Episode 170: Global Near-death Experiencers witness the Joy of GOD!

Those having NDEs are all over the place. Join Sandra as she speaks with New York Times’ Best-selling Author John Burke.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast DAM paranormal
podcast network. Now get ready for another episode of Sheets
of the Afterlife with Sandra Champlain.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Welcome to our podcast. Please be aware the thoughts and
opinions expressed by the host are their thoughts and opinions
only and do not reflect those of iHeartMedia, iHeartRadio, Coast
to Coast AM, employees of Premiere Networks, or their sponsors
and associates. We would like to encourage you to do

(00:33):
your own research and discover the subject matter for yourself. Hi.
I'm Sandra Champlain. For over twenty five years, I've been
on a journey to prove the existence of life after death.
On each episode, we'll discuss the reasons we now know

(00:55):
that our loved ones have survived physical debt, and so
will we. Welcome to Shades of the Afterlife. If you've
been a listener to Shades of the Afterlife for a while,
you know I talk about things like you don't have
to see it to believe it. There's a lot of
things happening in the invisible world around us that we

(01:16):
can't see, but they're very real. Your computer or your
phone may not be plugged into the Internet, and yet
it can receive information. There's television signals, there's radio waves,
there's the GPS signals. There's so much in this space,
even things like sound. Can't see it, but it's real.

(01:39):
Wind can't see it, but it's real. Well, that's the
place our loved ones live. I think our world is
a world within their world. Heaven or the afterlife isn't
someplace far out there. It's right here, just vibrating at
a different pace. Energy cannot be destroyed, so we know

(02:00):
that right when a log burns, it turns into heat.
When a puddle evaporates it turns into steam or cloud.
And when we die, our bodies are gone, but our
energy survives. Two or a lot more kinds of energy
can live at the same place at the exact same time.

(02:24):
So yes, I believe in the space around you right now,
there's a lot you can't see. I believe that our
loved ones are very busy living their lives, but can
easily just take a look to see what we are doing.
They may not be able to communicate with that same ease,
but it doesn't mean they're not there. It's often a

(02:45):
question if our loved ones are there? Who else is there?
I think we have spirit guides people like angels. Why not?
And what about the almighty? Shall I use the word God?
I think we can all be in agreement that there
is some energy, some life force, something divine that is

(03:08):
connecting all of us and giving energy to everything. Many
people use the word light to describe this. Some people
use nature or the universe. In my book We Don't Die,
I have a chapter on religion. Most of the major
world religions believe in the afterlife, even a lot of atheists.

(03:35):
Although they may not believe in God, they believe in something.
One of my favorite expressions relates God to a light
bulb or light. When you think of all the world
religions out there, if we could say they are like
all the lamps out there. There may be plenty of religions,

(03:57):
but there's only one light. There may be plenty of
lamps and again one light. So on our show today,
you're going to hear from my pastor who talks about God.
Feel free to put in whatever word you choose that
you're comfortable with. I certainly don't want to try to

(04:18):
push religion on you, nor would I ever do that,
But I think it's important to hear just how close
this love or this light is. Let me tell you
about our guest. His name is John Burke, and he
has spent the last three decades studying commonalities of more

(04:38):
than a thousand near death experiences. He was recently featured
in the film After Death. He's a New York Times
bestselling author of a book called Imagine Heaven, and he
and his wife Kathy founded Gateway Church in Austin, Texas.
His latest book, Imagine the God of Heaven, recounts nearly

(05:02):
seventy new near death experience stories. I think you'll be
very interested and inspired how he, as a skeptic, found
a relationship with this light or God, and how he
tells stories of near death experiences no matter what the
religion or area of the world, How this love is

(05:25):
the same. So here is Pastor John Burke.

Speaker 3 (05:29):
Yes, I came in kicking and screaming. I was an agnostic.
I've always been skeptical, minded, analytical person. I studied engineering,
I worked as an engineer. I want to know why,
how do you know? And so I was an agnostic.
When my dad was dying of cancer and someone gave
him Moody's book, So the very first book researching and

(05:53):
coining the term near death experience. And I saw it
on his bedside table and I just was like curious.
I picked it up and I start reading a little,
and then I read more. I read the whole book
that night, and I said to myself, Oh, my gosh,
could this be actual medical, scientific evidence that this stuff

(06:13):
is real? This afterlife, this God stuff. So I didn't
become convinced by that, but it opened my mind and
it opened me to start to seek and explore more.
And as you mentioned, I since went from a career
in engineering to becoming a pastor, and my wife and
I started a church for skeptics. So our whole slogan

(06:36):
is no perfect people allowed and coming as you are,
doubters welcome. I found out they're a lot like me.
My whole problem. And the reason I pushed church away and
God and all that is because I had a lot
of questions and no one would wrestle with me with
them help me make sense of this. So anyway, that's
what we started. But yes, over the last thirty five years,

(06:56):
I've studied well over one thousand near death experiences personally,
interviewed many of them, become very good friends with many
of them, and in twenty fifteen wrote Imagine Heaven. What
I'm really trying to show is the commonalities of what
people say all over the globe and how it intersects
with the scriptures. And so I'm trying to help bring

(07:17):
those two together and help people see how they really
are pointing to the same reality and the same things.

