Chinese Brush Artist Nan Rae

Chinese brush artist Nan Rae shares her views, and her soul, on her favorite subjects: God, Jesus, and her faith.

I just have to start off saying that I’m thrilled to have had the opportunity to interview this beautiful lady you will be reading about. Nan Rae is a dear friend of mine who has taught me so much about the Lord. Some of it was from an intellectual standpoint, but what has really kept my attention and lingers most, not only in my memory, but my day-to-day life, is her close relationship and excitement for God. She’s on fire when it comes to trusting God with everything in her life…not just a little corner of her world, but the whole thing. Her whole being, her whole life. How many people do you know who have that kind of union with God?

Nan’s the one who has taught me to let go of the reigns and hand my “stuff” over to God…Eek! Not an easy task at the time, but when I had nowhere else to turn I jumped in with both feet. OK, let’s get this straight, spiritually trusting God with my physical existence was the last thing I wanted to do. It felt like I was jumping off a cliff! But Nan encouraged me because she knew first hand that God was faithful. Like my mom, she and God are like that (fingers crossed)…best buds. Nice to have friends in high places. True to her word (and more importantly, true to God’s Word) God helped me land on safe grounds. One last thing I have to mention before we go straight to the interview is that for years I had no idea that Nan was Jewish. She was a huge fan of Jesus Christ and that is what she talked about every minute I was in her presence. She’d occasionally talk about her Jewish mom, but somehow I never put two and two together. Until one day it occurred to me that if Nan’s mom is Jewish does that make Nan Jewish, half Jewish? Hmmm, I had no idea. I asked her at some point and found out that she was. I thought, “Cool!”

Be a fly on the wall as Nan and I enthusiastically talk about God. This is the conversation we had. I know you will be blessed by Nan sharing her story and her thoughts. May you come to know God as a best bud too.

Jana: At what point in your life do you feel Christ made Himself known to you in a way that you understood. And how long did it take for you to admit that He was real?

Nan: Well I can’t say that I really understood what happened to me, but one night I was out for dinner with the man that I was seeing and with his friend from out of town who, as it turned out, was a minister, but I didn’t know it at the time.
And I was 20 years old and at that age you love to pontificate and you have all these theories and being Jewish I just had all these ideas and I always had a sense of God.

I would go to temple with my grandfather and I would look around and I’d go, “God is here. Don’t you people realize that God is here?” I really felt a presence, a very strong presence. And, gosh, maybe 14, 15 years old. But you don’t really know what it is. And you don’t know where to go with it. And no one around you seems to be responding in the same way.

So, anyway, we’re having dinner and somehow the conversation got into religion and on to the Messiah. And we started talking. And I started talking about who I thought the Messiah was – and my memory, because this is when I was 20, which was not exactly yesterday. The memory’s kind of foggy on this part . It’s that I thought at that time - I was saying that the Messiah would be the Jewish people, all the Jewish people, but I didn’t really know what I was talking about.

And, so, later on that evening, with the man I was with, and we were talking, and this popped out of my mouth…. Now mind you, I was Jewish. There were no “Jews for Jesus” then and I lived with my mom. The girl that lived downstairs, I used to play with, was Catholic. And when I was about six she told me one day that I killed Christ and I ran home screaming and crying and “ohhh!”, you know….I didn’t know what a Christian was, but I knew what a Catholic was because of this little girl. She went to this church that was very dark and kind of smelly and scary. And I knew that on Ash Wednesday she had ashes on her forehead and palm fronds and it all seemed very strange to me.

So in college I didn’t really have any religious talks with anyone and I dated a boy who was a - I actually didn’t date any Jewish boys, but I never talked about religion. And I wasn’t religious. I was nominal – sort of reformed Jewish – and on the high holidays would go to temple.

So, anyway, I looked at this man and out pops the strangest statement. I look at him and said, “Does God – who I believed in, but didn’t know who He was – really want me to believe in Jesus?” I didn’t really know who Jesus was and he said, “Yes, He does.” And I said, “Okay.” Just like that and then he took me through the Sinner’s Prayer. I got down on my knees and just said this simple, what we call a Sinner’s Prayer. And he gave me a Bible and took me home. And that night I read the Bible. I read the New Testament. It was so real to me.

The next day - I could remember I was in a cab – I was going downtown and it was snowing and God was so real to me. More real than you sitting here. It was amazing – so actually through nothing of my own doing, it was a sovereign act of God. It was the grace of God. I can’t boast in it. The Lord just knocked on my door and caused me to say yes. It’s been a walk with Him ever since.

