Noble: The Life of Christina Noble & her ministry to the children of Vietnam

You can tell a story is real, when circumstances tend to go from bad to worse.  Terrible things happen, and we turn our eyes to heaven and ask God: Are you still there?  Do you still care?  How could you let this happen? 

Yet you can also tell a true story, a real story, when God shows up at the most unexpected moments, at the darkest moments, to make his presence known, and bring good out of evil.  

It was interesting in the case of Christina Noble, that she found herself in terrible circumstances, yet God used those moments to bring about revolutionary changes in the world.  

In the film Noble the story is told of the life of Christina Noble.  I was asked to write about the film and offered a special screening to view it before it's release.  My first reaction was similar to most: "I don't have time."  I had been working full time, I was trying desperately to finish up my last two classes before traveling to Virginia to participate in graduation at Liberty University.  Yet a still small voice seemed to hint occasionally, to take another look.

Much is the same when it comes to the plight of the poor, the lost, the homeless, and the starving in parts of the world like India, China, North Korea, and Vietnam.  "It's a tragedy, but I don't have time."  Just recently, and quite late, I managed to allot some time to watch the movie Noble.  

I was shocked, amazed, horrified, and inspired to the point of sobbing by the end.  And I'm a guy, I don't cry easily.  The story touched my heart in a very real way.  The plight and life of Christina Noble was powerfully captured.  It jumped right off the screen into my heart.  Why?  It managed to portray the struggle of life in a very real way.  

Noble was a child of hope, and joy, singing before crowds in taverns.  Yet after her mother's death, she was separated from her family and sent to an orphanage.  Christina Noble was later reunited with her father.  And then he vanishes.  It had that quality of random brutality.  When at moments in her life she desperately needed a cup of water to her lips, she was given a brick to the face instead.  Life is often like that.  

It's not like a movie, where the bad guys are defeated whilst the hero manages to create an elaborate situation where he keeps his honor, offers the enemies mercy, yet in the end defeats them.  No.  Life is ugly, and scary at times.  We're held down and violated, mistreated and lost.  We lose our dignity, and the bad guys often win.  Things go from bad to worse, and Christina is left time and again, facing the altar of God broken, asking: Are you really there?

We as humans have a certain romanticism about life.  Yet in reality, life is at times brutal and random.  The Word says the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike (Matthew 5:45). And how much more so for the forgotten children?  How much more so for the children of the streets of 3rd world countries?  

My God, my God, how Noble is needed today.  We in the west so often turn a blind eye to the suffering of the faceless.  We can't see them, we blind ourselves to their suffering, and we harden our hearts to their struggle.  After watching Noble it was much more real to me, the struggle of the homeless and lost.  Rape, violence, sex trafficking, assault, kidnapping, are all daily realities for so many.  

Everett Swanson, founder of Compassion International shared some of his story for one of my class lectures in Christian Counseling for Children 302 (at Liberty University).  He told how children in these countries are targeted, because they have no defender.  Children are weak, fragile, and easily snatched up and forced to do terrible things.  They are naive to the world.  They are the easiest target.  It horrifies us, but children are certainly easy targets.  

And how much more so unborn children in the womb?  And truly truly, they have been targeted in our society, to genocidal effect.  53 million people dead.  Real people.  The tragedy is unspeakable.  The heart cries for mercy from such organized madness.  And God hears, truly truly, God hears.

The story of Christina Noble vividly portrayed in this movie is the message we all need to see.  Christina Noble had nothing.  She had no money, she had none of the right friends.  She had been through trauma, rape, homelessness.  She had been abandoned by her father, and lost touch with her brothers and sisters.  She had been mistreated by nuns, those who should have cared for her and protected her.  

What more to say, enough, leave her alone, let her be for just a moment?  Just give her a chance, please?  Anyone might say, she went through enough, now let her rest.  But Christina Noble knew there was something wrong with the world.  And she heard the call of God.  In a dream she saw the chaos of Vietnam.  And she answered the call and went, with nothing.  

We often feel so powerless as Christians.  What can we do to change all this madness?  So we simply let it go, and keep moving forward in life.  Who could blame us?  But the story of Noble challenges us to step out in faith.  It challenges us to take a stand.  It challenges us to awaken that sense of valor buried within, that image of God within, and calls for us to be valiant, brave, noble, in this mysterious drama they call life.  When by all appearances there is no hope to change anything, one act of faith can change everything.  