Speaker 2 (07:23):
Did you have a tipping point, John, that you got
that there is God?

Speaker 3 (07:29):
Yeah? Interestingly, it wasn't just near death experiences that convinced me.
And in this new book, Imagine the God of Heaven,
I weave in some of my discoveries along the way,
like one of the things I like to say. And
in this new book, I was blown away because I
interviewed seventy people all over the globe. Every comment and

(07:50):
it doesn't matter what their expectation was, and they were
very different, very different religious backgrounds, but they were encountering
and describing the same God of Light, who is love
and life, very personal in his presence, they never wanted
to leave. He knows them intimately. Nobody else does what

(08:13):
people all around the globe are reporting. And I think
they're really testimonies of the reality that God has always
been the god of all nations, and he created every
human for first a love relationship with himself, and then
for him to be able to lead us to love
one another as He loves us. Of course, Jesus comes

(08:34):
and he says the same thing, and he says, I
want this proclaim to all nations that there's forgiveness. No
matter what you've done, God still loves you. You're like
his child. He forgives, he says, every tribe, every language
there in heaven with God. And so there's this great

(08:54):
family reunion as we are brought together with what I
believe is the love we've always wanted. One of the things, Sandra,
that I did, I've taken eight years to write the
second book because I actually quit writing. It's a lot
to try to lead a church, and I'd written four books,

(09:16):
and I felt I'm supposed to care for people and
be a pastor. That's one of the things you learned
from near death experiences, right, is God cares about how
we just treat people in a simple way. There are
always skeptics. See in in just a few months ago
put out this article Near death Experiences are just in

(09:38):
the brain study show. If you read the article, they're
quoting Sam Parnia, who doesn't believe that at all. And
by the end of the article you find out what
they really said, and that was just a headline to
get your attention because they didn't say that at all.
That's why in chapter two of Imagine the God of Heaven,
I write about skeptics, science and indease. I point out

(10:03):
the ten points of evidence that convinced me and many
skeptical doctors. But what convinced me first of all is
verifiable observations while out of the body. Doctor Janis Holden
did a study of ninety three patients of cardiac arrest
who had a near death experience and compared it to
cardiac arrest patients who did not claim to have a

(10:25):
near death experience, and each one might make five or
ten observations of the resuscitation going on while they have
no eeg. No brain waves. For a materialist, you got
to explain this. If they have no brain waves, where
are these memories being stored and how could they see
and report these things while they're unconscious? Right? But what

(10:49):
doctor Holden found is ninety two percent of all their
observations were completely accurate, another six percent were mostly accurate,
only two percent were actor. Turns out that was one
person in the study, and then compared to the control group,
which was just it was guessing, that was incredibly powerful.

(11:10):
That is what really got my attention when I was
still a skeptical engineer. But then the other ones are
if you think about it, how do blind people see
in their near death experience and report seeing the same things?
And some of the things they report seeing, I point
out that this is not what they would have heard

(11:31):
on Earth. So, for instance, Debbie is this one person
who was born blind, and she leaves her body. She
sees her mother come in because she had fallen, and
she later reports how her mother had on her bathrobe
and her mom said yeah, and she said, I couldn't
tell it was dark. She didn't know the color. She said, yeah,

(11:54):
it was a black bathrobe. That's what I was wearing.
Then Debbie travels through this tunnel to the beautiful place
and there she meets her grandmother, who she had never
met because her grandmother passed away when she was still
an infant. And when she comes back, she describes what
her grandmother looked like her mother says that's exactly what

(12:14):
she looked like. But when she was thirty and Debbie
experiences this god of light who is love, just never
wants to leave his presence, but he sends her back.
But she also as other blind people like Brad, this
eight year old kid, and Vicky's other blind person that
have interviewed by say that the light of Heaven comes

(12:37):
out of everything, out of the grass, out of the birds,
out of the trees, and even out of the people.

Speaker 2 (12:42):
It's time for our first break. We'll be back with
John Burke hearing more about the light and the love
and hearing some near death experiences. You're listening to Shades
of the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast
A and Paranormal Podcast Network.

