← Imagine Heaven Podcast with John Burke
Imagine Heaven Podcast with John Burke
Superintendent's Unbelievable Accidental NDE After Appendix Bursts
01:16:14
When Mike McKenzie, a construction superintendent, nearly dies from a burst appendix, God answers a prayer he made as a little boy - to see Heaven. In this incredible near-death experience, Mike is shown how deeply God cares about every detail of our...
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- [00:00]
A
Well, hi, I'm John Burke, author of Imagine Heaven and Imagine the God of Heaven. And this is the Imagine Heaven podcast. A couple months ago, I got to sit down and Talk with Mike McKenzie. He's a superintendent of a real estate development company. He had a very stressful job. He'd be building 30 to 35 homes all at the same time. He was a Christian, mainly on Sundays, and he said he had a very stressful, anxious, kind of uptight existence. And then he had a near death experience during a very bad case of appendicitis. He coded and Jesus showed up. And during his near death experience and then a subsequent three hour conversation with Jesus, it rearranged his whole view of life. And I hope you'll stick with us till the end because I want you to see how personally involved God wants to be in your life and in fact, in every detail of your life, even the seemingly trivial things about your life, just like he was in Mike's. And what some of the things that Mike is going to talk about and we're going to, we're going to discuss, I think will really help you live with less anxiety and more stress free. And also to know that God hears your every prayer. Sometimes it may take 40 years to answer them. Like Mike found out. Well, hey, Mike McKenzie.
- [01:30]
B
Hi, John Burke. How are you?
- [01:31]
A
I'm good. Thanks so much for taking the time to share your near death experience with us. And it's really cool because I get to, to share this with another grandfather. How many grandkids do you have?
- [01:45]
B
Well, we're at 13. Oh my gosh. If you count two of the ones from a know incorporated family, we're up to 15, so. Okay, let's go with 15.
- [01:57]
A
All right, 15. You got me beat. I only have two, but it's the best part of life, isn't it?
- [02:02]
B
It sure is. Yeah.
- [02:03]
A
Yeah. Well, two granddads who, who are not trying to be YouTube stars. But that's not the motive. But the motive is that you've had an incredible encounter with Jesus in your nde and we want to hear about it. Tell us what kind of what led up to that.
- [02:26]
B
Okay, so this happened in 2004, which was a little over 20 years ago. My son was getting married. He was. We were living in Central, in the Central Valley in California. He was getting married in Ventura. So it was about five hours away from our house. We packed up, the kids went down there on a Wednesday. The wedding was going to be on a Saturday. And my two younger kids, younger boys brought their wiffle balls and bats. And we went out to the park and played some home run derby. After we checked into the hotel that night, I started feeling sick. And I thought, oh, great, you know, getting the flu. Next day I got worse. Friday I was really getting sick. I mean, I felt. I felt like this flu is. This is a nasty one. Start running a temperature. I started sweating. You know, I just was feeling miserable and. But Friday night we had the rehearsal dinner and we go there and I'm telling all the guests, you know, I'm not feeling great, but I'm paying a lot of money for this dinner, so I'm going to eat your leftovers. I'm eating one of every dessert. A good thing for a guy that's getting a flat.
- [03:37]
A
Look, wait a second. This, this is, this isn't your daughter's. It's your daughter's wedding.
- [03:42]
B
My son. So I was paying for the rehearsal dinner, not.
- [03:45]
A
Oh, rehearsal dinner.
- [03:46]
B
Yeah.
- [03:47]
A
Okay. I was gonna say, how did you get stuck with the wedding? But it's rehearsal dinner. Yeah, you're right.
- [03:53]
B
So anyway, we go back to the hotel. It's probably midnight by this time. My son, who's getting married, we're sitting at the bar having a glass of wine, and he's asking me, you know, about my symptoms. He's a. He's a medical. A nuclear medical technologist. So he's, he knows about medicine and he's kind of grilling me on what could be wrong. And he says, hey, have you had your appendix out? And I said, well, no, but I don't think it's my appendix. I mean, you know, it's just the flu. Yeah. He says, well, he should get checked out. You know, you've been sick for three days and, you know, I'm a guy. We don't go to the doctor. You're almost dead. Which is exactly what I did.
- [04:31]
A
Yeah.
- [04:32]
B
So Friday night before the wedding, I didn't sleep at all. Not like, not one bit. I just couldn't go to sleep. My. My stomach was hurting and I was just really uncomfortable. And so we get through Saturday, we get through the wedding after the wedding and you know, the reception and all that, it was. It was really great weddings, beautiful. My son says, well, if you're going to go to the hospital, go to this one. And so, you know, the guests started leaving. They were going to go to the, to her parents house and bring the gifts and kind of keep the party going. And I said, guys, I gotta, I gotta go get checked out. This is, it's not Good. Something's wrong. And so I get over to the hospital, and of course, Saturday night, it's packed, you know, so I sit down and I'm like, in and out of consciousness. My wife's up there telling them what's wrong. And, you know, so I'm not bleeding, you know, so I'm kind of pushed to the back of the line. So it took about an hour before I actually got to a triage nurse. She gets me back there, she lays me down on a little gurney, and she's, you know, I'm telling her what's going on. I said, I think I got the flu. My stomach hurts, and she's pushing on my abdomen. She takes a blood test and she sends it off to the lab. And she takes out this little mallet. She says, I think it's your appendix. And, you know, and here I'm arguing with her, and I'm going, no, this. You know, it's not my appendix. Can't be. I just got the flu. So she takes out this little mallet, and she taps the bottom of one of my feet as I'm laying down, and she says, does that hurt? And I laughed. I said, no, of course not. Tapped the other foot. And I had pain in my abdomen that made me scream.
- [06:15]
A
Oh, wow.
- [06:17]
B
Yeah. Which was a shock.
- [06:19]
A
I've never heard of that. So, what. What? That's how they tell?
- [06:23]
B
Yeah, that was one of the ways that they tell. She says, well, that's your appendix. I'm going to call in a surgeon. And she says, if they haven't ruptured, you'll be here for a day or two. If they have, you might be here for three or four. So we're thinking. Okay, now it's. We're thinking logistics. This is Saturday night, Sunday morning. Kids go back to school on Tuesday. Monday was a holiday, so they go back to school. We've got grandparents there. We're splitting up the kids. You take this one. You take this one. Just in case, you know, we don't know when I'm getting out of the hospital, so we got all that worked out. They wheel me down the hall, they push me through the surgical room doors, and they slide me over to the surgical table. And I'm expecting, you know, anesthesiologists or surgeons to be there. I look to my right, and Jesus walks through the door in a physical. A physical body. And I was shocked. I was like, what is going on?
- [07:21]
A
And so there's nobody else in the room.
- [07:24]
B
I look back where everybody else was, and it's just kind of all like. Like foggy and sparkly foggy. It was. It was bizarre. Everything was gone except Jesus. And he walks up to the table as I'm laying there, and he holds out his hand and he says, I want to answer your prayer. And again, I'm really confused. I'm thinking, I didn't pray that I would die. You know, why is Jesus here? What's going on? And so I'm thinking, well, you know, I have this thing going through my head, like, well, if I take his hand, I mean, am I going to go to heaven? Am I dead? That's it. But what do I do? Say no. Am I going?
- [08:05]
A
And so. No, you're still. You're not under anesthesia.
- [08:11]
B
No, there was, there was. There was no mask given to me yet. There was nothing pushed through the IV yet. Nothing.
- [08:20]
A
Wow.
