Life After Life. Could it really, actually, positively be true? Is there life after death? Is it even possible to live beyond this physical existence? If it is true, wouldn't you want to know for sure? And what would it take to convince you? How can you ever believe that when you die, you live? Even with the greatest of faith, you may still have a shadow of doubt. What if the darkness of doubt, instead, has you believing that even God is dead? If that is true, then when you die...end of story! Without God, there'd be no living happily ever after.
How can there be any hope if God is dead and all we do is live, die, and then turn to dust? Evangelist Billy Graham once said, "If God is dead, if moral values are the pitiful superstitions of a previous unenlightened age, if the soul is an illusion, if prayer is a childish folly, if immortality is an idiotic dream, then there is nothing left but this physical existence..."
In 1975, Raymond A. Moody Jr., M.D., had his first book, Life After Life, published. I read it a year or two later when I was still a teenager. It went on to become an international bestseller, with over 13 million copies sold. Dr. Moody introduced a phenomenon called a "near-death experience (NDE)" that pushed the boundaries of life beyond our physical existence. Near-death experiences are now so well-known that some accounts have been made into documentaries and movies.
Most everyone has at least heard about or read stories of people who have been declared clinically dead and then revived. They describe, at the moment of death, leaving their body in a spirit form and sometimes viewing from a unique vantage point the medical staff attempting to resuscitate them. They may also travel through a dark tunnel towards a light and meet and speak nonverbally with deceased friends and relatives. Many also encounter a loving warm spirit—a being of light—who helps evaluate their life by showing them a panoramic, instantaneous playback of major events from their life.
Those who have a NDE are thoroughly convinced that there is life after death, without a shadow of a doubt, and they're not afraid to die. They'd unequivocally tell you, from personal firsthand experience, that there is so much more than just this physical existence. The book Life After Life thoroughly convinced me as a teenager that there was an afterlife. I couldn't discount the fact that a great number of different people had been clinically dead, were then revived, and each told similar stories of their experience.
I've since read other NDE books, and some accounts are believable, while others are pure fiction or an outright lie. I'll explain in a later post how I became very skeptical and highly discerning about some NDE claims. No matter what you believe about the reliability of NDEs, many medical professionals consider near-death experiences as simply "tricks of the dying brain." Perhaps they result from drug-induced hallucinations, oxygen deprivation, or some other neurophysiological explanation. It's hard to prove what you can't see. It's a bit like Jimmy Stewart's character, Elwood P. Dowd, in the 1950 comedy film Harvey. Stewart plays a man whose best friend is an invisible six-foot 3.5-inch rabbit named Harvey. There's not much chance of proving Harvey's existence, especially if he's merely a shadow of Elwood's imagination. If nothing else, NDEs and Dowd's rabbit friend could be the result of a mental illness caused by the patient's medical condition.
Whether or not you believe that near-death experiences may be possible or even true all depends on the worldview you have. A worldview is a particular philosophy of life or conception of the world. In the next paragraph, I've included a quote from Billy Graham regarding the secular worldview. It demonstrates an indifference to religion and interprets life based solely on principles derived from the material world. Following that, there's a quote from Life After Life that reflects elements of a Christian (Biblical) worldview. It bases ideas and beliefs on Christian interpretation and a belief in an afterlife. Notice the contrasting viewpoints.
Secular Worldview: "We are rapidly becoming a secularized society, unwittingly accepting the idea that man is simply a physical being—that life on this planet is all there is. This materialism and secularism have captured millions in Western nations. Millions now explain the universe without a reference to God, morality without the Ten Commandments, personality without a soul, the good life without hope of immortality. This is all just blatant secularism and humanism. It means that time encompasses everything—that eternity does not exist—and that material considerations are the only ones that matter." - Billy Graham
Christian (Biblical) Worldview: "What is perhaps the most incredible common element in the accounts I have studied, and is certainly the element which has the most profound effect upon the individual, is the encounter with a very bright light...Despite the light's unusual manifestation, however, not one person has expressed any doubt whatsoever that it was a being, a being of light. Not only that, it is a personal being. It has a very definite personality. The love and the warmth which emanates from this being to the dying person are utterly beyond words, and he feels completely surrounded by it and taken up in it, completely at ease and accepted in the presence of this being." - From Life After Life.
"Let us, therefore, hypothesize that death is a separation of the mind from the body, and that the mind does pass into other realms of existence at this point. It would follow that there exists some mechanism whereby the soul or mind is released upon death." - From Life After Life.