Speaker 4 (13:07):
Keep it here on the iHeart Radio and Coast to
Coast AM Paranormal podcast Network. Sanders Champlain will be right back.

Speaker 1 (13:18):
The Internet is an extraordinary resource that links our children
to a world of information, experiences, and ideas and also
can expose them to risk. Teach your children the basic
safety rules of the virtual world. Our children are everything.
Do everything for them.

Speaker 3 (13:47):
Hi, it's doc your Sky. Keep it right here on
the iHeart Radio.

Speaker 5 (13:52):
And Coast to Coast am Ironormal Podcast Network.

Speaker 2 (14:10):
Welcome back to Shades of the Afterlife. I'm Santra Champlain
and this is New York Times best selling author John
Burke talking about the light that people see in near
death experiences, even blind people.

Speaker 3 (14:26):
The light of Heaven comes out of everything, out of
the grass, out of the birds, out of the trees,
and even out of the people. But it's not light,
they say, like the light of the sun. They'll use
words like palpable or it is light, but it's also
love and it's light and it's filling everything. Now, if

(14:47):
you think about that, why would a blind person say that,
Because they would have heard on earth and when they
come back they're still blind, right, And on earth they
would have heard light shines on everything, of everything, And
yet they consistently say what sighted people having their death
experiences say. Now, interestingly, what I'm pointing out is that

(15:11):
in the Jewish prophet Isaiah, writing in seven eighty BCE,
says there is no sun or moon in heaven, for
the glory of God is its light. Same thing in
Revelation twenty one, John says there's no sun or moon
because the glory of God and the Lamb Jesus is

(15:32):
its light. And then he says, and the nations will
walk in that light. And that's what in d years
are describing, this light that is coming out of everything.
But it's not just light, it's life and it's love.
I tie all those things together and you just it's
mind blowing to me. It's like, how do you not
get it? So you have verifiable evidence, you have blind

(15:53):
people seeing the same things that they wouldn't have heard
on earth. You also have people all over the globe.
Forty eight percent of near death experiencers encounter God and
they encountered the same God. And it doesn't matter what
religious background. They described this God of light brighter than

(16:17):
the sun like a thousand times and a love that
they say, our word love just doesn't do it. Justice.
One guy, he's a neurologist and a psychiatrist. He actually
got stabbed thirteen times by a patient who is psychotic,
and right before the fourteenth stabbed to the heart and

(16:38):
he showed me the wound through his neck that went
right through and somehow missed his carroid artery and it's
miraculously survived. But he said time stopped and literally this
guy froze with the knife and down this white quarter
comes this light that instantly, he said, this light. Imagine
standing five feet from the source of a nuclear explosion.

(17:02):
He said, that's what it was like. And it was
like roiling with power and energy, he said, but what
was roiling even more was the love. And as soon
as he said that, and this happened so much. When
I'm interviewing these guys, there are these doctors and medical
professionals and they just choke up. They're like, I'm sorry.

(17:23):
But as soon as I say it, I go there
and it's just it overwhelms my emotions. And he said,
if you think about human love, imagine you're standing in
the ocean. The gentle waves are lapping up against your knees,
and that's like human love. And he said, and then
imagine a tsunami of love coming at you. He said,

(17:44):
that's God's love. He said, This tsunami of love washes
away all fear, washes away all worry, all concerns, and
heals anything you would need healing. What I'm trying to
show is that how we imagine God, I believe is
the most important thing we think about and the truth

(18:04):
is all of us, me included. We have God in
a box, right because we're finite, so we have to
and we have these walls that we keep God in.
And many times what I've found is the shape of
our box oftentimes looks like a parent or an authority
figure or a church figure, and sometimes that did not

(18:26):
accurately represent the being of God. And so I'm trying
to help us expand our box. On the one side,
maybe you don't realize how beautiful and mysterious and glorious
and powerful and sovereign, all those big theological terms. Right, Yes,
God is all that and more than we can imagine,
so that we realize, okay, I can trust him because

(18:50):
on the other side of the box, many times we
don't realize how actually personable and enjoyable and even funny
God is. Some people see him as this moral cop
up in the sky looking down. I'm going stop that
does anybody having fun?

Speaker 5 (19:08):
Yet?