I mean statistically, a broke woman shows up to Vietnam to help children.  Not special, not different, just a Christian woman who wants to help.  What are her chances of starting orphanages that today serve over 700,000?  The chances are impossible.  Yet God does the impossible.  One woman was willing, and God worked through her.  Now not just 1 child, or 10, or 100 have a home, but 700,000 have a home, and someone to care for them.  

We as Christians can't see how it can be done today, with all the corruption, the chaos, the immorality, and western man's retreat from God.  We're discouraged.  But we don't need to be.  Time and again, God takes someone who by themselves could change nothing.  Not a deity, not a superhuman, just a regular person like you or me.  And they believe.  They try it, and then it starts to fail, it looks like it's not working at all.  Then at the last moment.. when all hope has faded, God blesses it.  

Everett Swanson was just a young man, not privileged or powerful.  Just an average guy, and he decided he would do something for the children.  Today his organization Compassion International serves millions of children in 3rd world countries. William Booth wanted to serve the truly lost, the most destitute, the ones Jesus loved.  He stepped out in faith, with very little, traveling around preaching.  Today the Salvation Army which he founded serves millions in 135 countries worldwide.  And Christina Noble decided she would serve the children of Vietnam no matter what.  Today her organization the Christina Noble Children's Foundation serves over 700,000.  They were not gods, they were not super men or super women. They were average, everyday people, who decided they would try to do something special.  They believed God could make oasis in the ghetto.  They believed God could make refuges of peace in mine fields.  And you know what?  They were right.  God could.  And he did. 

Life is tough.  For me it's been tough.  For Christina Noble it was often nightmarish.  There is great suffering in the world today.  That is the effect of the fall of man.  Yet that in no way changes our responsibility to God.  He remains God.  He never promises that we will be free from trouble.  He does promise to be with us in the trouble.   

As a Coldplay song played, and the credits rolled at the end of Noble I found myself sobbing terribly.  I've had a tough go at life.  Truly truly I have.  With so much brokenness and struggle, one eventually starts to wonder: Can I really do this?  Am I really going to be able to do this?  

Several times I have turned to heaven, as Noble did, and said, "Lord, I don't think I can do this."  The true story of Christina Noble reminded me, that though one may lose their family, live on the streets, be abused, kidnapped, raped, and abandoned... it can be done.  She did it.  She survived it.  She regained her strength.  Christina Noble was vindicated in the end.  At many moments it seemed it was over for her.  But it wasn't.  So today I'm reminded, by her story, that I may solemnly look toward heaven and say: "Lord, you're with me and I can do this.  I can change the world, because you're with me.  We can do it.  We can do it together.  Amen."  

 Please consider sponsoring a child at the Christina Noble Children's Foundation website. Click here.  Also consider viewing the award winning movie Noble, available streaming online.

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What is prayer?

"The true church lives and moves and has its being in prayer." -Leonard Ravenhill

Prayer is the very life blood of the follower of Jesus Christ.  We as his followers pray continuously, as the scriptures say.  My prayer life has at times been very difficult and at times quite wonderful.  A friend once said that she finds prayer awkward.  I can certainly understand what she means.  Prayer has at times been painfully awkward for me.  What do I say to the designer of reality?  What do I say to the one who knows the future, past, and present better than I could hope to imagine?  How shall I say it?  And do I really mean what I'm saying?

"Trouble and prayer are closely related. Trouble often drives men to God in prayer, while prayer is but the voice of men in trouble." -E.M. Bounds 

Perhaps the most honest prayer I've ever prayed is a very simple one: "God help me.  Jesus save me."  It was a very effective prayer.  That prayer changed my life.  Though more correctly, the one on the other end changed my life. 

When I pray for those I despise, my enemies, those who annoy me or upset me, or people that actively work to ruin my ambitions and keep me down in organizations, I find in the days that follow, that I learn to love and forgive that person.  My view of that person is changed by praying for them.  

"There is nothing that makes us love a man so much as praying for him." - William Law 

Prayer is communion with God.  Prayer is communication.  Prayer is conversation with God.  A man once said that to be a Christian is to pray, if you don't pray, you're really not a Christian.  Many of the greats across Christian history have been dedicated to prayer.
  
Martin Luther would pray two hours in the morning before starting his day.  He said he had too much to do that day to not pray for two hours before starting.  Prayer changes my outlook on life.  Prayer changes my vantage point.  Prayer puts me in the shoes of God for a few moments.  Prayer helps me see things from the vantage point of love, selflessness, and hope, if only for a sweet second.
  