I’m so grateful because I see that in my own I would never have been able to do it or understood what to do. And the miracle – it was just that simple – “Does He? Yes, He does. Okay, I will.” I did not know what I was doing. It wasn’t like I spent a week or two weeks – You know Jesus even says ‘Don’t say whatever unless you consider the cost, unless you realize what you’re doing.’ You know, you go to build a house…really think about it. None of that. It was all a course of less than 24 hours. It altered the course of my entire life. Amazing. Now that doesn’t mean it was an easy walk, but it means that He really was there all the time and He really was always leading me to a better place and He really was always protecting me. I don’t know how anyone can live a day without the Lord, can live a moment without knowing God’s love for them. I really don’t.

Jana: Did you have any other spiritual beliefs before Christ came into your life?

Nan: I’d say they were rather nebulous. I always had a sense of something greater than myself, but nothing that was really defined. In looking back I can see I always wanted to reach out, to really be more than just myself. But absolutely nothing defined at all. As a matter of fact, when – it was really funny because being Jewish – and so in college I took a course, Hebrews Studies. I thought it would be a no-brainer and I’d ace it. It was really difficult. I’m going, “Oh, nuts! Why did I sign up for this?” I was maybe your typical clueless, young person. Really clueless. And I really loved everyone, but I was focused on myself. So, hopefully I’m not now [smile]. I try.

Jana: What kind of Christian would you consider yourself…liberal? conservative? Do you feel there is one that is better than the other?

Nan: I hate this question. I really hate this question. And I will tell you that I consider myself a Jesus Christian. I think we’ve become very polarized in this country and very knee-jerk and so we don’t have really cogent thought about any issues. I think that I’m a conservative in my own life. In other words, I really know to lead a righteous life – not self-righteous – but to do things that would not grieve the Holy Spirit. I don’t want to do anything in my life that would offend God. So that…encompasses all the moral issues.

But there’s also issues of the heart. So, if we’re not kind and loving towards other people that may not be like us, that grieves the Holy Spirit because it says that, “God so loved the world.” It’s not just isolated people here and there – [but] that Jesus died for everyone. So God’s heartbeat is for everyone – that no one would be lost. I think that for a Christian we’ve got to connect with that. I think that’s an imperative for us.

Okay, now, I call myself a liberal - and I don’t know when “liberal” became a dirty word – but I think that we are our brother’s keeper. I think we are to be liberal with everything. Jesus said, ‘Someone asks you for your coat, give them your cloak as well.’ He said if someone spitefully uses you, you are to pray for them. And so I don’t see any wiggle room in that. I think we’re supposed to be generous and giving and see that we have a responsibility, with everything – with our environment, with people that we might not want to associate with. Even with people that have different views, different religious views, instead of knee-jerking about them. We have to pray for them and want God to really reveal Himself to them the same way that He did to us.

So, I’m proud of being a liberal. I don’t feel we can legislate morality. The thought, for example of abortion, really is sad to me that a woman would be driven to that and also that she wouldn’t have an awareness that she was creating life. It just breaks me up. But I don’t feel I have a right to tell a woman that. I feel that she has to, if God doesn’t make it clear to her, for one reason or another – she feels she has no alternative then I think [it’s] better that she have that option than…go to a back alley somewhere. We don’t want to go back to those days when a lot of women suffered. These are things that – once they come into the political arena – we just get all crazy about them. And, I don’t know, it’s very set. I’m against it. I’m against it, but I don’t feel I can legislate it for somebody else and that goes with a lot of things.

Jana: How would you describe your connection to God? Is it through a relationship, through the Bible, a church, doing good to others? And why?

Nan: Definitely all the above. Well, it starts out with God revealing Himself to us. It’s just like you’re sitting here, you know – someone could have said, ‘Well, Jana’s just this great gal and whatever, whatever…You got to meet her.’ But till I actually meet you and see what a great gal you are…well, you know, it’s only hearing. But now that I know you and if I become your friend, then I have an obligation to you and you would have an obligation to me. So we sort of have a covenant.