Speaker 3 (19:08):
We'll cut it out. What I tried to point out
is that God is joy Now. Interestingly, when I did
my research, not only interviewing seventy in the years from
all over the world, but I went back, I went
to seminary so I went back and went through all
my theology books, and for the way theologians describe God,
something that struck me is not one of those books

(19:32):
describe God with the characteristics of joy or fun or
in enjoyment. And yet in the Old Testament God actually
had the people of Israel. They had five festivals every
year where he said to them, I want you to
all come together, stop work, come together for a week

(19:55):
and celebrate before me with me. Like why, because he
enjoys us enjoying the good gifts he's given us. When
we think about our ability to enjoy life, or do
you even have adventure or feel pleasure or any of
those things, do we think we came up with that. No,

(20:19):
whoever created us came up with our ability to enjoy.
Now can we abuse good gifts? Yeah? Life is full
of examples. I love this story. She's now a good
friend of mine. I was on the news. This is
five years ago, and she emails me afterwards and she said,
I saw you in the news. I don't know who
you are. I've never read your book. She said, I

(20:42):
was raised Jewish but by atheist's parents. And she said,
when I was sixteen, my horse landed on me and
crushed me. I was thirty feet up in the air
looking down, and Jesus was with me. I've never told
anyone that. Thanks, That's all she said. So I'm like,
oh my gosh, and I emailed her back and we

(21:03):
start a conversation. So it turns out she grew up
in a pretty abusive home and her dad had a
mantra that he told his girls every night, there is
no God, your life is worthless. Jesus Christ is the
biggest hoax ever perpetrated on mankind. And he had a
few other things he said, and he was abusive. And

(21:26):
Heidi though believed in God. She always did, and she
prayed to God every night, talking to a dad who cared,
and she always felt like she was being comforted and
cared for and rocked to sleep at night. That's what
she told me. She felt now. When she was sixteen
and her horse fell on her, she said she was
up there and she knew she was dead. She felt great,

(21:50):
and she said, my only concern is that I hated
it that my sisters had to see me die that way.
And then she sees a light over her shoulder and
she said it was a cloudy day and the sun
went come in this direction. So she was curious and
she turns and they're floating with her thirty feet in
the air. She said, is Jesus just emanating this brilliant light?
And she said it wasn't like I said, what's a

(22:13):
good Jewish girl like me doing with Jesus. I'm not
supposed to be with Jesus, She said, no, I knew him.
She said, I knew this man who is God, who
I had always prayed to and always known. She just
intuitively knew it. And then he gives her a life
review and in her life review, first of all, back

(22:35):
to the joy and enjoyment part, they're watching her life
review and one of the things they watch and remember
she's a sixteen year old girl, right, and she loves speed,
so she loves riding horseback fast. And Jesus just thrilled
to be with her and smiling at her. And then
they're watching a life review and they see one scene
when she's an infant. A friend came in and put

(22:56):
another infant in her crib, and the infant takes her
rattle and wax her on the nose, and she and
Jesus just burst out laughing. She said, I wasn't really hurt.
I was just indignant, and you could they could feel
it because you can in life reviews. So they're laughing together.
Then in the life review he shows her her self

(23:17):
praying as a child every night, and she said, I
saw he was sitting by my bed, comforting me and
then putting me to sleep. And she said, I saw this.
Then Jesus gets this big grin on his face, takes
her hand, and now this is the part that at first,
when I first heard it, I wanted it to be true,

(23:38):
but I was like, I don't know. Jesus takes her
hand and they take off line, and she said, at first,
through our atmosphere, she saw trees and buildings and things
going by, but then into like our space, like passing
at the speed of light. And she said, but we
weren't just flying. It was like we were surfing a

(24:01):
wave of light that was under our feet that I
could feel. And she said, at one point, we're both
just grinning and laughing and joking the whole time. And
she reached down and she could feel the wave of
light with her hand, and she could feel it on
her feet. And then Jesus takes her then past this.
She said, it was like a barrier to where suddenly

(24:23):
everything was light and it was all like this sense
of one and what the one was got she just
knew it. And then she finds herself, she said, on
God's lap and this embrace, and God was different than Jesus,
but the same as Jesus. And she said, I don't

(24:45):
know how to explain it. I don't know explain how
God can be light and God can be loved and
God can be a man. I don't understand it, but
that's what I experienced. Of Course, Jesus says, I got
to take you back, and she's like, I'm not going back,
and she argued with him. And I love this too,
that people consistently in God's presence, they're so themselves. If

(25:08):
they don't want something, they tell them and he's patient
and he's kind, but he'as no, you need to go back.
In some cases he says, do you want to go on?
There's a choice. But the reason I was hesitant at
first is I was like, wow, that's out there, like
Jesus laughing and playing and having fun with the sixteen
year old. And then I interview a fourteen year old girl.

(25:30):
Same thing. Like when he's bringing her back, there's lying
and doing things that just would be so thrilling to
a young teenager.

Speaker 2 (25:42):
I'm going to stop John for just a second because
his next story is a little bit longer and we
need to go to the break. But just imagine where
you are right now, that glow of light whatever you
should call it, God, the universe, the divine being so
powerful and so loving. In fact, love is always with you.