- [08:21]
B
And he. He's standing there and so finally I take his hand. Soon as I took his hand, we are both standing on a hill. Everything is as white around me. Like the widest white I've ever seen. It almost felt like foggy mist, but wasn't cold, wasn't damp. It was just blinding white. But I look at my feet and I'm barefoot in a hospital gown and I look at my feet and there's this beautiful greenish blue grass. I mean, just the most beautiful manicured grass I've ever seen. Didn't look like it just been mowed, but it was just perfect. And the color of it was just amazing. And my senses were heightened to the point where I could count every single blade of grass that was touching my feet. Just, you know, and I thought, what is going on? I'm still thinking. Human mind, right? What, right on here. This is the most bizarre thing I've ever. I've ever experienced. And. But.
- [09:20]
A
But it feels. It feels real. You're yourself.
- [09:24]
B
It feels. It feels more than real. The, you know, the. The senses being heightened. Counting the blades of grass, that was a shock. And I. And I'm just like, this is. This is crazy. I mean, this is just crazy. Still holding the hand of Jesus. And then I look up and I see like off to sort of a little off to my right, through all the white, there's a white glowing ball. It looks like it's basketball sized and it's wider than the rest of the white. So this is. This is really weird. And it's kind of shimmering and all of a sudden this thing, whatever it is, this light, it looked like it was. You know, you always hear people die they see the end of the tunnel, right? Light at the end. That's kind of what I was thinking, like, like, okay, I'm going to go into the tunnel and that's it. I'm dead. But this thing starts sending out these light beams. And they look like fluorescent tubes, but they're smooth on the end. They're about 2ft long. They're a little bit fatter than. Than, you know, the four foot fluorescent tubes that you put in your shop or your kitchen. And it's sending out these tubes one by one. Just real slow, you know, zipping, kind of zipping by me going through the whiteness. And I can see them. And one of them comes right at my forehead. And I thought, like, what do I do? Do I. Do I get out of the way, you know? And it hits me as I'm thinking this. It hits me in the forehead and as it goes through me, it makes kind of a light buzzing sound. But it warmed me, like right down to my toes. It was. It was weird. And so I look back at the source where these things are coming from. And now all of a sudden, all this white in front of my eyes. It's like a curtain's being pulled from my right to my left. And this, this white curtain opens up. And now I'm looking at this beautiful scenery. I'm standing on a hill. The grass gives way to these, like, these little. These little flowers. They're. They almost look like sweet peas. They're kind of. They're kind of moving like. Like it's windy, but there's no wind. I don't feel any wind, but they're like dancing. They're all pastel colors. They're beautiful. And purples and yellows and, you know, greens and blues. And at the bottom of that hill, there's this huge city, like a mile across. Had to be. It's huge. But the fog that was in front of my face is now settled in that valley so that all I can see of that city are building tops sticking through the fog. Kind of almost in the middle, there's a great big golden dome. It looked like a capitol dome. There's a couple other capitol domes around. But most of the buildings that were sticking through were white. They look like church steeples, like pure white. If one thing I noticed was there's no crosses on the top of the church steeples, like what we see all over. I live in the south, I see. I see churches. I passed 10 churches on the way to Home Depot. Yeah, they all have crosses at the Top of them. But these didn't have crosses, which struck me as odd.
- [12:44]
A
And did you. Did you think they were church steeples or just. Just buildings?
- [12:48]
B
I. I wasn't sure. I mean, that's the only thing I could relate to because I don't see houses around here with church steeples. So I thought, you know, I mean, it wasn't like all the buildings had steeples, but there was a lot of them. So on. On the other side of that city, there's another mountain that goes up, like, you know, like a huge mountain. It's covered in these pine trees with the. With the most beautiful, like, lacy pine needles. Like, very graceful looking, but they were just beautiful. And now those fluorescent tubes are going across the valley, and they're. They're going all the way across the valley and above those trees, the beautiful trees, is like the most beautiful sunset that I've ever seen. But there's no sun. It was vivid, bright colors. I've always described it like this. Like, if you take a picture with your phone and you move the saturation all the way to the right so that those colors just get really bizarre and distorted. All the colors kind of blend together. But this was clear, beautiful. But that was. They were just vivid, vivid colors. Reds at the bottom and then the blues. There were some, you know, wispy white clouds, but.
- [14:20]
A
And this is. This is like the firmament. Firmament up above this mountain.
- [14:26]
B
Above the mountain.
- [14:27]
A
The mountain range.
- [14:28]
B
Yeah. Yeah.
- [14:29]
A
Not a single source of light, but the whole thing was like this glow of a sunset.
- [14:35]
B
Yeah, it was like. It was like the whole sky was. Was a beautiful sunset. And so now those. Those fluorescent tubes, they're going across the valley, and one of them hits the tip of one of those pine trees, and it's like it had a diamond on the tip. Because when the. When the light hit it, it burst into tiny little white, like fireworks. Like, just pow, like. And they were everywhere. And pretty soon more of those things would go across the valley and hit those things, and there was just like, white fireworks everywhere. And I was just in awe of this. I just couldn't believe what I was seeing. And I look back at the light source where they were coming from, and Jesus says to me, it's the glory of the Lord. Huh? When he said, that still chokes me up. I tell the story 21 years later, and it still, you know, causes me to pause and think, wow, what. You know, what did I just see? And when they said, it's the glory of the Lord, I. I was unable to stand. I fell to my knees. Like, you know, I was just overcome with emotion. Knees got weak. As soon as I hit the ground, they shocked me and they brought me back. So now instead of seeing this beautiful scene with Jesus and the fireworks in the sky, I've got a doctor leaning over me wearing a mask. And he looks at me and he says, do you know your name? And I answered him, but I answered in my mind. I just said, mike. And he looks at me again and he says, do you know your name? And I thought, oh, shoot. I didn't verbalize. So I open my.
- [16:19]
A
Because in. In heaven, were you talking through nonverbal.
- [16:22]
B
There was really no communication. But looking back on it later, I think. I think probably so, yeah, because I. I just figured I answered him and he didn't hear me. So, you know, I guess that's how we're going to communicate. I don't know. I mean, I wasn't putting it all together at. At that moment, right? So I thought, I need to tell this guy my name so, you know, we can get on with things, whatever is going on here. So I opened my mouth to talk, and of course, my mouth, super dry, I barely got the word out. I said, mike. And he goes, okay, good. He says, do you know where you are? And I thought, you know, now I'm. I'm thinking back. I thought, well, I think I might have just been in heaven with Jesus. But I thought, oh, the wedding. Yeah, I'm in Ventura. So I told him, I said, ventura, Ventura. And he says, okay, good. And he kind of taps me on the leg and he says. He looks around, and then I realize there are other people in the room. There's a bunch of nurses. And he says, he's back. And he says, let's get him up to icu. And so they wheeled me up to icu, and.
- [17:29]
A
And what do you mean he's back?
- [17:31]
B
Yeah. I didn't know. It's funny because a lot of people will ask me when I tell them this story. They'll say, well, how long were you dead? You know, what was. What was it all about? Did they shock you? And I saw the paddle, the. The crash cart, and. And one of the nurses was putting one of the paddles back on the crash cart. And when I saw that, I thought, oh, man, I died. I really did die. And that's. That's what happened.
- [18:02]
A
And they had had to shock your heart to get you back?