Well, God has a covenant with us, and it’s really a legal document. But it’s a 2-way street. So, if I enter into a covenant with God, then I’m going to do certain things. One thing is that I always want, I always hope that God would reveal more and more of Himself to me. Now what happens is that we come to the Lord, and for some reason we get very puffed up with ourselves and we just feel that we’re so special….”God loves me. I don’t know about you, ‘cause I don’t like you, but I know He loves me.” And so with that thinking we become sort of this exclusive little club. And as soon as we do that we can’t see more and more of God.

I heard someone say once that the angels throughout all of eternity go around – it’s like a metaphor – they’re flying around God but every time they do they see a different aspect of Him. And so what happens many times to Christians is they come to the Lord and then they’re carved in stone. The relationship is set, their feet are in granite, and they don’t go on from there. So I think that there’s always more to see of God but it usually only happens when He brings us back to our knees…when He brings us back to a position of total dependence on Him.

So I say it’s better. Like Paul said, “I die daily.” So it’s better if we kind of do that to ourselves daily. If we daily submit, but it’s submitting in a way where you’re saying, ‘Whatever happens, Lord.’ It’s great. It’s like the Hebrew children – there’s a section in the Bible that said, ‘If you would have just done this and this it would have been enough, but…’ And they start listing all the miracles and after each one they say, ‘It would have been enough.’ And so I think that’s the state to be in. ‘Well, Lord, if this is all you’re doing for me, it’s enough and I thank you and…you are enough.’ Because what I think happens is we go to Him with our laundry list. “Okay, here’s the prayer list! Now take care of all this and then I’ll see ya!” Instead of saying, “Here my Lord. Use me. Send me.” We’re sort of directing it the other way. “Well, Lord, there you are. Now I’m gonna use you. I’m gonna send you forth to take care of all this for me.”

So, what I have found and when I lecture to artists [is that] they always want to know my 5-year plan, which cracks me up because I don’t have a 5-minute plan. A friend said once, “She suits up and shows up.” And I think that’s so cool. The whole thing is to just be ready to be used, like in the movie The Godfather where he says, “I’m gonna do this for you but someday I’m going to come to you.” So we always have to be ready for God to use us. And that requires living in the moment, getting our egos out of the way because – Joyce Meyer has this thing ‘put your grocery cart away’ – you know the one day that you don’t will be the day that someone looks at you and goes, ‘That person. Who do they think they are? Leaving their grocery cart right there.’ Or sometimes you can just look at someone a certain way and then all of a sudden you’re called upon to say a word to them and if you had been thinking wrongly about them…How do you switch gear all of a sudden, you know? If we stay in the moment, and this can only be done by having relationships with other believers talking about the Lord.

It’s crucially important to not only read the Bible but to get an anointing when reading the Bible. You know, you can read the Bible like a book, or, you read the Bible and all of a sudden something jumps out at you. You go, “Whoa! I never saw that.” All of a sudden it’s like food for you. It’s life to you.

It may not be that way. You could read – mark your Bible, you know this happened and I read this and this on such and such a day – you could read maybe two months later and it doesn’t have an impact. Well, that’s the annointing of the Holy Spirit making that Word alive for you at that time. So when I first came to the Lord, I mean, it was like 24/7. I would listen to religious radio. My first Bible was so marked and underlined and notated.

In our daily lives we are bombarded all the time. Go to the supermarket even - it’s “buy me, buy me, this, this, this.” And also with the news…Ray Bradbury said in one of his talks that the best thing he could tell people is not to watch the news. Just don’t watch the news. I’ve gotten to the point where I look at the paper and I skim over everything because if you just watch the news and go [non-chalant tone], “Isn’t that too bad? Oh, look what’s going on and then la dee da.” It has a deadening effect on your heart. If you see a story and if you are grieved and moved – your heart is moved with compassion – then that’s OK. But if you’re just looking and, [non-chalant] “Oh my. That’s really terrible.” You’re not really entering into the suffering of the world and it has a negative effect on you. So it’s better not even to take it into your system – so that you’re not doing these superficial commentaries on it. We’re to be touched by Jesus’ touch. If we just go, “Oh isn’t that too bad what’s happening”, that isn’t good for us and it doesn’t do good for anyone else. And, also, we’re to see the way God sees. So we look at a situation and we see the horror in it, and God looks at it and sees the good that He will eventually bring out of it. And so we have to, in some way, find a way that we can enter into that good and be part of the solution that God will eventually bring. Otherwise it just drags you down.