(26:04):
We'll be right back. You're listening to Shades of the
Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM paranormal
podcast Network.

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Speaker 2 (27:27):
Welcome back to Shades of the Afterlife. I'm Sandra Chamflaine.
Before the break, John was just telling us about some
teenage kids who met up with God and Jesus and
did some fun things in their near death experience before
coming back. So here's his next story.

Speaker 3 (27:45):
And then I had a couple who were doctors who
were agnostics skeptics who came to our church when I
did a message on this. They came up afterwards and
they said, we started coming to your church and came
to faith because when our second born was in an infant,

(28:05):
he was in and out of ICU and his heart
crashed multiple times. And then when he was four years old,
we would tuck him into bed at night and he
kept saying, I want to go run and play with
Jesus in the fields again. And Christy said to me,
we didn't believe in Jesus. We never watched TV, we'd
never been to church. And I kept asking him, who

(28:28):
told you about Jesus? And he kept saying, when he
came and got me in the hospital, and we went
and ran and played in the fields, I want to
go back. And that kind of opened their minds and
hearts like, Okay, what's going on here? So what I'm
trying to show. And the last section of the book
is all about walking with the God of Joy. The

(28:50):
last thing Jesus said when he was on earth is
he said, stay connected to me, just like a branch
stays connected to a vine, and you don't have to
try hard to grow. Fruit grows naturally. And he said, so,
just stay connected to me, and good things will naturally
grow in your life. But disconnected, you can do nothing.

(29:12):
And then he said this, He said, I've told you
these things so that my joy will be in you
and your joy will overflow. And most people don't think
that's God's heart for you. I have two little granddaughters.
I love enjoying life with them. I can't wait. I'm
going to give my little almost four year old for

(29:32):
first bike with training wheels and I'm so excited because
I get to enjoy her learning to ride a bike.
I'm not a better branddad relater than God is to us.
He's better. I interviewed this aerospace engineer who turned lawyer

(29:53):
is now a lawyer in Australia, and another professor in Australia.
And this one lawyer guy said, he's coming into this
brilliant light and he sees in the light like arms
stretched out, like he's going to just embrace him and
hug him. And as he's getting closer and closer, he

(30:14):
finds himself filled up with what he called was love
and a joy that produces ecstasy. And I thought to myself,
if this keeps going, I'm going to explode. And then
it starts to subside, and he realizes this being this
God heard my thoughts, which of course we know is common.

(30:36):
And then he says, no, don't stop, I want more,
and he hears God chuckle, and then it starts to increase, increase.
So what I'm trying to show is that the God
who created us, the love we have for a child
or for a grandchild, all the feeling known by a

(30:58):
best friend, to just go through life with a best friend,
even the love and ecstasy we would feel with a
spouse that we are just like one with They're all
just a little taste on the tip of our tongue
of a greater relationship that then will bring all of
our relationships together as they were meant to be.

Speaker 2 (31:20):
It is so refreshing to hear you talk.

Speaker 3 (31:23):
John. When I get going, I get wound up because
it's so exciting. I interview Santosh who grew up in India,
doctor Raji Parti, chief fantasysiologist the baker Field Hospital, this
mom in Rwanda, a woman in Tehran, and I'm showing
how what they say and what they experience, and he

(31:47):
doesn't tell them exactly who he is because he said,
if you seek me with all your heart, you'll find me.
And that's exactly what these people do when they come back,
and they do. And so I'm going through this love
story and the compassion and the mercy of God and
making sense of why, if God is love, would he
allow all these horrific things. And I interview some people

(32:10):
who went through horrific things and how when they had
this n Dee in the middle of these horrific things
made sense and how it can help us. But the
last part of the book is all about how do
we walk daily with this God of joy. One ceo
I interviewed, he was a medical executive with Johnson and

(32:33):
Johnson and then a CEO of biotech firms, and a
lot of the people I interview like, they have a
lot to lose making up wacky stories, right, what do
they have the game making this stuff up? This Hindu engineer,
he described seeing the revelation twenty one City of God

(32:54):
exactly and comes back. But the CEO, Randy, he said,
he's there in the presence of Jesus and just overwhelmed.
He said, I knew human love, and I have a
wonderful family and a wonderful spouse. But he said, when
I looked in the eyes of love, this is the

(33:15):
person of love. And he said, I just never wanted
to leave. And Jesus gives them a different kind of
life review. They're all unique in certain ways. He showed
him vignettes, and some of the vignettes like Randy grew
up with severe asthma, so he's in and out of
the hospital a lot as a kid, and he was
bullied because he was overweight, and he lost his one friend,

(33:38):
his little dog, his old fox terrier, was his only friend.
And he's seen all this and he was confused. He
asked the Lord, He said, God, why are you showing
me these things? And then he realized, Oh, you were
with me even in that you were there, and he

(33:59):
looks and Jesus has a tear. He says, I was
always with you. I've always been with you, just waiting
for you to turn to me. It's interesting because sometimes
Christians say this can't be right, because it says in
Revelation there are no more tears. He says, no, it
doesn't say that. It says he will wipe away every tier.