- [18:04]
B
Yeah, they shocked me. I. I think only once, but I didn't want to know. I Never asked, like, how long was I gone? What happened? I. I had no interest because I thought Jesus just showed me heaven. I. I know I'm going there, but I don't want to know. I just didn't want to know. So they sent me up to ICU. I spent 12 days in the hospital. About five days in. In the ICU, I developed pneumonia, which I can talk about in a minute. And I developed an abscess which kept my fever spiking at night, so it wouldn't let me go home until I got to normal. So that was quite a procedure, getting that thing.
- [18:52]
A
Mike, did it turn out that your appendix had ruptured earlier that week or. How, how long did they.
- [19:01]
B
The surgeon came in to see me the next day and he says, he first he said, I hear we had a little incident last night. Glad you're still here. And I, you know, here. I'm so weak now. I can't pick my hands up off my chest. They're. They're laying, you know, like. Like I'm laying in a coffin. You know, hands are folded because they folded them so that I wouldn't flop. I was so weak, I couldn't lift the hands off the chest. He says, I'm glad to see you're still here. And he says, you know, that was the worst case I've ever seen. And this is a 70 year old man that was doing the operation. I said, you're kidding. And he says, no, it was, it was a mess in there. And he told me about the naps, an abscess. He says, you'll probably develop this abscess and it's going to take a while. You know, we'll. We'll get it figured out, but we'll get you out of here as soon as we can. And then he. He's poking around, looking at the stitches and all that and he walks out. And then he walks right back in and, and he says, you know, I said, it's the worst case I've ever seen. But that wasn't quite right. Yours is the worst case I've ever seen where the patient lived. And then he said to me, God's not done with you yet.
- [20:10]
A
Wow.
- [20:11]
B
Yeah. Yeah. I thought that was amazing.
- [20:14]
A
That is amazing. So clearly it was. It was a. Probably a death experience. And they brought you back.
- [20:24]
B
Yeah.
- [20:25]
A
So two questions. What did Jesus mean by I came to answer your prayer? And. And then what did he look like?
- [20:38]
B
I'll answer what he looked like first. He was wearing a white robe. I don't remember There being a sash. I'm sure there was, but I don't remember. You know, everybody says, well did he have a purple sash? Whatever, I don't remember that. So I'm just assuming it was a white robe. He was wearing sandals. He was, he was taller than. He was probably about my size. I mean when I stood next to him, he was about 6ft tall. He had beautiful bluish, more green eyes than blue, but bluish green dark hair. His skin was much darker than what I'd been shown as a, you know, a kid growing up in North America. I was always showing a blonde haired white Jesus and he certainly wasn't that.
- [21:24]
A
He had, I've never, it's so funny. I've had, I've had several people say, yeah, the blonde hair version. I'm like, I've never seen a blonde haired version of Jesus.
- [21:33]
B
I think it was in the, like the children's Bibles.
- [21:36]
A
Oh.
- [21:37]
B
And I, I mean I just, that just stuck with me. I just always figured. But you know, not, not that I'm. Doesn't matter what he looks like. I mean everybody's curious and, and, and, and a lot of people will ask me too, well, how'd you know it was Jesus? And there's two ways to answer that. First of all, he did say, I want to answer your prayer. And Jesus answers prayers. And second of all, when the Savior of the world looks you in the eye and stands before you, you'll know. You know, Bible says every knee is going to bow. They're going to know who they're bowing to. It's not going to be a mystery. Yeah, exactly. Who it was.
- [22:14]
A
Yeah.
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B
And I've always said when those eyes looked into my eyes, he looked into my soul. And I just feel this love like I've never experienced before. Coming from Jesus.
- [22:26]
A
Yeah. What was it, what was that like?
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B
It was like. How do you describe it? You know, there are only so many words. Amazing. You know, it was like, it was like, like being a kid that wanted a family forever. You know, I always think of these dogs and not to make it about dogs, but I always think of these dogs in the pound that never get rescued and then they finally get rescued and they just, you know, I have a little rescue puppy that, you know, that just loves me like unconditionally. That's the way it was. Like I wanted to be part of his family and, and this was my, my dad or my brother, you know, whoever, and just, I felt just that, that love, like it's indescribable.
- [23:15]
A
Wow, that's awesome.
- [23:17]
B
So the prayer part, it took me a while to figure this out, but a couple days after laying in the hospital, thinking back, like, what did he mean by answer your prayer? When I was a kid, my grandfather passed away. I was about 5 years old, and I went to his church at the funeral, and the priest is up on the. On the pulp from the pulpit, and he's talking about, your grandpa's in, you know, Grandpa Pete. Pete's in heaven. And there's no more pain, there's no more suffering. There's only joy. There's, you know, there's all these great things. And I remember as a. As a kid, I was just starting to learn about God and going to Sunday school and all this stuff, and I remember thinking, God, that sounds like a really cool place. Could you show me heaven? And that became kind of a nightly prayer for years. I would pray that as a kid for. For probably 10 years, you know, and then you get busy as a teenager, you're like, okay, you know, I'm not talking to God as much anymore, you know, but as a kid, that would be. That would be my nightly prayer. Could you show me heaven? And the other thing I used to ask him, after a couple years of that, we watched the Charlie Brown Christmas special and this part where Linus comes out on. On the stage with his blanket and he says, the glory of the Lord shown all around them. Now I'm starting to learn about all, you know, what God's all about in heaven. And I thought, the glory of the Lord. That sounds pretty cool. You know, I mean, this is God that made everything, you know, heaven, earth, everything. I interact with my family, all the, you know, the trees and the animals and all that. What must his glory look like? So I started asking him to show me his glory too.
- [25:04]
A
And, and this is when this is later, later.
- [25:07]
B
I was probably 8 or 9 years old when I started asking that nightly prayer too. Wow. Yeah.
- [25:14]
A
And then he's like, here you go, kid. Yeah, you wonder, you know, like, was it. Was it kind of like, well, since. Since you're gonna die, I'm gonna show you.
- [25:27]
B
Or.
- [25:27]
A
Or was it like, I'm gonna show you one day? And it was. Yeah. I don't know. Who knows?
- [25:32]
B
It took 40 years. But he answered. He. He was faithful. He answered prayers.
- [25:37]
A
Wow.
- [25:37]
B
You know, if you think about 40 years in the Bible, it's pretty significant number too. It is. Yeah. That is.
- [25:44]
A
Well, so then you came out of. Of that. You recovered from it after how many days were you in the hospital.
- [25:51]
B
I was in the hospital 12 days, okay? I tried to tell my wife what happened. She came to see me the next day after the surgeon left, and I opened my mouth to tell her and I just break down and cry. I couldn't, I couldn't do it. It was way too emotional. It took me three days to tell her she in. And I'd say, you're not gonna believe what happened. And I would say, and then just cry. And she's like, it's okay, don't worry, you'll tell me. And then of course, when I told her, she's crying and. But I had another. You know, it's kind of funny because after I got out of the hospital, I had some friends come over. And first of all, like, everybody was shocked when they saw me. I lost almost 35 pounds in 12 days.
- [26:36]
A
Oh, my goodness.