So it’s not just one thing. Sometimes you find that you’re reading the Bible more, other times you’re interacting in your church more, other times you’re out there doing what the Lord has called you to do. But in all of it, the focus should always be an awareness that God is in you – moving in you – to do this purpose. So that’s got to be the focus. And Paul was a tent maker – whatever your tents are that can’t be the primary focus. The Lord has called me to a work in this world, but I see that as a means to an end. That’s not the deal. It’s not an ego thing, like, “Oh look what I can do.” And so it’s a provision. So if I would ever pray for provision – I wouldn’t pray for myself – I’d pray, “Oh, Lord, increase my tithe.” In other words, “Oh, Lord bless me so I can bless other people” – not just bless me – “I want to bless more people. Lord, let’s make this happen.”

Jana: In your opinion why do unbelievers shy away from God?

Nan: OK, this is actually very easy and the first thing I think of is my mother – who’s going to be 95 in a couple of weeks - and she’s a person who has an awareness of God, but a lack of understanding … a real understanding. And it’s sort of endemic for most modern Jews with the exception of the Hasidic or Orthodox Jew. I have actually encountered people who have never even heard of Jesus. Hard to believe but true!

You know, they’re more social conscious, activists, but not in the sense of ‘I’m going to go to temple all the time reading my Bible.’ It’s more like ‘I’m going to do good works and so forth.’ So, anyway, what has gotten in the way for the majority, I would say, of Jewish people is we can go back to the Spanish Inquisition – for starters – and you know, the little girl who told me I killed Christ….you know the little Catholic girl – and then how about the second World War, how about the holocaust? So all this is an undercurrent. The undercurrent is that the Jews in the main have been wanderers and persecuted. They’re sort of the canary in the mine. So they’re the first to go whenever. You know (Nan laughs), when there was the black plague in Europe, well, it was the Jews fault of course – ‘We gotta burn them. That’ll take care of the plague.’ So this is the DNA of Jews.

I was talking to my mom last night and she said, “I watched Christiane Amanpour (the series on CNN)”. She did one show on the Christian….(Nan thinking)…God’s Warriors – The Muslims, The Christians and the Jews – and different programs. She said on the Christian one that, she noted – and I think it was…I don’t know…his name escapes me, who is a real strong believer in Israel and supporting the Jews…Anyway, it’ll come to me. But what she got out of it was not the fact that here’s all these Christians that love the Jews. What she got out of it was that these Christians are saying when the Messiah does come [that] any Jew that doesn’t believe is gonna burn in hell. Now how is that gonna make a Jew feel towards Christians? You know, is that gonna make a Jew say, ‘ Whoa! Brother!’. So what a sad thing.

For gentiles I've found that it's either that no one has told them, in a personal way so that they could really hear, that God loves them and is approachable, or they've been so indoctrinated by fear that they're sure they could never make the cut. So, what keeps people from God? What keeps a lot of Christians from God? The refusal to finally submit. When you come to God you have to say, ‘Yes, Sir. No, Sir. Whatever you say, Sir. You’re the Boss.’ If you really look at it just in a completely realistic manner this is the last thing any human wants to do…is to submit. And you’re submitting to the highest authority. The undercurrent – way underneath – and also when we say, ‘ Jesus died for the sins of the world’ and when we say a Sinner’s Prayer, what if we say a ‘Rebellion Prayer’? “Lord, forgive me for my rebellion.” Because that’s really what sin is. We think of sin as ‘Thou shalt not kill’, ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery’, all these basic sins. But there’s sins of the heart. The Bible says the heart is deceitfully wicked. Who shall know it, who can know it. The slightest resentment or unforgiveness that we have, or judgment that we have towards anyone – that’s as big a sin. I mean God doesn’t distinguish. He doesn’t have a scale. ‘Ok, that’s a #10 sin and that’s maybe a 5 ½’. That’s what man does.

You’re either estranged from God or you’re hooked up. And what hooks you up is your total surrender. What hooks you up is your total dependence on God. What hooks you up is your total adoration of God…your total wanting to please Him. And God is like…um…think of electricity – it says, ‘For whosoever will may come’ – anyone can plug into the outlet. Jesus said, “Someone touched me.” See? Who touched me? Because He knew righteousness went out of Him…righteousness, healing, whatever you want to put on it. So, was she [the lady with the bleeding problems who touched Jesus’ garment in the crowd] one of the religious leaders? Was she one of the righteous whatever? No, she was just a humble woman with a lot of faith – “If I can just touch the hem of His garment…” So, if we see that’s what God is – that it doesn’t matter, you know, who you are, where you are – just plug in.