(34:19):
We're still fully ourselves right. And then he shows Randy
this other time because Randy became an atheist and he
went to Northwestern. He tried to disprove all religions. That
was like his project. He tried to do this. And
he sees himself working as an orderly in a hospital
and he walks into bring a meal to this seven

(34:41):
year old cancer patient who's dying, and this little seven
year old boy says to him, I'm dying and he said,
I'm so sorry, and he said it's okay. I'm going
to go to heaven. And then he asked Randy. He said,
do you know Jesus? And Randy said, no, I don't
really believe in that, but if there is a heaven,
I'm sure you'll go there. And then the little boy said,

(35:02):
I'm going to pray for you, and you're going to
be there too. And Randy is here standing with Jesus
reliving this little boy praying for him, and he said,
Jesus was showing me he honored the prayers of that
little boy for me, and I'm here watching this again.

(35:22):
And what he said to him is I was always
there with you, wanting to help you through life and
just wanting you to turn to me. And then Jesus says, look,
and he turns and he looks, and across this meadow
of heaven again with beautiful flowers and grass, comes running
this little dog, Randy's dog that had died when he

(35:43):
was in college, jumps up on him and starts licking
his face like a lollipop, just like he did when
he was little. And Jesus says to him, see, beloved,
I give you the desire of your heart. That's a
psalm in Psalm thirty seventy four says, delight yourself in
the Lord, and he will give you the desire of
your heart. And I like to point out that following

(36:07):
God in this life, sometimes we think, oh, I'm going
to miss out. You're not going to miss out on anything,
because this life is not the end. It's not it.
So many people and Heaven talk about they love to
create art, but they weren't a very good artist on earth,
but in Heaven they are. They're able to do all
these things they dreamt of. And so then he says,

(36:28):
I'm sending you back, Randy, I'm sending you back, and
Randy starts arguing with him, I'm not going back, no way.
It's hard down there. And Randy finally said, okay, if
you're sending me back, then you still have a purpose
on earth. And he said, okay, if I have to
go back, then tell me my purpose. What am I
supposed to do? And he said, I'm a type a CEO.

(36:50):
I want a five year plan, ten year plan. And
Jesus says to him, no, I won't tell you your
purpose because if I tell you your purpose, you'll try
to get out ahead of me. I want you to
just stay with me and daily we'll do it together.
I tell more of his story, but I also talk

(37:10):
about the way we stay connected is we just talk
to him and to realize he's always with us and
he wants to help us through life. Just like in
the ears, the communication of heaven is thought to thought right,
and the way we experience that today is just this

(37:31):
prompting in our minds. Sometimes we don't realize that not
every thought we have is our own, and sometimes those
thoughts they're trying to get us to get deceived into
doing things that are going to hurt us or hurt
others and their temptation, and we don't realize that. And
so we have to learn to take those thoughts and
don't just go with it necessarily. We've had a recovery ministry,

(37:55):
and that's what addicts have to realize is that first
thought often is just like, hey, like this one cocaine
addict who he told me he kept having this thought,
and he had been cleaned for five years and he
kept having this thought, Hey, go buy gas there, that's
the cheapest gas. You need to be a good steward

(38:15):
of your money. But he knew that from that gas
station he could see his old dealer's house. But he
gave into that thought and he kept going and getting
gas until one day in a week spot, he ends
up over there about to buy coke. When he comes
to his census, he has another prompt, you don't have
to do this, just a thought, you don't have to

(38:37):
do this, and he's your right, and he turns and
he stays sober so realizing that God speaks to us
in our thoughts and as we just talk over everything
throughout the day, every decision, Lord, what should I do
with this? You don't always get this instant. Oh okay,

(38:57):
now I know. Because the other thing we have to
realize is He didn't want us to be robots. He
created us free willed people. And that's because free will
is a requisite of being able to love.

Speaker 2 (39:11):
After the break, we'll hear some more about love from
Pastor John Burke, and also how do we put this
practice in place knowing that there's this great love that
travels with us wanting to help us. We'll be right back.
You're listening to Shades of the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio

(39:33):
and Coast to Coast am Paranormal podcast Network.

Speaker 4 (39:44):
Stay there, Sandra Will be right back.