- [26:37]
B
I was a rail. I, I just, you know, I was on a liquid diet for, I think about 11 or 12 days or 10 days before I finally got semi solid food. And then the last day, they switched me to solid food and I got to go home. But my friends came over and there's another part to this whole NDE that, that I've only begun sharing just recently. And actually, because of the way it happened, I had to write a book. I mean, I had, I had to get everything out there because while I was in the hospital, I told Jesus that I would tell the story. And I didn't know what that would look like. You know, I had no idea. But 24 hours after the NDE, Jesus actually came back into my hospital room. I Woke up at 2 o' clock in the morning and I was developing pneumonia. Like, I Woke up at 2, I couldn't, I couldn't breathe. I felt like there was all this vapor in my lungs and I couldn't air into my lungs. And I was really struggling. And so they had placed the call, nurses had placed the little button on my chest again, still too weak. So I tapped the little call button and she says, can I help you? And I said, I can't breathe. And she comes racing in there, and I'll never forget what she said. She takes a stethoscope, she listens to my chest, and she says, oh, honey, you're developing pneumonia. And I thought, at that moment, I thought, that's why Jesus showed me heaven, because he wanted me to be okay with dying. I thought, you know, in the state I'm in, if I develop pneumonia, I'm toast. I'm just not going to make it. I waited.
- [28:22]
A
Yeah.
- [28:22]
B
To get checked out. So she calls in a bunch of other nurses and they came in, one of them, they took my temperature. It was still 104, same as when, when I went in for surgery. They packed me in ice. They gave me a spirometer to breathe into. So you've got to blow into this little tube and there's a, another that connects to a tube and there's a little marble at the bottom. And you got to make that marble. You blow in it. You make the marble go up to. Hopefully up to 10.
- [28:53]
A
It's. Oh, yeah, because they're trying to expand your lungs.
- [28:56]
B
Expand your lungs, get some air, movement and all that. They put oxygen on me. And she says, now breathe into this ten times an hour. I'm going to sit down with you and, you know, make sure that you remember. You don't, you know, go back to sleep and all that. And right when she sat down, all the other nurses left. And I can only describe it this way. I felt a holy presence enter my hospital room. I didn't see Jesus, but I heard him. And it was like he was sitting next to the nurse. And he says, he says to me, michael. And when I, when he said my name, I looked at the nurse and I said, did you say something? And she says, no. And she looks at me and she goes, it's time to breathe into the spirometer again. So I tried breathing. Little marble didn't move. And again I hear Jesus, same voice that he used during the nde, and he says, michael, I needed to get you flat on your back, away from all the distractions so you could hear me. And I was blown away. I looked at the nurse and she didn't, she didn't react. So she didn't hear him talk. He's talking to me.
- [30:15]
A
And is this audible?
- [30:18]
B
It's audible. It's like he's in the room with me, like, speaking. She's at the end of my bed, he's next to her. It's an audible voice.
- [30:27]
A
You're hearing it through your ears.
- [30:29]
B
My ears? Yes, yes, it's. It's an amazing thing. And, and I said, I said, is this real? And he says, yes, it's real. And that became this theme. I had a three hour conversation with him. It went from 2 o' clock to 5 o'. Clock. And I probably asked him 50 times, is this really happening? Because it's just the most bizarre thing. I mean. Yeah, the ND was, was crazy. I'd heard of NDEs before. I didn't leave my body, you know, but I, I thought, okay, it makes sense if Jesus is going to answer a prayer, you know, that all made sense to me. But this thing, this is, this is the weirdest part and the funny part is when I told my friends about the nde, at first they, they came in, they sat down, and these are grown men holding my hand and they're crying right along with me. And I see their reaction as I'm telling them the nd, they're just, the look on their faces, like, man, this is the most cool thing I've ever heard. And the most bizarre thing too. But then I got to the point where I said, and 24 hours later, Jesus came and he sat down in my room and I had a three hour conversation with him. Their expression, every single one of them, like six or seven of them went from, wow, that's amazing, to dude, you're crazy. And I heard God just whisper to me, you don't have to tell this part yet. And I thought, okay, when you, when.
- [31:57]
A
You first started to tell it and you saw that reaction, you heard him say, you don't have to tell that.
- [32:04]
B
This part, tell that part yet. And I thought, okay, because I'm, you know, obviously I'm losing credibility here. Nobody's going to believe me anymore. They're going to think I'm nuts. You know, I'm, or that I'm, I just had this dream.
- [32:17]
A
Yeah.
- [32:18]
B
You know, I kept saying, is this real? Is this really happening? Are you really here? And every time he would say yes, and he started getting annoyed because I kept asking him, he would go like.
- [32:32]
A
Like, how many times do I have to say yes?
- [32:34]
B
Yeah. Where's your faith?
- [32:36]
A
Well, Mike, you know, something interesting is I was going to ask you if. That if Jesus showed up again in the hospital room because it's, it happens a lot.
- [32:49]
B
Oh.
- [32:50]
A
So when people have near death experiences, when they come back, and I don't know why, I, you know, I liken it to maybe like, we live behind this veil. It's like we're veiled to the reality of the, of the world all around us, the spiritual realm all around us. But when you guys come back, it seems like it's thin or something.
- [33:15]
B
Yeah.
- [33:16]
A
And so encounters like that or seen angels with you or so those kinds of things for a while seem pretty common actually. So I'm not surprised.
- [33:30]
B
Well, that's good. So you don't think I'm crazy?
- [33:34]
A
No.
- [33:34]
B
Yeah. But that was the reaction that I got from my friends. And then When Jesus said, you don't have to tell this part yet, I thought, okay, I'm. I'm gonna. I just won't. And I let it go. So I write the book 12, about eight years later. It did really well, and it was kind of a fun way to look at, like, is heaven a physical place? Like, right now could put it out there somewhere, because when Stephen was stoned to death, it says he looked into heaven, the heavens were opened up to him, and he saw Jesus standing at the right hand of Father. He didn't say he saw a ghost floating. He. He said he saw a physical Jesus standing. That's a physical attribute, right? I had a fun, you know, fun time exploring that. Like, could it be out there and he just hides it from us? Sure, he could. What's.
- [34:23]
A
What's the name of your. What's the name of the book you wrote?
- [34:26]
B
The book that I wrote is Accidental Heaven. And Accidental. I wrote it as fiction, but I used my NDE.
- [34:32]
A
Okay.
- [34:33]
B
So fast forward about 10 years later, guidepost calls me, and they said, we want to use your story of your nde. We want you to tell it to our author, and we're going to put it in one of our books, Glimpses of Eternity. So that came out. And then when that book came out, I'm. I'm watching this podcast. This was before your podcast, I think I was watching a podcast on. On YouTube. And it was this guy talking to somebody that was based in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. And I heard God's voice saying, contact this guy. You know, I want. I want you to contact him. And I'm like, okay, you know, I'll be obedient. And I hadn't really talked about the NDE that much. You know, it just kind of became this thing. But then all of a sudden, NDEs are real popular, and it's like that. It's this own. It's its own industry now. Yeah, everybody has an. But I guess, you know, it is what it is. So I contact him and I. And I started doing a little marketing for the Guidepost book. And I got to the point where, you know, I was on a few podcasts, got a lot of. A lot of views, and I read all the comments, and I remember reading this one comment where this guy had written, you didn't die. You're. That was just a hallucination because of your high temperature. And I thought, okay. During that three hour conversation with Jesus, I started out at 104, but they packed me in ice. And while he Was still there about an hour later. Hour and 15 minutes later, she took my temperature. I was down to 100. So that's not enough to make a hallucination. And the conversation kept going. So I thought, I have the answer. I know it wasn't, and I can prove it. You know, whether the guy believes me or not, that's another. Another thing altogether.
- [36:34]
A
Right?
- [36:35]
B
I had the proof, and I heard Jesus say, now's the time. Tell your story. Tell the whole story. Hold nothing back. The world is ready, and so are you.
- [36:49]
A
Wow. When was this?
- [36:51]
B
This was probably six months ago.
- [36:55]
A
Oh, like, okay.
