NRB Chronicles -2022 Bold: Living Intentionally in Today's World

Well, always so amazing I get to do this in the NRB. We get to do the NRB Chronicles where we talk to these wonderful folks that come up and, oh man, how does God take their passion so many times to do so many amazing things. And this is my second time actually to talk to this young lady, is Nikki White.

And she is younger than me, so I can call her a young lady. But anyway, Nikki is the author. And your previous book, tell me the one we all did the last time. It's not about the pie, I think. Oh yeah, it's not about the pie. I remember that. Very good.

This one is bold. Living intentionally in today's world. And this is like today, not years before COVID or what in the world in the Ukraine and all the stuff that's going on.

So living intentionally in today's world. So what's going on, Nikki? Why another book?

Well, this wasn't necessarily the third book I was going to write. But as COVID started and actually in Idaho, a week after we locked down, we had an earthquake and just a lot of things going on. God's still on the throne.

He's still sovereign. He still wants us to serve him and glorify him and encourage others in their faith. And so I kind of transitioned in my head and I thought about people who are risk takers and they step out on faith and do things no matter the consequences that I knew. So I asked them to write some testimonies, and then I wrote around each of those stories. And then I thought about people who died like Jim Elliott, Corey Ten Boom, Amy Carmi, those kind of people, spurred me to write some stories. So I wrote a section. The second section has to do with them. And then I thought about people in the Bible. And so the third section is bold in the Bible. And it's like Daniel and Rahab and David and the disciples. And so it grew.

The project got bigger and bigger. Well, let's just take on Rahab, because that's interesting. So what did you write about Rahab? Well, she didn't have to hide them, the spies. She didn't have to help. But God had a plan. She's Jesus's great, great, great, great, great grandmother or whatever. And God had a plan to use her. And when it all fell apart, her place was the only one standing. So God used her in a mighty way. And she wasn't fearless. She didn't have to help anybody, but she did. And I think we need to be more like that.

We need to not just be complacent and sit in our house. You know what I thought about the other day? Actually, I taught this on Sunday. And it's kind of different, because I teach special needs adults that are between the ages of 25, maybe, and some of them are older than me.

So they have autism or Down syndrome, and most of them are not vocal, actually. And so I wanted to teach actually something from the 119th Psalm on how God, how through the psalmist, through King David, and he's talking about his grandmother, to some extent. Seven times he asked God to teach him the statutes, and seven is kind of significant when it comes to Jericho, because they went around for a week, and then the last day they went seven times, they blew the trumpet. So can you picture my class?

I had them all dressed up in costumes, and we're going around the walls, and we're blowing these trumpets that were actually just pieces of noodles that you would use in a swimming pool. And they're blowing their trumpets, and we're going around seven times. And what occurred to me as I was teaching that, that I never had thought of before, because it always seems so bizarre to me that God wanted everybody in the city of Jericho dead except Rahab and her family. And so what it almost appears, and I never had thought about this before, is all that was to rescue Rahab, because those people had been abusing Rahab. And you may know that she married into a big family, like Judah, and she was Boaz's like mother.

Like, this is huge! And if there was no Rahab, there's not only no Jesus, there was no Boaz. There was nobody for Ruth to marry.

There was nobody for David to be born. I mean, this was a significant thing, man! And I think that's the way it is with our lives, too, right? And that's kind of part of the point of the book, is we all have a plan, and we all have things we're supposed to do, and we shouldn't be fearful of doing that, but we have to kind of go out of our comfort zone. Maybe we feel a little uncomfortable, our heart's beating a little bit, but we have to go ahead and do those things. Like, wow! And that doesn't mean we have to go to Afghanistan, or to the United States, or Sudan, or something like that, because we can just go in our neighborhood and do something. Especially when God tells you to do it, and that's the point!

How are you bold without God, right? I mean, I can't even imagine. So, how fun! So you had one story that kind of ignited this, like, I need this story. And so what was that story? I just kind of felt like I had someone in my life, but they live, they work in a dangerous area, I can't name them or anything, but that was very influential in, through the years, 20 years of knowing this person, and the ministry that they do, and the things that they do, to make, to like, they'll go in and talk to princes, or kings of other countries, and just be fearless about it, and share Jesus with them, okay? And I just kept thinking of this person, and then I just thought, wow, you know, we really need to see what our purpose is.

You know, what is our plan that we should help with? What, you know, type of thing, what's my role in what God has for me? And even with my first book, Not Really a Princess, I wasn't a writer, and I, it's still, it's kind of amazing to me that I'm doing this ministry now, this late in my life. Yeah, it takes a certain amount of boldness. Like, you know, a few years ago, in my late 50s, all of a sudden, okay, I'm going to write a book, you know, and then now three books later, and it's all snowballed into other projects, and it's like, okay, I have a video series now, I started and all this, you know, but I'm 63 years old, you know, but God wants us to keep working till the end. So, yes, Ecclesiastes 8, 8, that, now there's no discharge in this war, right? Because, you know, the battle rages.

So, beautiful, beautiful. What are some of the other stories in there that you wanted to highlight? Uh, well, there's simple things like my brother-in-law, who has led several people to Christ, and why he, he shares why that he's had faithful men mentor him, and that was something that led him. There's someone who does neighborhood Bible studies, like several of them, and she's just faithful in things that she does. Um, there's... And so that takes some boldness, right?

It does. And then there's some people that, um, you know, there's a couple missionaries, and how they got to that point where they should go somewhere, wherein it wasn't really something they had, one of them said, you know, wasn't really what they wanted to do, and things just kept happening for them to do that. And I think that's the thing, if God's prodding us to do something, we have to take action and follow through on it. And as these testimonies started coming in, they weren't, they didn't necessarily, the thing that I thought that they would share about wasn't necessarily what they shared, but I thought, okay, but that might be what the Lord wants me to put in the book. Right, and I understand you even have a story about about Met attorney and Ryan. So my, so I have a friend, her name is Gabrielle, and she, uh, was going to law school in Las Vegas, and she had a burden for human trafficking, and she did all sorts of research and work, and she ended up creating legislation in Nevada, the state of Nevada that passed through their legislature.

I think it had to do with how many years or something. I mean, I don't know exactly what the bill said, but she's only 25 years old. She's making a huge difference, because everything she does, she does intentionally and with purpose.

And, you know, I think we get so complacent in our lives, you know, we go to church, we do this and we do that, and we help with this and that, you know, but what are we doing that's more extreme that we could be doing? I understand, I understand. The book is bold, and so Nikki, I would imagine at this point in time, you have an author website. Yeah, I have two websites. I have my nikikarin.com website that has all my stuff on it, and it links you to the Colossians 3-12 Ministries website, which is resources for compassion ministries like widows and orphans and addicts and that kind of thing.

So yeah, I have those, both of those, and then my new video series is, there's a Facebook group, Live Boldly, and people can join it, then they can watch the videos every week. Awesome, awesome. Thank you again, Nikki. It's always such a joy to see what God's doing. I can hardly wait to see what's coming next. I know, it's exciting. Thanks. Thank you.