These are two competing worldviews, but only one can be true. I'm going to shock you with this statement: if I were to tell you that I believed the Christian (Biblical) worldview was true, I'd be lying. You're probably thinking, "What did he just say? He doesn't believe it?" That's right, I don't believe it! That's why I'm writing a blog titled, Beyond Believing - A Journey Beyond Faith. I don't "Believe" it to be true, I "Know" it to be true! I know it to be true because I experienced the fulfillment of faith and became an eyewitness to truth.
I can tell you as an eyewitness that God is not dead, moral values are not the pitiful superstitions of a previous unenlightened age, the soul is not an illusion, prayer is not a childish folly, immortality is not an idiotic dream, and there is much, much more beyond this physical existence.
In my last post titled "The Power of Prayer," I left off on the evening of December 7, 1990. Before going to sleep, I knelt by my bedside and said this prayer: "Lord (Jesus), wherever you want me to go, whatever you want me to do, I'll do it! Just lead me!" Now, you'll witness the power of prayer at work and see how my journey beyond faith begins.
When I uttered that prayer, I was thirty years old, single, hadn't dated in over six years, unemployed, and my house was up for sale. Earlier that day, I had two job interviews that didn't seem promising, and nothing seemed to be working out in my life. Desperate, I turned to God for help and guidance. Trusting Him, I went to sleep never expecting what would happen next. Little did I know that He was about to answer my prayer in a most unusual and definitely strange way.
In the middle of the night on December 8, 1990, I was awakened by a gripping pain in my chest, my whole-body trembling. I thought I was having a heart attack. Then, an annoying, very sharp piercing noise was followed by three bursts of wind that sounded like blowing breaths. In an instant, my pain vanished, and so did the noise. Only stillness remained. That's when I noticed a brilliant light coming through the wall beside my bed. Within that light, I saw the figure of a person I immediately recognized, and I said, "Oh, it's you!" Without spoken words, He conveyed, "Look and remember."
Beyond my bed, I saw an illuminated digital clock in the corner of my bedroom. It revolved clockwise, about six feet above the floor, displaying 11:21 a.m. Sitting just below the clock, was a rectangular box resembling a computer hard drive. Below that, an empty, dark corner extended to the floor. Over the foot of my bed, a dark black cat sat on the windowsill, unmoving. It faced in the direction of the clock. Suddenly, the cat toppled over, as if lifeless. Then, my bedroom door opened, and the room filled with indescribable love and warmth. I felt surrounded, embraced—completely loved. And beyond the doorway, I sensed the presence of children.
It was then that a partially visible, mostly unseen child, holding a rocket in its hands, walked from the doorway to the windowsill and placed the rocket there. The rocket ignited, creating a pillar of fire as it shot upward. Above it, a curved "Merry Christmas" sign, written in script, caught my eye. At that moment, I attempted to get out of bed, placing a foot on the floor. But instead of moving forward, I found myself back in bed. This was my only indication that I was in my spirit, separated from my body, while observing what I had seen.
Peering over the bed covers toward the window, I searched for evidence of what I'd witnessed. To my surprise, there was nothing—no rocket, no Merry Christmas sign, no digital clock in the corner. Even the brilliant light that had pierced the wall had vanished, along with the person who had instructed me to look and remember. The room now lay in complete darkness, except for the faint glow of the streetlight through the window shades. I leaped out of bed, both solid feet firmly planted, and hurried to the foot of the bed, searching for the fallen black cat. Yet, like everything else, it had disappeared. Even the bedroom door remained closed, undisturbed. Nothing was out of place.
Everything I'd just experienced took no more than what seemed like a minute. It happened so fast! When it was all over, there was absolutely no physical evidence that anything unusual had occurred. No cardiologist report, EMT statement, or emergency room staff could confirm a heart attack, subsequent death, and revival. I had no tangible proof of a near-death experience. But as it turned out, I didn't need physical evidence. Something far more miraculous confirmed the event: prophecy!
Immediately after my experience, I received an instantaneous prophetic revelation. It left me not just sure, but absolutely positive that I would be married when the illuminated digital clock reached high noon. It was an awe-inspiring answer to my prayer. In my next post titled "Mission Impossible," I'll delve into the details of how I knew about my future marriage even before meeting my wife and how witnesses received my early wedding announcement before there was even a bride-to-be. It may sound impossible or unbelievable, but it truly happened and came true!