"Prayer does not mean that I am to bring God down to my thoughts and my purposes, and bend his government according to my foolish, silly, and sometimes sinful notions. Prayer means that I am to be raised up into feeling, into union and design with him; that I am to enter into his counsel and carry out his purpose fully." - Dwight L. Moody

As Moody said, prayer is where I learn about prayer itself.  We may start out with the idea that prayer is about letting God know what I want.  Prayer is about making a request.  That is a small aspect of prayer, intercession and requests, but perhaps the most important part of prayer is summed up in this statement: seeking knowledge of God's will, and the power to carry that will out.  We ask God for his purposes for us, and we submit ourselves to his plans for our lives.  

A very effective prayer is one Jesus uttered: Not my will, but yours be done. (Luke 22:42)

Yet prayer is about talking to God.  Sometimes I just tell God about what I'm thinking about.  I tell God about my pain and sorrows.  I tell God about my struggles, my depression, my happiness, my hopes, my fears, and my joys day to day.  Any relationship needs conversation and discussion to flourish.  Prayer is the vehicle of that.

I've been reading a book called A Year of Living Prayerfully by Jared Brock.  It's been an excellent read.  I'd highly recommend it to anyone looking for a down to Earth examination of prayer from multiple perspectives.  Brock looked at the prayer lives of Jews, Catholics, Protestants, and many others to learn ways to improve his own prayer life.  Probably my biggest take away from the book was learning the Pope Francis five finger prayer.  I like simple and effective ways to pray.  My prayers can get very jumbled up and messy.  But the five finger prayer is super helpful.

All you have to do is look down at your hand.  Your thumb points to you, so the first thing you pray about is the people closest to you: immediate family, grandparents, and close friends.  Your pointer finger is where you pray for people who speak into your life and mentor you, like church leaders, teachers, professors, or people at work who oversee your work.  The middle finger is the tallest, so for that one you pray for authorities and leaders.  I tend to pray for Congress, the Supreme court, and the President.  I also pray for local government, police officers, and international leaders.  The ring finger is the weakest finger on the hand, so for that finger you pray for the weak and the lost.  I tend to pray for those who struggle with alcoholism or drug addiction.  I also pray for the poor, homeless, and those who are struggling with tragedy in their lives.  The last finger is the smallest finger the pinkie, and lastly we pray for ourselves and our needs.  I like that, simple yet effective.

Prayer is vital to the Christian life.  So what is a good number for prayer?  How many minutes a day is wise?  Martin Luther prayed two hours a day as we discussed.  George Whitefield (Anglican Priest famous for helping spread the great awakening in the USA) prayed three hours a day.  William Bramwell (Methodist itinerant evangelist) would sometimes pray four hours a day.  

I don't try to shoot for a particular number of minutes or hours, but somewhere between 30 minutes - 1 hour would be ideal.  Though I seldom hit my ideal.  Today I tend to get on my knees and say a short prayer before I start my day (5-10 minutes).  During the middle of the day, whether at a meeting, or standing outside, I'll try to pray the "Our Father" slowly, focusing on meaning what I'm saying.  Then at night, just before I go to bed, I'll usually get on my knees, in the dark, usually around 11pm or 12 and pray my longest prayer where I'll use the five finger method, then segway into some random thoughts, and close out with some praises to the Lord.  The night prayer is usually my longest (7-25 min).  That way I'm praying at least three times a day, a method originally used by Daniel (Daniel 6:10).   

Prayer changes everything.  Don't let disgruntled skeptics tell you it's pointless.  Prayer is real, because God is real.  Trust in him, keep praying, and watch the world change.  Believe.  

Related Post:

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Mothers and Children: Mother's Day in Light of Asia

On mother's day I'm reminded that I have a mother who was there for me my entire life.  In America there are many who did not have a mother around.  Today many do not have a father, or a mother.  

I had friends at a local church in the area who cared for children without parents.  I remember I was over at their house one time for a little get together.  I saw the children, and I saw the look in their eyes.  They had been living without love.  You could see it in their eyes, it was a blank look, it was a defeated look, a look of surrender to nothingness.  Seeing them had a profound impact on me.  I think of them when I think of mother's day, and mother's day in light of Asia.

Although reaching Asia with Christ’s love is an enormous task, there is hope through the children.

Parents across Asia struggle to provide for their families. Children grow up illiterate, uneducated and taught they are worthless. More than 20 million boys and girls are trapped in social evils like child labor and prostitution in order to support their family.

Gospel for Asia’s Bridge of Hope turns these situations around for good. Children are educated and nurtured. Families experience Christ’s love. More than 72,000 children have been helped so far and thousands of families have found faith in Christ as a result.