- [36:59]
B
And so have you.
- [37:00]
A
Have you told the whole thing?
- [37:04]
B
I've told a few people close to me to, you know, to kind of get their reaction, to see if it's. And it's funny. The reaction is different. But you're one of the first ones, John, that I'm. That I'm telling this whole thing to. Oh, my new book's at the publisher, so everybody's gonna find out pretty soon, but.
- [37:24]
A
Well, let's hear it.
- [37:26]
B
So he tells me while I'm laying in the hospital bed, he says, our story is going to be heard by millions. And I thought I laughed. I said, I'm not Billy Graham. I'm not a guy that can talk in front of. I don't like talking in front of my church, you know, and it's a small church, there's a couple hundred people. I'm not a public speaker. You got the wrong guy, you know?
- [38:00]
A
Well, that doesn't work very well because I said the same thing.
- [38:03]
B
I know. So in the 20 years he's. When he said, you're ready, I'm ready to defend it. I've got. I've got all the answers. Everybody says, it's dmt, it's your hallucination, it's this, it's that. You know, it's just your dying brain. It's all this stuff. And. And I'm like, you know, I'll. I'll. I'll give you the answers that I have. But 20 years ago, if you think about what. What I was doing, I was a superintendent for a real estate development company. I was under a really stress. That was a lot of stress in that job. And I was not the kind of guy that. That could represent Jesus very well. You know, I went to church on Sundays, but that was just to get my kids in church. I believed in Jesus. I believed in God. I never had these interactions with them. I would pray, but, you know, just. I was just what I would call a Sunday Christian. You know, church was something that you just did for the, for the kids, basically. Just, it just didn't. I didn't get anything out of it. We had a little. We had a little Sunday school class that was fun, but it just didn't have that heartfelt meaning. And I was not a good representative of Jesus in, in that subdivision. You know, I would cuss at these guys. I would, you know, I was very blunt with them, but, you know, getting contractors to do work, sometimes you got to get in their face and, you know, yeah, it's not a good representative. Representative of Jesus. And so he worked on my heart for, for 20 years. He worked on me. And I am now to the point where, like I said, I, I, I'll defend my faith. And, but instead of, you know, if somebody says, well, I don't believe you, I'm not going to say, well, screw you, you know, I don't need you. I don't really care now, I'll just say, I'm really sorry you feel that way, and I'll pray for them, you know, and hopefully I'm the mustard seed in their life, you know, that makes them say, yeah, something to this Jesus guy.
- [40:06]
A
Yeah.
- [40:06]
B
You know.
- [40:07]
A
Yeah. So tell us. I'm. I'm very curious. What, what was the conversation?
- [40:14]
B
Well, the conversation, probably two hours of it, was me saying, you sure this is really happening?
- [40:21]
A
Well, no wonder he got.
- [40:22]
B
Yeah, that's a lot of that. But what he said was, our story is going to be heard by millions. And, and that's actually come true. Even though I was fighting him on it, you know, I just kept saying, you know, like I said, I'm not Billy Graham, and I don't like talking in front of crowds. But he said, I will give you the words to say, I will speak for you. You let the Holy Spirit, you know, do the talking. We want this story to be told. And he told me that I would have some valleys to walk through. And anytime something bad happened in my life, I would remember that conversation. And I would think, this is that valley that he was talking about. You know, this is bad. My dad passed away a few years after that, and it was unexpected. And I remember him saying, you're going to have valleys to walk through. But he said, I've approved it, and I will walk with you, and you will feel my presence. And he was right. I did. You know, the whole time that I was grieving, I was around my family and, you know, crying and going to the funeral and doing all this stuff. I still miss my dad terribly. But I know that I know where he is. He knows Jesus, he knows the Lord. I've seen it. So I know he's there. Yeah. Later, when my mom passed away, probably about a year after that, I thought, oh, it's another valley, you know, Lord, I need strength. You know, I have no parents. My sister died. You know, I had, I had all these bad things happen. You know, my marriage fell apart. And, you know, that was rough. I mean, that one, that one was hard on everybody, you know, did that.
- [42:08]
A
Have anything to do with this near death experience or was it separate?
- [42:13]
B
I don't think so.
- [42:15]
A
No.
- [42:15]
B
It wasn't like, you know, I'm going the way of Jesus and she's not. She was always a, she always said she was a believer. But, you know, I found out a lot of stuff that, that just caused me to say I, I can't stay, can't stay in the marriage. And it was sad, it was tough. That was rough time. And a lot of, you know, there were a lot of things said about me. You know, you don't know what goes on behind closed doors, that kind of thing. And, you know, I lost a lot of friends, but I just thought, Jesus is still there. He's still holding my hand, he's still walking with me. And I could really feel his presence. And I thought, the interesting thing, when he first, he first sat down and told me, he said, I had to get you away from the distraction so you could hear me. And I thought, yeah, so I could hear you. And I thought, you know, all this stress and all this busyness in my life, I mean, we had four kids, they were all athletic, were going, you know, all over the place. All this stuff, this busyness and the stress of my work, and it's keeping me from cracking open the Bible, you know, getting closer to the Lord. And I, and I realize that now, but that was keeping me from hearing.
- [43:35]
A
God's voice, just slowing down enough to. And you were doing a lot of good things too. I mean, you. I remember thinking, I've, I've been there because you were talking, I think, at one point about coaching and you coach for 19 years?
- [43:51]
B
Yes.
- [43:51]
A
Yeah, yeah, I coached. I coached for 30 different teams, yeah.
- [43:55]
B
Baseball teams over 19 years. I started a kid's youth football league in my little town of Manteca so that kids could play that couldn't afford to play. They, they wanted to charge kids, 10 year old kids $350 to play football. And I started a new team and a new League got all my friends together and I said, guys, we're going to raise the money. We're going to get this community going together. We're going to charge the kids 40 bucks and the parents are going to raise all the money. The kids aren't going to go out selling beef sticks or candy bars. We're gonna do it all. And we did. We did. Yeah.
- [44:28]
A
That's awesome.
- [44:29]
B
It was amazing.
- [44:30]
A
Yeah, that's. We, we had a similar thing is that there was, you know, it's, it. Soccer was my son's sport and it's my sport and it was so crazy how much it cost and how much he couldn't ever attend church, you know, and of course that's, that's a, that's a problem when I'm a pastor because I can't go to his games because they're, you know. So anyway, I, I ended up coaching a, a league that competed against that league and it was almost, it was almost all Spanish speaking kids and my son, or you know, they were first, first generation, second generation. And, and we beat those other teams.
- [45:11]
B
Oh, wow.
- [45:12]
A
You know, so they were good. They were really good. But yeah, I know the coaching world. So you, so you were doing a lot of good. Not, not all bad, right? I mean, it wasn't all.
- [45:23]
B
No, I mean, I was a, I was a, I was a good guy. I was a good role model. You know, all the kids looked up to me and, you know, I was a good person. And I was going to church on Sunday. They didn't know if I had a relationship with Jesus. I mean, not many people talked about it back then, 20 years ago, 25 years ago. You know, it wasn't a relationship with Jesus. It's just like, are you a Christian? Do you go to church? Yeah.
- [45:43]
A
And so that, do you think that's what the Lord was getting at? Like, don't just go through the motions. I want you to listen to me and do life with me.