As for the rest of what I'd seen, it all began as a complete mystery. I had no idea what the symbols meant. Attempting to decipher them would be like trying to play Scrabble without knowing the alphabet. Even the junior version of the game for ages five-plus would be impossible to play. The letters would appear as mysterious unknown symbols, and you wouldn't even know that each one has its own distinctive sound. But by knowing the alphabet, the sound of each letter, and having an extensive vocabulary of words, the whole dynamic changes. It's now possible to play Scrabble.
For example, take each of the following individual symbols such as (o-m-b-l-s-y) and unscramble them. You're only able to do this by first realizing that you've never seen, read, or heard of the word "omblsy." You know it's not a word, but a jumbled group of letters that means nothing. However, if the letters are unscrambled, you have the word "symbol." Every word you've been reading in this post is a collection of individual symbols that have a meaning you can comprehend, which then results in a language of communication.
If you try applying your reading ability to an entirely new set of communication symbols, then you'll understand how I felt about what I saw. The skills don't translate. I had absolutely no idea what any of the other symbols meant or represented except for my obvious ability to read the "Merry Christmas" sign. All I knew was that they communicated something in a symbolic language beyond my understanding. It's now almost thirty years later, and I'm still discovering what it all means. It reminds me of this verse from the Bible: "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so My ways are higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts" (Isaiah 55:9).
While the symbols, such as the digital clock, black cat, and rocket, are clearly identifiable objects, it was the script-lettered "Merry Christmas" sign that specifically stood out to me. It instantly reminded me of a similar sign I'd seen in the movie, It's A Wonderful Life. If it hadn't been bowed or curved like a rainbow, it would have been an almost exact duplicate.
The movie's main character, George Bailey, wrestles with despair and contemplates suicide. Yet, before taking that fateful step, he turns to God in prayer for assistance. Soon after, his guardian angel, Clarence Odbody—Angel Second Class—appears on a rescue mission to save him. Clarence shows George an alternate reality, revealing what life would have been like for his loved ones had he never existed. George comes to realizes that his absence would leave an irreplaceable void.
Similarly, I too prayed for divine intervention, and it came in a supernatural form. However, my heavenly visitor didn't show me an alternate past; instead, He unveiled an important part of my future. With almost everything else a mystery, so too was the person I'd seen in the brilliant light. I had no idea who my heavenly visitor was. How could I not know who He was? I unmistakably remember saying to Him, "Oh, it's you!" While I had been surprised by His sudden appearance, I instantly recognized Him. But now I had no memory of what He looked like or who He was. I was completely dumbfounded.
It would be many years later before I'd finally discover His true identity and why I instantly recognized Him as a trusted and welcome friend who loves me. He was the Holy Spirit. In the Bible's book of John 14:17, it says this about Him: "The Spirit of truth. The world cannot receive Him, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you do know Him, for He abides with you and will be in you." That's how I knew Him, but He later purposefully hid His identity from me in order to teach me a valuable lesson that I reveal in my future post titled, "Oh, it's you!" https://www.beyondbelieving.online/post/oh-it-s-you
Having finally reached this point in my testimony, I can't help but wonder if this part of my story has you finding Beyond Believing to be, well, Beyond Unbelievable! I realize that miracle stories often make truth seem stranger than fiction. Perhaps you're tempted to disbelieve the whole story and classify it as fiction? That's understandable! But remember, God often works in strange and mysterious ways. I'm reminded of a quote from Billy Graham's daughter, Anne Graham Lotz. It's from her book, Jesus In Me - Experiencing the Holy Spirit as a Constant Companion.
"To further help us resist the temptation to disbelieve things we don't understand, Jesus specifically referred to biblical stories that critics are quick to point out as being beyond belief, such as Adam and Eve created by God, Noah saved on the ark during a worldwide flood, and Jonah swallowed by a big fish. Yet Jesus cited these stories not as parables or myths or legends but as legitimate historical events."
I can assure you, and the facts will prove this, that what I just described to you is a true and legitimate historical event from my life. As my testimony continues to unfold and the meaning and message of the symbols are revealed, you'll miraculously see how the Holy Spirit brings glory to God. It's His work, His plan—all for His purpose! It's something only He could unmistakably do. You'll also witness how He works to achieve His ultimate goal: restoring us to once again perfectly reflect God's image and likeness. To be like Him! To be like Jesus!
The next post titled Mission Impossible begins at:
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