, so so the Lord had I'll just say this with Lord had a little test with me. OK, and he does that. He he will do that.

He will test us at times. Oh, you have faith. Let me see just how deep your faith goes. Right.

How much you really trust me. OK, so I'll try to condense this story down, but it really applies to your question. There was a period. So along my journey at one point, I was I was actually in Kansas City at a conference called One Thing.

But you guys familiar, Mike Bickel. And I went out there a number of it. So I'm in the prayer room on New Year's Eve, December 31st. OK. And I made it a habit of going out for that conference. I did it about, I think, eight, nine, ten, twelve years, brought several of my children with me to experience that and all that.

And so but on New Year's Eve, I was going to I was determined I was going to fast and go into the prayer room and for eight, ten hours, just hang out in the prayer room and just seek the Lord, reflect on the past year, see if he gives me a vision for the upcoming year, whatever. And he says to me in the prayer room, he says, he says, hey, I want I want you to grow your hair out. Now, most people know I got a shaved head. You guys, you're in studio.

You can see me today. I got a shaved head. Right. The bald head, the whole deal. And he says, I want you to grow your hair out. I'm like, OK. And he's like, starting tomorrow. I'm like, OK. And and he says, and I'll tell you when you can cut it. I'm like, oh, OK.

So, so, so I do. Right. So I saw the next day I just because, you know, every day or two, I've got to shave it and, you know, shave the face all day. All right. Anyway, so and and I shaved off the mustache, the Fu Manchu mustache. So completely different look. Right.

Once once the hair starts growing. You know, first I look like the chia pet, you know, like this. Right. A little water. Yeah. Yeah. Just a little fuzz top.

Right. But eventually the hair started to grow and it kept growing. And if I were to grow it out, I got a pretty full head of hair, even still. And I grew it out, grew it out, grew it out. And then at a certain point, some people started like, like question me, like, like, like, what do you do?

I'm like, you know, it was just kind of a an Abraham God said moment. I'm like, God said to grow my hair out. He goes, he tell you why? I go, nah.

He left that part out at this point. But he and I just said yes. God said, grow it out. I just want to be obedient.

Said yes. So fast forward times going on. I'm growing and growing and growing and growing it out. And in fact, at one point, some of my friends are like, it's just like some Nazarite vow you're doing or something here. What's this deal?

I go, I don't know. God just said, grow your hair out. OK. All that said, I'm growing and growing and growing it. And by the way, he said, grow it out.

I'll tell you when you can cut it, which means no trimming, no nothing. Right. So it's just growing. So fast forward. Fourteen months go by. Wow. Fourteen months. Right.

And I mean, I had the whole traditional mullet thing going. Right. The whole deal. Right. No facial hair. Right.

Completely different look. And then at one point, finally, he releases me to cut the hair. My two oldest children, Kendra and Colby, got the clippers out. They, by the way, they hated it. All they knew, Dad, was with the bald head. Right. Right.

They did not like the hair. Right. So they're the ones that actually shaved my head bald once the Lord released me.

And then it was after that to give you the rest of the Paul Harvey of the story that God then revealed to me. The reason for that was he was testing to see if my identity, going back to identity. Right.

Was so wrapped up in the wrestler Nikita Kolov. Or would I be comfortable? Not because I'm not as recognizable today as I once was, like when I first came off. But people still recognize me. Right. So the test was, are you going to be comfortable and OK if people don't recognize you as the professional wrestler, Nikita Kolov? And you're just, as you've said a couple of times, you got just just an ordinary guy. Yeah.

That nobody recognizes. Are you going to be OK with that? Yeah. And so it was it was a real test. And I can truthfully say I was OK with that. I was OK with not being as recognized as the wrestler Nikita.

And so that's that's that helped me, I guess, where I'm getting to is that helped me in navigating that whole transitioning from the famous wrestler guy. Right. That just becoming a servant of Jesus Christ. Right. It's kind it's kind of like when our kids grow up and that you meet one of their friends and they say, oh, you're Daniel's dad. Right.

You're right. You know, whoever you're you're their dad. It's like, right.

No, I'm yeah, I guess I am. You know, it's kind of like you take a double take. It's like, OK, that's who I am.

What do you say to a friend of a dear friend of mine? Actually, he spoke Frank Shelton, who spoke at the Man of Conference last year, just told me the other day he went to school and they're like, oh, you're Andrew's dad. He goes, I guess I've arrived. Yes. I'm not Frank anymore. That's right.

His dad, you know. So anyway. Well, man, great questions. And one more time, let me just for you listening out there, overcoming unbelief trilogy, Ed Snidecki, edited by John Bonnick, A Body Rising, People in Place, Redeeming the City, a trilogy. Man, please go out and get a copy of these books. I know you'll be blessed and may open your eyes to whether it's identity or or just trying to find an answer to life's questions.

I believe these books will help lead you down that path of getting answers. And so thank you, Ed. Thank you, John. Thank you for being on Q&A with Koloff and Amazon.com. Go find them there. Thank you for tuning in to another episode, Questions and Answers.

Until next time, God bless you. Hi, Nikita Koloff. Be sure to check out The Man Up Show, now available on television, broadcast and podcast. Go to MorningStarTV.com or the Truth Radio Network. Check out your local listings or better yet, download the Truth Network app today. Nikita Koloff here.

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