- [45:53]
B
Definitely. And then there was, there was, there were like after all this nde, then, then I started being able to hear him. I mean, I have, I have story after story of, of where I hear God tell me something audibly and I'll do it. And then later I'm rewarded for it or I find out that it's exactly what he wanted me to do. I had this just the other day, I bought a house that needs remodeling. And I'm getting frustrated again because it's a huge house and everything needs fixing, all the plugs, everything, everything's got to be replaced.
- [46:34]
A
That's the problem with being able to fix things. Then you have to fix them.
- [46:38]
B
I know, exactly. So I'm doing this work myself, and I. This was before we moved in. We actually moved in to, like, the apartment downstairs. It's. It's got a. Like, a rental unit that we're going to convert, but it's not even ready. But our house, our other house sold so fast we had to move. So a couple of days before we moved, I'm. I'm fixing the one shower that works in the downstairs apartment, and I'm ready to test it and turn the water on. And it's got this. It takes a special screwdriver. It's this. It's just a regular slotted screwdriver. It's not a Phillips. And I only have one of those screwdrivers on the job. I hadn't moved all my tools yet, so I have one screwdriver. I'm looking around through all this mess. There's demolition going on. There's, you know, there's tools everywhere. And I can't find the screwdriver. And I'm thinking, dang it, I need the screwdriver. And I. I go, lord, help me find this stupid screwdriver. And I hear him audibly say, it's in your truck. I'm so frustrated. You know what I said, it's not in my truck. Like, out loud. And I hear him go like that.
- [47:42]
A
And I thought he, like, okay, yeah.
- [47:46]
B
This guy, you know, arguing with God. So I thought, okay, well, God said, see my truck? I'm gonna go look at my truck. Just, you know, just to show him, Prove to God it's not in my truck.
- [47:55]
A
So just to prove that he is not omniscient.
- [47:58]
B
I am exactly right back to the. Back to the guy. We're independent. We don't go to the hospital. We don't go to the doctor. We don't listen to God.
- [48:06]
A
Okay?
- [48:07]
B
So I go out to the truck, and my truck's a mess. It's got papers all over the place. And I just kind of look. I open the door and I look at it, and I go, yeah, see, it's not in here. So I go back in, and I thought, I'm so frustrated. I just need to. Need to calm down. I grabbed my lunchbox, I sit down. It's about lunchtime. I grab my sandwich, and I start eating my sandwich and take a bite of it. And it's like God gave me this vision of me the day before. And I'M standing on this little two foot ladder and I'm taking down one of these old lights and I've got the screwdriver in my hand, this screwdriver that I'm looking for. And I'm watching this like a movie play out in front of my eyes. And I take the screwdriver and I watch my. Myself put it in my pocket in my pants. And then later I, I see myself walk out to my truck, sit down in my truck, and the screwdriver kind of stabs me in the leg. So I take it out of my pocket and I put it in the center console. Well, when God said, it's in your truck, I didn't look in the center console. But after that whole vision, I put the sandwich down, I walk outside and I open the console, there's the screwdriver. And I just got on my knees and I said, I'm so sorry, you know, you're amazing. To help me find a screwdriver, of all things, you know, and, well, and.
- [49:27]
A
I bet, I bet there are people, they're listening, you know, who are saying, well, yeah, that would make it easy if God would audibly speak to me or give me like the. But you know, Mike, I have had the experience of the same thing and I've never heard an audible voice from God, but I have learned to hear when he puts a thought in me that I, I think that was random. That's usually what I first think. Yeah, that's weird. That's random. And I push it away and it comes again. That's weird. And then the third time, I'm usually like, okay, I've learned to pay attention to it. And just like you said, when I act in faith, then I look back, just like you just described, and I go, oh, my gosh, he was, he was speaking to me. He was guiding me. But I could have easily thought it was my thought.
- [50:23]
B
Sure, yeah. Yeah, I think most people do. But I've, I've, I've just kind of learned how he works. I mean, I hear his voice in my spirit all the time, you know, and when it's audible, I think it's, it's really special.
- [50:42]
A
Yeah.
- [50:43]
B
He cares that much. He loves me that much. Like, if that was my dad, he'd say, hey, dummy, it's in your, it's in your truck, you know?
- [50:52]
A
Well, and, and I think what you're, what you're pointing out is what so many people don't realize is that we, we kind of think, oh, the Lord is so big and Busy. He doesn't care about the things like, I lost my screwdriver or I'm struggling today. And that's just the opposite. He is so big and so amazing. He can care about every little detail of everything we're going through and actually wants to go through it with us.
- [51:20]
B
Absolutely. Yeah.
- [51:21]
A
Which I don't understand, but he does.
- [51:24]
B
Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing. I mean, so what were some of.
- [51:29]
A
The other things that Jesus told you as you were there in the hospital?
- [51:35]
B
Just pretty much what. What this. What the story was going to do, you know, And. And I kept. I kept kind of asking him, like, well, you know, should I write a book? I mean, I'm. I'm not an author. I'm not a writer. I wouldn't even know where to start. And he's like, well, you know, you can. You can start there, you know, take it chapter by chapter. Right, right. You know, he's telling me all this, you know, step by step. Like, I think the way your mind works that you would. You should do this. You should write a. Like a. You know, write an idea and then. And then another idea and another idea and just. And just expound on those ideas, you know, just. And just keep going back to it. And I was like, yeah, but I. I just don't know if I can know. Maybe I could just write something, like, maybe just a little pamphlet, you know, and he's like, well, you could do that, you know, but that I'll. I'll let you know, you know, I'll kind of guide you, but just be open to hearing from me and. And listen for me and. And talk to me, you know, so.
- [52:47]
A
Almost like he was. There were options.
- [52:51]
B
I think there were. Yeah. So I don't know if you know this, if this path that I'm going down, you know, I can't wait to have the whole conversation with them and say, you know, did I do the right thing? I think I did. Because you said millions. Okay, I've reached millions now. I. I guess that's the way it's going to be.
- [53:14]
A
Yeah.
- [53:15]
B
Yeah. But a lot of it was, you know, I think the majority of it was getting me ready for some heartache and some tough times.
- [53:26]
A
Yeah.
- [53:26]
B
And just saying, listen, I'm gonna be there with you. I've been there with you, but you're too distracted to know that I want more. You know, I want more from you, and I want a better relationship, and you need to talk to me. Want you to read your Bible. You know, he said that a couple of Times I, I want you to read a Bible more than what you do. So from the, from that moment on, I had, this was before I had a cell phone with a Bible on it. I, I found this little blue Bible with tiny little words and it fit in my back pocket. So I would put it in my back pocket and at, at lunchtime I would either go home and read, you know, a little bit. And you know, it's funny, like sometimes it's, it's talking about like whatever I'm going through that day. It's amazing.
- [54:17]
A
Yeah.
- [54:18]
B
I started reading that and I read through the whole thing in one year and I, I still count that as one of my greatest accomplishments of my life. I read the whole Bible, you know, I don't think too many people can say that.
- [54:31]
A
Yeah, I know, I know. And it's sad. Many Christians who, who never have. I'm actually going through it right now again. I'm on day 272 and yeah, and I, in fact I'm, I'm, I'm recommending it to a lot of people. It's the Bible recap. And it, it gives a little seven minute summary of what you read that day. It's very helpful. I think it is very helpful, especially if you've never read through the Bible and kind of don't see the big picture of it because you can get lost.
- [55:02]
B
Sure.
- [55:04]
A
Yeah.
- [55:04]
B
Yeah.
- [55:05]
A
Did he explain that part?
- [55:08]
B
No, did not.
- [55:10]
A
Like, I have so many questions for him. Like, okay, like, you know, you really did make it confusing some times. Right. Like that must have been intentional. But why?