I think it’s because of the example the church has set. I remember years ago with Katherine Kuhlman, who had the greatest healing ministry, but you know, on her radio program she never asked for money. I think this is a huge stumbling block for a lot of people. Joyce Meyers says, “Ok, Gospel’s free, but the conduit for it costs a lot of money.” The truth is it does cost a lot of money, but if hearers of the Word, the hearers that watch, say, Christian TV - if we’re supposed to live by faith – so maybe the Gospel preachers are supposed to live by faith. Maybe it would help if there wasn’t such an emphasis on “send in money’. ‘Send in money and here’s a special offer.’ I think that’s a real stumbling block for a lot of people.

Another stumbling block is – Billy Graham was wise enough to never be alone in a room with, say, a woman – I think a lot of religious leaders have not lead the lives they were called to lead. And when people hear about it, they say, ‘Well, look at them.’

Our light should so shine that people would just want to come to us and say, ‘ What have you got? What is it?’ It says ‘ Judgment begins at the house of God.’ I think we all have to clean up our act and that will draw people. I think we have to demonstrate more love, real love….not this love of the mouth – that’s easy to do. Instead of stoning women who are forced to have an abortion, why not say, ‘Have a child. We’ll take care of it.’ I mean, that’s a loving person. How about talking to them and saying, ‘Can I help? What can I help you with? What happened? How did your life get so off track? Come to dinner.’

And all this pointing the finger, this judgmental…..I have to say that if I didn’t know the Lord now I don’t think I’d be drawn seeing all this. I really don’t. I mean Christ laid down His life. The Apostles laid down their lives. I don’t think we are at that point in the church now. The church has gotten very comfortable. I don’t know. What are we showing that’s so attractive? What are we offering that’s so attractive?

Jana: As a representative of God, what is the best way to share your faith?

Nan: OK, this is easy for me. When I first came to the Lord I was full of an awareness of God. It was just staggering to me and so I went around to everyone, it’s like, “Don’t you see it? Don’t you get it? God’s so real.” I can remember one of the leading Methodist ministers who was a very close associate of someone I knew and would see all the time, I mean, even he looked at me like I was crazy. It’s like, ‘What is this? We don’t carry on like that.’ And yet, I didn’t lead one person to the Lord. Not one.

I felt I was loving towards everyone, but I was really very enthusiastic. And then about 5 or 6 years later, through a set of circumstances, after many situations, I finally surrendered to the baptism in the Holy Spirit. And after that I became really sensitive, or let’s say much more sensitive to other people and I really got that it wasn’t about me. And in a way it wasn’t even about them. Jesus said, ‘I do what I see the Father doing.’ So when I’d be with someone, I’d be conscious and aware and look for a moment to just maybe say one thing. And if I didn’t have that opening I didn’t say anything . But 9 out of 10 the Lord would give me an opening where I could say something, but I never knew what it would be. It was always specific to the moment, and the Lord would nudge me when to stop talking. So I became sensitive. The Lord blessed me and I lead a lot of people to the Lord. It was like, “Duh!” (Nan laughs). It was like, “Oh, I get it.” It’s about the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit really is what draws people to God. It really is. I mean, you can scare people into it, you can intimidate people into it, and you can brow-beat them into it, but for something that really takes, it’s the Holy Spirit.

We don’t say “yes” to God on our own. Even that saying “yes” is the Holy Spirit because we are clueless. I’m not the only one that was clueless. I mean we have no idea. And even at this point in my walk with the Lord I’m still as clueless. The minute I start thinking I have the answer then it’s like God goes, “Oh, I’m over here. Hey, what are you doing over there? I’m over here.”

Jana: Is there anything else you’d like to say? A Last word or anything you’d like to share?

Nan: (Hearty laugh) Well, I will say that I’m so proud of you. It’s a privilege to know you and I see the grace of God in your life and so I feel very parental about you. And it’s been beautiful to watch you grow in the Lord.

* And on that note, I would have to say that it's a privilege for me to know Nan. She has been a strong support through my ups and downs and has always directed me to the One who matters most - Christ Jesus. I hope you were as blessed by Nan's words as I was. She is a true woman of God.

About Nan: Not only is Nan a wonderful woman of God, she is also a fabulous Chinses brush artist in her own right, as well as an inspiring speaker and teacher.For more information on Nan Rae visit her website at: http://www.nanrae.com/