Speaker 5 (39:51):
Hey, it's the Wizard of Weird Joshua P.

Speaker 3 (39:54):
Warren.

Speaker 5 (39:55):
Don't forget to check out my show Strange Things each
week as I bring you the world of the truly,
amazing and bizarre right here on the iHeartRadio and Coast
to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network. Hi, this is your
followist Kevin Randall, and you're listening to the iHeartRadio and

(40:17):
Coast to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network.

Speaker 2 (40:36):
Welcome back to Shades of the Afterlife. I'm Sandra Champlain
and we're here with New York Times best selling author
John Burke. If you would like the first three chapters
of John's new book for free as a download, just
go to Imagine the Good Offheaven dot com. Let's get

(40:58):
back to John talking about our individuality and love.

Speaker 3 (41:03):
He didn't want us to be robots. He created us
free willed people. And that's because free will is a
requisite of being able to love. And God wants love,
and so it's as we are willing that we love
God back. The more willing we are to follow, the

(41:24):
more we're loving God, because that's all we have to give. Right,
you don't, you don't have anything to give the giver
of life, accept what he's given us. The ability to
either say screw you, God, I don't need you. I've
got my life figured out and people do or Okay,
I trust you and I want to know what do

(41:47):
you want. I love what God told Santosh, who again
he grew up in India Hindu. When he came back,
he said, I saw this almighty God. After he sees
this city of God with these twelve gates, he said,
and I see Almighty God. And he said he was
going to send him back. He said, when I come back,

(42:08):
I want to go into this city. How do I
And what he was thinking is which temple or mosque
or church or do I go to? And he said,
I want honest, not one day a week, three hundred
and sixty five days a year, How honest? How truthful
will you be with me? He said, I want relationship.

(42:31):
Yield to me daily and walk with me. That's what
he said. Now Santosh didn't know what any of that meant.
And he came back and he was like, okay, who
was this God? Because he had mercy and compassion and
such love for me, And he just kept seeking and
he did discover who it is, and so I think

(42:52):
it's real simple, and sometimes growing up in church. I
grew up in a pretty traditional church and just rebelled
and went away from it because it's not that what's
being taught necessarily is wrong. It's sometimes you don't see
the life of God being lived out with people. Some
people really are just doing religious ritual, and that's not

(43:13):
what God's interested in. He's interested in relationship. And it's simple.
We don't have to go clean up our act. We
don't have to prove we're good enough. We don't have
to jump through a bunch of religious hoops to get
God to love us. He already loves you more than
you could imagine, and now he wants you to just

(43:35):
walk with him simply by realizing every day you can
talk to him about anything. And as you learn to
pay attention to the promptings of those things that intuitively, hey,
he wants me to care about this person. He wants
me to do something for this person, and you do it,
and you're able to start to look back and go, wow, Okay,

(43:59):
he's really leading me. He's really got so many.

Speaker 2 (44:03):
Special words, and I can feel your passion and I'm
going to share this interview as far as I can.
But the ripple effect of number one knowing that you're
loved just the way you are, and number two being
love and sharing love.

Speaker 3 (44:18):
And I'm really grateful.

Speaker 2 (44:20):
The older I've gotten, I realized I don't need to
be fast paced anymore. It's not about making money, it's
not about doing these big, grandiose things. It's the simple
things in life, loving, appreciating nature. We don't think God
has a sense of humor. Just look at nature because
there's something I know, pritters out there.

Speaker 3 (44:39):
Who would create the platypus right.

Speaker 2 (44:42):
Exactly, And there's just so much joy and we all
know what that joy feels like. But to remember this
in a daily way, how can we put this in
daily practice? Is it putting post it notes up like
any other affirmation?

Speaker 3 (44:57):
What do you think the thing is? We're always like
I amn't arrived. After years of being a pastor. I
was getting worried and stressed out living high rev And
I read where Jesus says in Matthew chapter six, do
not worry about your life. Don't worry about what you're
going to eat, or what you're going to drink, or

(45:17):
what you wear or all these other things. You can't
add a single day to your life, and just seek
God and this kingdom and all these things will be
added to you. And I felt this prompting thought. It
took me aback because what I realized is we categorize
some things as important and some things as not important.