- [55:22]
B
Yeah, yeah, no kidding. And the Old Testament, there's, there's some stuff in the Old Testament that's really tough to read. It is. Especially when you get stuck on what, you know, so and so begat so and so and you know, and you can just kind of skim through that stuff. But man, there's a lot of like violence and all that, but boy, when you get to the good stuff, you know, you get to John and, and you know, even Proverbs, you know, telling all this wisdom. It's amazing. There's a lot of great stuff in the Bible.
- [55:55]
A
Well, and I, you know, this time reading through it and you know, it's probably my 20th time honestly, but I always get something. And that's where what you're saying is like, I think Jesus wants us to read the Bible because it is his word and it's alive and it, it, he finds a way by his spirit to meet us. And partially through that, right yeah. And to guide us. But, you know, I was realizing this time through that I understand why people say like, well, in the, I read the Old Testament, God's just angry all the time. He's just angry, angry and just doom and gloom. And I realized this time that two thirds of the prophets and the prophets are, they are like, this is going to happen and this is going to happen and this is going to happen. It's like, it's pretty brutal, right?
- [56:51]
B
Help.
- [56:51]
A
And you are kind of like, well, what's your deal, God? Aren't you ever happy? And what I realized is it's actually about a 300 year period in history, you know, in like the last 4,000 years, when Israel is just spiraling in a death spiral, down, down, down. And he is like a father watching an, a son who's addicted to destroy himself. And he just keeps going. This is going to happen to you. Don't turn back. Come on. And if you don't. And the son keeps going, keeps going and he keeps pleading. And I think that's the way God is. Like for 300 years he was patient.
- [57:37]
B
Yeah.
- [57:38]
A
But he kept warning them. And so it feels like, you know, it's forever, but.
- [57:43]
B
Right.
- [57:44]
A
I don't know. Anyway, it gave me a new perspective because I think, I think you have to, you have to interpret the Old Testament through the lens of Jesus because he is the fulfillment.
- [57:54]
B
Right.
- [57:55]
A
You know, he came to fulfill all that was spoken about in the law and the prophets, he said. So I think that helps, he helps clarify the, the confusing parts, you know.
- [58:07]
B
Yeah. For sure. Yeah.
- [58:10]
A
When you came back and now you're, you know, you're back to Mike, right? Trying to live this out?
- [58:18]
B
Yeah.
- [58:20]
A
Did you have a sense of what your purpose was, you know, kind of in him showing you that? And now what am I supposed to do?
- [58:29]
B
Yeah, it took, it took a long time to get it, to get it all sorted out. I mean, I thought, okay, he told me he wants a, a better relationship. I, I can do that. That's, that's pretty easy. You know, spend more time in prayer. Spend time in, in, in his word. Talk to him more, you know, lean on him more, listen to him more.
- [58:52]
A
Just all throughout the day, all day.
- [58:54]
B
Yeah. And, and I had to kind of train myself to do that because, you know, I'm, I, I went back to the same old job, same old stress. And I thought, I can't, I can't just go back into that same trap. You know, I've gotta, I've gotta get this new perspective. And so when I, When I would have a problem at work, I would. I would just pull myself away from and just start praying about it and say, okay, God, what, what. What am I supposed to do here? You know, this guy says he can't show up until Thursday, and I need it done Tuesday. You know, how do I handle this? Yeah, tell me what to say. And I would just. I would just work on, you know, becoming a. Just a better representative of Jesus. That took a long time. Yeah, it really did. But I. It wasn't an overnight thing. I had to. I had to change my heart. But when I. When I finally did, you know, then. Now I get it.
- [59:52]
A
Well, I think that's encouraging to people, actually, because I think sometimes they think, oh, well, if I saw heaven and I was in Jesus presence, then, you know, that's all I need. And then everything would be great. Yeah, but it's not like that, is it?
- [60:05]
B
Well, the other thing he. He told me was when you. He says just, Just know this, that when you step out in faith, the enemy steps up. His attack. And that's what happened. Like, I, I really think that, you know, that probably had something to do with my marriage, but.
- [60:30]
A
Absolutely.
- [60:31]
B
I've had all kinds of. All kinds of stuff happen. The church I was going to, we were gonna. We. We were going to build a new church. The, the guy that I worked for donated land on the outskirts of town to build this nice big church. We started putting up blueprints and then on the building committee, which I was on the building committee. My boss was on the building committee. All these people started. One died of cancer. One's wife had cancer. One went through a divorce. One of them left the church because he said he didn't feel like he was, you know, being fulfilled or something. I mean, there was just all these. This whole building committee just attack one by one by one. Pretty soon we went down from like a meeting room of 10 down to three. And wow, mine was like the final straw. You know, we were the. The beautiful family. People used to call us Ken and Barbie. And now Ken and Barbie are getting a divorce, you know, and it was just. It was just these heartbreaking. Through this, through this church, John, you know, now that little country church. They didn't build the new church, and it sits in the shadow of a Muslim prayer center. Built it right next door.
- [61:49]
A
Wow.
- [61:49]
B
It is amazing. It was amazing to see the downfall. They're still there. And, you know, it's still a small little church, and I still pray for them, but it was Amazing to see what the enemy did to that church and to all those people, just picked him apart.
- [62:09]
A
And Jesus told you that? He said, when you step out in faith, the enemy ups his attack.
- [62:15]
B
Yep, yep. And that scared me because, you know, I didn't. I. I mean, I had a pretty good life. I was making a lot of money. We had a new house. You know, everything seemed to be fine.
- [62:28]
A
I mean, like, I don't want that.
- [62:30]
B
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
- [62:32]
A
No, thanks.
- [62:33]
B
Yeah, help me out. That's why when he said you're. You're our. He calls it our story. He said, says our story is going to be heard by millions. I'm like, no, it isn't. Come on. I'm not Noah. I'm not Moses. You know, I'm. Those guys are legends. I'm just Mike, the superintendent, you know, just back to being.
- [62:56]
A
That's. That's what he. That's. That's what he actually likes is the Moses who says, I can't speak.
- [63:02]
B
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
- [63:05]
A
He. I don't know. I know it's funny the way he. Well, and I think, you know, I think a lot of people hear that, and they think they. They do recoil, like, oh, well, I better be careful stepping out in faith because I'll get attacked. But I think the reality is you just don't realize we have the authority that Jesus has given us to battle those attacks and win.
- [63:34]
B
Exactly.
- [63:35]
A
We don't. We don't have to take it lying down. We can fight. And you fight in your spirit. You resist the evil one and he flees from you.
- [63:43]
B
Right.
- [63:43]
A
You know, Jesus said, I. I've given you authority, you know, over all the powers of the evil one. And so we have nothing to fear.
- [63:53]
B
Right? Yeah. I mean, in. My ultimate goal in life is to be a child of God. You know, my. My goal is to get to heaven. So now I know I'm. I'm there. I'm in. So no matter what happens here, you know, there's tragedies, there's horrible things that happen all the time.
- [64:18]
A
Yeah.
- [64:19]
B
You know, I can't. I can't justify or even figure out how God could put up with this stuff. I've said to him before, man, you gotta. You gotta come back now. This is. We can't. We can't have this. You know, whenever something happens, a school shooting or, you know, the mystic camp just got wiped out and all those little kids, I just can't get over that. That one just breaks me. But.