Honor Christ by sponsoring a child in Asia today: 


www.gfa.org/mom

Liberty University Graduation, Young People, and Game Changers

Life is a magnificent thing.  Sometimes scary, sometimes exciting, sometimes beautiful, sometimes ugly, sometimes lovely, sometimes stunning, sometimes joyous, other times strenuous.  The question we so often wonder about is: What can we do to help?  What is the solution to the problems and sufferings?  Something deep within all of us knows that this is not how the world was meant to be.  We all tend to know.  We see injustice and we become indignant and troubled.  We feel the burden.  And we want to know how to change things for the better.  

Yet we often find ourselves matching our desire to help with our desire to feel good.  Theologians and philosophers have called this drive for "good feels" the "pleasure ethic."  The pleasure ethic is huge with my generation.  One of my friends in high school, a girl I liked proudly back then declared that she was a "hedonist."  Whatever feels good, do it.  This pleasure ethic is at the heart of the post-modernist mentality.  Meaninglessness just gives a free reign to it.  It attempts to strip away "shame."  Shame, the age old feeling we feel when we do something wrong, and our conscience tells us "this is wrong."  Its an uncomfortable feeling, but it's a good thing we have it.  When a child put's his hand on a hot stove, it burns the skin causing damage, but it also triggers pain, which helps the child to know not to do such a thing again.  It's much the same with shame when we do something wrong.

Today, I find myself in Lynchburg, Virginia.  At Liberty University's 42nd commencement.  I'm graduating with two degrees, an associates of Interdisciplinary Studies and a bachelors (of science) in Religion.  I'm graduating Magna Cum laude.  And as the speaker Pastor Falwell said Sunday, "every degree today is not your victory, but a gift of the grace of God."  Truly truly.  The grounds of Liberty are beautiful, and the opening at the commencement baccalaureate service lead me to lean over to my parents and whisper: "Liberty university, last hope for western civilization."  

As the noted 20th century journalist Malcom Muggeridge put it, western civilization has had the dubious acclaim of training it's destroyers at it's own academic institutions.  Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr. spoke regarding the honoring of the Lord at Liberty University commencement.  He told of how four of the greatest universities in the United States were all founded as Christian Universities: Princeton, Harvard, Yale, and Brown University.  He explained how the mottos of those great institutions were phrases like "Light and Truth" (Yale) and "In God we Hope" (Brown).  And the motto of Oxford University: "The Lord is my light."  Princeton's motto he said to this day remains: "Under the Protection of God She Flourishes."  Yet somehow over the years naturalists managed to capture and convert those universities into bastions of atheism and secularism.  Troubling indeed, which led me to the conclusion, places like Liberty University are the last hope for western civilization.  

The atheist, marxist, freudians marching to the tune of the pleasure ethic behind a faustian "free spirit" sort of altruism may just bring western civilization screeching to a halt.  Look at how as Europe abandons the Christian ethic, they find their economies crumbling due to corruption and debt.  Much like countries like India, North Korea, and Brazil have ample resources, yet struggle with corruption in government and class society where the rich trample on the poor and wield government against the working class.  It's sad really.  Yet we all try for answers.  Both conservatives and liberals see there is a serious problem.  

I was once a dedicated Democrat, in college at the University of Wisconsin extension.  This was before I became a Christian.  I was at one time the treasurer of a group called the "College Democrats" on campus.  I voted and supported candidates like John Kerry in 2004 and Barack Obama in 2008.  I volunteered and went door to door to support Obama for the presidency. Why?  I thought Democrats held the superior ethic.  I had been told that.  Obama campaigned on returning to the Constitution.  He campaigned on ending the expensive wars, and reigning in the corruption on Wallstreet.  Most importantly he campaigned on restoring civil liberties and ending the Patriot Act's abuses of American freedoms.  The presidency of George W. Bush had been an abuse of liberty and justice.  I wanted change.  He said all the right things, but now in 2015, it's clear Obama did the opposite of almost everything he said he would do.  He increased the government surveillance and attacks on civil liberties.  His administration attacked whistle blowers while at the same time he gave lip service to protecting them.  He said lobbyists would have no place in his administration, yet his administration has lobbyists in almost every key position.  Sad really.  I had been taught that Republicans were all corrupt corporatist war mongers.  And to a certain extent, that was true at times.  Both parties have at times been troubled by immense corruption.  Democrats in the past supported the slavery of African Americans.  Massive amounts of money pour into both parties today.  Though I was a staunch liberal for many years, during college I slowly came around to conservative Libertarian views on politics.  I lobbied for more 3rd party action in the presidential and congressional races.  I wanted more voices of accountability.  