(45:38):
And what I realized is he was saying to me,
I really don't want you living this stressed out life.
Another passage she gave me that I started to just
meditate on writing notes and things like that Matthew eleven
twenty eight where Jesus said, come to me. All you
who are weary and carry heavy burdens. Now think about it,

(46:01):
because most of us, I would say, thank God is
the one putting those burdens on. And yet he said,
come to me, and I'll give rest to your soul
because my burden is light, and I am gentle and
humble of heart. Come learn from me. Is that amazing?
And by the way, that's exactly what that doctor, that psychiatrist,

(46:23):
neurologist said, he sees this atomic explosion of light and love.
But he said he also get these nine qualities, and
I won't go through all of them. I do in
the book, But the last one he talked about was humility.
He said, if I had these qualities, I would be
the proudest soo be ever. And he has them, but

(46:45):
he's so humble, so gentle. I think remembering those things
about the character of God will help us love and
trust God more to let him into more and more
of the moments of life. Life. What God showed me
is that I have a habit of waking up and

(47:07):
ignoring God most of the day. Like I wake up
and I'm like, what do I want to do? What
do I have to accomplish? And boom, and I'm off
going right. You can do that if you want, but
I have something better. And so when I learned to
slow down, we actually came up with this experiment we
call the sixty sixty experiment to just set your alarm
to go off every sixty minutes for sixty days and

(47:32):
put little post it notes stay connected, just simple words,
stay connected. So it's going through your day realizing I'm loved.
God doesn't want me to stress out. He wants to
help me, and so you start to just ask him
what's the next right thing for me to do? And
then you do it. You can talk to him about

(47:53):
I've got this project and all these things are going
going crazy and I'm going to lose my job and
all these things. But you can just say, Okay, I'm
going to trust you. What's the next thing I can
do because all the other things you can't do that's
off in the future. You don't control the future. And
it's so simple, but it's so hard to remember, right. Yes,

(48:15):
I do advise that just simple practice of putting little
reminders for sixty days and in those sixty days, just
go all out trying to stay present and doing what
you think you want you to do, and you'll be amazed.
You'll be amazed, how oh my gosh, like you're real

(48:36):
and you really care about me.

Speaker 2 (48:39):
That is so special, John, Thank you, thank you, thank
you for being here with us. This has just been
great and I know it's touched my heart and my soul.
Tell us how we could get a copy of the book.
What the website is, perhaps if we're interested in following
Gateway Church.

Speaker 3 (48:59):
Yeah, so Imagine the God of Heaven is the book,
and you can just go to the book title Imagine
the God of Heaven dot com. John Burke online dot
com either one. And Gateway Church dot Com is our church.
There is another Gateway Church in Texas. It's not us,

(49:22):
so don't get confused. Sometimes people do Gateway Austin and yeah,
and if you go on there. I actually did a
whole series and you can see a lot of the interviews.
I think it was called Imagine Heaven or Imagine the
God of Heaven. It's out on Gatewaychurch dot com website,
and so you can see a lot of these interviews
that I've done and how it all leaves together. But

(49:44):
you can get the book Imagine the God of Heaven
anywhere books are sold. Pretty much.

Speaker 2 (49:49):
Pretty awesome, John, any final words before we wrap up.

Speaker 3 (49:53):
Today, I think just keep in mind it's more simple
than we make it, and God is good and wants
good things for you.

Speaker 2 (50:03):
Thank you, Sandra, and thank you John. You know, I
spoke with a woman a few days ago and she's
made a practice of writing letters to her son, who
is in spirit, and allowing her hand to write back
what she'd think he would write. And over the course
of a year, she is absolutely convinced that he is

(50:25):
doing the writing through her and she feels his presence.
I've done plenty of inspired writing, where I've gotten into
that meditative state and just let the pen flow, and
there's some beautiful things that have come out. Am I
talking to God? Am I talking to loved ones? Am

(50:45):
I talking to my soul? The truth is there is
a whole bunch of love and untapped wisdom within us
and around us. There are some benefits of having faith,
such as a longer life span, being happier, reduced stress,

(51:08):
more gratitude you forgive, more better friendships, and less worry.
I don't know about you, but this interview today is
just what I needed. So many times we feel alone
in life, no matter what you believe or who you
believe in. What if we act as if truly that

(51:34):
our loved ones are around, that we are connected to
a divine soul that only wants the best for us,
and the divine is with us and supporting us. As
John said, these words from God, if you seek me
with all of your heart, you will find me. I've
always been with you, just waiting for you to turn

(51:56):
to me. Stay connected to me, and good things will
grow in your life. And of course you are already
loved more than you can imagine. I hope you enjoyed
our episode today, Please remember to come visit me two
pm New York time every Sunday at the Free Sunday

(52:17):
Gathering with Medium demonstration included lots of great upcoming classes
and good things. Just go to we Don'tdie dot com.
I'm Sandra Champlain. Thank you so much for listening to
Shades of the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast to
Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network.

Speaker 1 (52:47):
And if you like this episode of Shades of the Afterlife,
wait until you hear the next one. Thank you for
listening to the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM Paranormal
Podcast Network.