- [64:45]
A
Well, that's. That's just two hours from us. My daughter, my daughter went to the camp right up the river from mystic and the director was one of the ones that got washed away. And it is, it's been heartbreaking here. And we're actually, I'm, I'm excited to be able to. We, we made contact with some of the parents and are hoping just to be able to give, just give them a new picture because I truly believe, you know, as you know, that it's not, it's not the horror you picture because Jesus does meet those little girls.
- [65:25]
B
Yeah.
- [65:26]
A
And he grabs them by the hand, you know, and they are suddenly in the most wonderful life and with all their friends, you know, that, that, that is actually what happened. And we see the, and think about the horror of, you know, all that we can see. But you. As you know, there's more.
- [65:49]
B
Yeah. Yeah. And, and if you think about, you know, we are, we are made to live forever. We can't comprehend that. We can't, we can't wrap our mind around eternity. We're never going to die. We're going to be here for eternity. We cannot grasp that. But when you think about it, a million years from now, you know, what's, what's my 65, 70 year old life going to look like? I mean, am I going to remember much? I don't think so.
- [66:18]
A
Yeah. And did you have a sense of that, experiencing the time on the other side?
- [66:26]
B
You know, the time isn't, is. Was interesting because the surgery lasted a couple hours over, over two hours. And for me it was just like maybe 10 minutes. It seemed like 10 minutes. It went by real fast. So I, I can't figure out the timing of it all, but just, you know, I can't, I can't, I can't grasp that part. I've tried, but the whole, you know, the whole eternity.
- [66:58]
A
Yeah.
- [66:58]
B
You know, those, those little girls and, and they're, they're in heaven. And sure, we're gonna miss them. You know, families are gonna miss them. Like I said, I miss, I miss my parents, but I know that I know where they are and I just, I just look for, you know, that glorious reunion.
- [67:20]
A
Yeah. You know, the whole thing. Because even knowing about heaven, it doesn't take away the grief, it doesn't take away the loss and the, you know, of course there's no greater loss than a, than a parent having to bury a child. And I've done many funerals, memorial services that way, and it's just so difficult. But I think at the same time, you guys have, have given us a Glimpse into and what a lot of people have said. I mean, I've interviewed a bunch of people who were children and they died and came back and it wasn't horrible. It was the most wonderful thing of their. Of their life. Yeah. And many say, you know, they don't feel far away from us at all. We feel far from them. We feel the separation. They don't. Because like you were saying, time, time doesn't work the same. So they know we're going to be together just like the next minute, so.
- [68:19]
B
Right.
- [68:20]
A
It's kind of like it's okay.
- [68:22]
B
Yeah.
- [68:23]
A
But it doesn't feel that way, you know, on this side.
- [68:26]
B
Yeah. Yeah. We still, we still have to live here. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. And you never know when someone's. You know, I always tell myself, well, maybe when something happens that God was saving them from, you know, some future event that would have been worse or who knows, you know?
- [68:45]
A
Yeah.
- [68:45]
B
I don't know.
- [68:46]
A
I have no idea. I have no idea. I just know God, you know, I know that without the hope of heaven and that great reunion, it's just. It's just nothing but horrible tragedy.
- [69:00]
B
Right.
- [69:01]
A
But there is that hope. And thank you and, you know, the many others for being brave enough to testify of the reality, you know, of what's to come. Because I think it can, you know, and hopefully will give many people hope.
- [69:17]
B
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
- [69:18]
A
So thanks so much for. For sharing with us today, Mike. I appreciate it.
- [69:21]
B
Well, thanks for. Thanks for having me.
- [69:24]
A
I hope you enjoyed that. I. I enjoyed talking with Mike and just hearing his story again and again. Hearing how God hears every prayer you pray and he answers. In his perfect timing, in Mike's case, It was about 40 years after this childhood desire and prayer. But he does hear your every prayer. And sometimes it does take him time because he is working not only with your free will, but the free will of other people and doing what's best, not just for you, but for everyone. But I also hope that you. You heard very clearly how God wants to be involved in your everyday life in. In the big things, the big decisions that we normally take to him, like when we're in a crisis, but also in the mundane little details of, of life, like when you're working and you come up against a problem that you're trying to solve, or you've got kids, you know, and you're. Or grandkids, and you're trying to figure out how to help them. And you need wisdom, you know, or as simple as you can't find that Screwdriver that you lost. And many times, you know, just like Mike said, we. We fail to go to God because we think he just doesn't care or it's not a big deal. And yet Mike's story reminds us that, no, God is so big. He is so powerful and omniscient and so personal at the same time that he is always with you and cares about every detail and actually wants to do life with you. You know, over the course of the ministry that I've done, I spoke a lot about the unburdened way of Jesus. You know, I've lived my own life and tend to be type A and kind of stressed out and worried a lot about stuff and things not going right. And I came across this passage, Matthew 11:28, where Jesus says, come to me, all you who are weary and heavy burdened. Come and I will give you rest. And then. And then he goes on to say, you know, come, learn from me, you know, because. Because I'm gentle and humble of heart, and you'll find rest for your souls. And then he says, my yoke, a yoke was something you put on oxen to. To help them work together, right? To plow a field. My yoke is light. The burden I give you is light. He's not a taskmaster. He wants to lead us in the unburdened way of doing life. And that's exactly what Mike came back and realized, that he spent way too much time worrying and stressed and anxious and not near enough time just listening and asking the Lord for guidance in all these little things or big things too. You know, I actually wrote a book many years ago called Soul Revolution that is all about this, about how do we live moment by moment, staying connected to God, and how do we learn to do that? You know, I'm convinced that that's actually the only thing we have to do is what Jesus talked about his last night on earth In John chapter 15, when he said, abide in me, stay connected to me. That's what that word means. Just like a branch stays connected to the trunk of a tree and fruit grows naturally, so if you stay connected to me, you will bear much fruit. It's simple. But apart from that, apart from staying connected to me, he said, you can do nothing. So what that means is this is the one thing we've got to pay attention to. Are we staying connected to the. To the vine, to the trunk of the. The tree, to the source of nutrient and life, which is God. And if we learn to stay connected to God, In a moment by moment way, just like Mike, we was talking about, you know, where, where the Lord wants to help him with the littlest things like solving a work problem or finding a, a screwdriver that he, that he can't find. If we stay connected to him like that, then the fruit of his spirit, love, patience, peace, kindness, joy, self control. These fruits of his spirit grow naturally within us and we are able to live in a more unburdened way because he helps us with a lot of these little things that we stressed about when we just focus on the one thing that's most important which is staying connected. So I, I hope that just Little nugget is a good reminder. I know that's what I started thinking about hearing Mike's story. And again the reason I'm doing this is not just to highlight stories of near death experiencers. I think that's great, but really to help you know God better and follow him more. And like we also talked about, and Mike talked about, you know, learning to listen to God in a moment by moment way is one way. And being in God's word in the Bible in a daily way also helps with that. And I, I hope you will go get the YouVersion Bible. It's an app that you can get for free. And on there there are these daily reading plans. There's one called the Bible Recap and it's a really great way to read through the Bible. You can start with the New Testament or you can start with the Old Testament. By the way, if you've never read the Bible before, start with the New Testament because Jesus is the lens through which you can understand the Old Testament because he said he fulfilled and everything that the Old Testament was about. So that's the best way is to start with understanding the lens of Jesus life and teachings in the New Testament. But anyway, get that Bible app and start on a regular daily reading and studying and understanding more of who God is and what he's taught so that you can more readily hear and listen and respond to his spirit leading and guiding you in your daily life. Well, I hope that little nugget helps you just walk with God better. And until the next episode, be blessed.