After becoming a Christian I realized that the problem was not between parties or ideologies.  The problem was the state of man.  The problem was not just government, or corporate/banking institutions.  It wasn't even the corrupt news media, Hollywood, or television media.  The problem was more basic and universal than that, the problem was the heart of man itself.  That heart, universal in it's state, needed an outside force to change it within.  There was no other solution.  The solution was simple: Jesus Christ, genuinely received, in reality.  

All of that to say, we all need Jesus, and Liberty University carries strong that message.  And why is that so vital?  Because Liberty University trains young people.  Young people are the future of the nation.  Young people are the future of the western world.  Young people can change the world.  Young people can do anything.

Therefore, young people are the real game changers.  The energy, the power, the future all belong to young people.  Yet my generation is maligned by the pleasure ethic, thinking it will bring satisfaction.  It does not!  It brings emptiness, sadness, disappointment, and regret.  The pleasure ethic is dead.  It holds nothing of lasting value.  The pleasure ethic is dead.  And Jesus Christ is alive.

O. S. Hawkins the speaker at the opening commencement service encouraged graduates like myself to be influencers.  He said "You've been granted a field of influence."  And truly we have.  We're the future of the United States.  I mourn because so many of the people my age have been sold on secular lies, and the endless pursuit of the pleasure ethic through sex, drugs, drinking, binge eating, clubs, parties, sports, and pursuit of achievement.  You name it, we've been fed it, by those trying to make money off our poor decisions.  We've been educated many of us, on total foolishness.  Yet now is the time to stand.

My work on this blog, the things I write, are often in the hope of triggering a revolution.  I want to help young people, young adults to see the truth of how to save this world: Jesus Christ.  I want young people to rise up, and become the game changers of western society.  I want to see us retake our countries, our homes from the corrupt spiritual forces that lay waste to our future.  

Christianity is the hope of that future.  Anyone properly apprised of history can see such.  I want you to be a game changer with me.  I want you to stand for principles, values, morals, and ethics.  These things have been jettisoned from our society by fools.  We must bring them back, somehow, someway, God willing.  

Thank God for Liberty University, and the gift it's given me to see the hope of western man: Jesus Christ.  I met Jesus Christ in hopelessness and addiction, having exhausted the pleasure ethic of every smidgen of joy it could bring to utter bankruptcy.  Then Jesus Christ, and today a drug addict, alcoholic with nothing 2.5 years ago now graduates with high honors from a division one college.  That is all thanks to the grace, love, and new life provided by Jesus Christ.  He never changes.  He is present, he is God, he is alive.  There is hope left.  

We need to move in a revolution of thought, deed, action, in firm character, principled action, bold proclamation, and ecstatic love.  Let's get missional, get active, stand firm, and stand as one.  We can't be stopped, we're the young, we're the future, let's make it a good one.  

All of us young people feel an ache whenever we see corruption.  When we see something we know is wrong, we desire to champion the cause of those who are being oppressed.  Proverb 22:15 (ESV) says "When justice is done, it is a joy to the righteous but terror to evildoers."  I pray justice will be done in the great nation of the United States once more.  It all starts with young people.  And we have been sold a million lies as truth, and we've been told that Christianity is the lie.  But what if the one lie is actually the truth?  What if it means taking a hard look at who we really are, and how we really live?  What if it means embracing a new ethic?  If that brings justice, truth, and peace of heart, then I say... let us begin.  Yet our hearts will fight us on this, and they will call out in anger, and want to deny any mention of God.  Yet we can see what that does to a nation where immorality reigns.  It is destroying the United States, and western civilization morally and more recently, economically.  Despite what our youthful hearts may say in rebellion, we must force our wills to turn to God, to turn to Christ, and give up on selfishness, the pleasure ethic, and the pride of trying to deify ourselves, and instead, turn to Jesus, be united with Jesus, and through so doing, discover who we truly are.  

Isaiah 45:22 (ESV) says "“Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other."

Our hearts rebel against the thought so often, yet deep down we know.. God is real.  He is the truth.  We are not the gods.  He is God alone.  I pray you'll soften your heart to embrace this.  And quickly, because time is running out. Amen. 

Liberty University 2015 Baccalaureate Service - Jerry Falwell


Liberty University 2015 Baccalaureate Service - O. S. Hawkins


Liberty University 2015 Commencement Service - Jerry Falwell
 

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