This is Jimmy and Annette and we are coming to you from the heart, the very center, the
bullseye of the Texas Hill Country. I'm just trying to say it different every time. You
know what? We're just going to roll. We're going to roll with it. Bullseye of the Texas
Hill Country. Bullseye. That's a new one. I know. I just made that up on the fly. I mean,
spontaneous. You're good at that. Wow. Spontaneous. I'm on fire. Okay. So, hey, welcome to our
podcast. This is Jimmy and Annette Pruitt and we are pastors at the Bridge Church in
Fredericksburg, Texas and you can find us at bridgefbg.com in terms of ministry and
whatnot. But as far as our life and our podcast, you can find all things about our podcast.
You can make comments, you can subscribe, you can listen to all of our episodes at livingupinadownworld.com.
I told Annette I'm going to work on my Texas. That sounded like a Boston accent. I know.
I was thinking at least trouble. He has that cool.com. Isn't that Chicago? No, no. Well,
Chicago, Boston, you know, they're kind of all in the same thing there. I know. But you
know what? What? You're Texan. No. Well, I am, but I'm pretending not to be today. I
thought I would work on my accent. Okay. I'm going to de-accent. And so as I told you before
the show started, my goal is to not sound as West Texan as I am. I don't know why. Just
for fun. I don't think I can do that. No, no, don't even try. No. When I was in the
school teacher in Southern California, I was made fun of behind my back because of my Texas
accent. Was it hurtful? It was very hurtful when I found out years later. They're all
children though. They were just kids. I know. And now they're adults who have kids. I know.
It's crazy. Wow. The aging process. So Annette and I have been married for 30 years of wow.
And oh, it's been 30 years of bliss, 30 years of heaven on earth. Oh my gosh. Do you know
where lousy go? I'm just kidding. They don't. Okay. That was a good one. And that wow.
Nailed it. So we, we wanted to introduce some, just some things about our life, about our
family. We have an amazing family. Really do. We're so blessed. We are married again.
We, we went through a divorce. I was 10 years into a marriage that did not make it. And
Annette, you were 13, almost 14 years into your marriage. It didn't make it. And then
God providentially brought us together. And that's when we started our 30 years of wow.
We've been married 30 years and we've divide, we've what's the word? Defied the odds, the
statistics. Cause actually the statistics say if you've been divorced, you have a very
high likelihood. I don't know what the stats are, but I remember being told this as we
were getting married, you know, that you do know, Jimmy, there's a very high likelihood
that you'll get divorced again. I'm, oh, thanks for the encouragement. That helps. That helps
us. We're starting our new life together and we've really defied the odds on a lot of levels.
Have we not? Yeah. So we want to introduce our family. So I'm going to let you go first
and we're going to start with Alicia since she's our oldest. Yes. Alicia is 45 years
old. She lives in, wait, we have a daughter that's 45. It doesn't make sense. I was like
45 when I had her. Well, actually, no. Anyway, she's 45. Yeah. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee.
She used to be in the ministry with us, but now she's in finance and I have to talk about
it for a moment. Okay. What are you going to say? So when, when Alicia came into my
life, she had a little bit of a rebel street going on. Yeah, just a little bit, you know,
stuff like taking our car at night when we did, you know, enjoy riding and whatnot. Wonder
why we kept running out of gas all the time. Yeah. Yeah. We were kind of dumb. So, I mean,
I was clueless. I'd never had children before. I was a youth pastor and had been for gosh
at that time, maybe 14, 13, 14 years ish. Anyway, I'd been a youth pastor for a long
time and then all of a sudden I've got kids in my house. I'm like, Oh, this will be easy.
You know, I know how to do this because I'm a youth pastor. Right. So you were always
an advocate for the child or the student totally an advocate until you became a parent. I thought
parents were dumb. I thought, you know, they don't know anything. These poor kids and what
they're going through and what I didn't, what I didn't know is how manipulated I was at
the time. And so I learned the hard way that, well, it's not always easy as it looks. So
when I had kids in my world and in my life, it was like, okay, here we go. And she tested
the limits. Alicia, if you're listening to this, I love you very much. So what happened
was we went through some things, some hard things, no need to talk about it in detail
TMI, TMI, but something happened between Alicia and I, and we began to grow very close and
God gave me a deep, deep love for her, even in the middle of her really rebellious stage,
partly because she reminded me of me not too long before that, just a few years before
that because I was that kid too. And I wasn't rebellious because I was angry about anything.
I was rebellious more. I was just fun loving. I wanted to play. I want to have fun. And
so, cause I didn't have any trauma. I know still when I have true, I'm still that there
are songs, Cindy Lauper or something. That's a girl song. Girls just want to have fun.
I'm sorry. That's how she says it. Girls just want to have fun. But no, it's a boy thing.
Mine's more the speeds of the beastie boys or something. We're just having a good time.
Well, back to Alicia. Oh yeah, back to Alicia. And remember when we read her diary one time
and it said, I hate my parents. Yeah, that was, that was encouraging. I was edified after
that. Well, what it did though for us and for you who are listening, first of all, welcome
to the show. We're glad you're here. We just wanted to tell you a little bit about ourselves
and a little bit about our journey. And then we have a topic we want to jump into, but
we want to introduce our family. So what happened was I just, God gave me a very supernatural
love for Alicia. And now you're pretty much her hero. She absolutely. Well, and I love
her. I mean, we grew very close. She changed her last name after her marriage when it,
when she went through a divorce to prove it because she wanted to recognize you as her
father. That was really impressive. That was huge. And it did something in my own heart.
I already love this girl to the moon and back. And I've always had a heart for her. I've
always been her big cheerleader and fan. And we got to do some ministry together. She went
to Mexico with me on this mission trip down in the Baja Peninsula, down to this little
village where there was a children's home and we spent time doing that. Then we did
a lot of personal ministry together for other people. We went through a season there. So
we've, we've had a lot of amazing, amazing experiences together. So that's Alicia. She's
now married to Mark and Mark, get a chance to listen to this. We love you. And we're
so happy that you guys are together. And how long have they been married? A total of a
year and a half, a year and a half. So yeah, man, they're burning it up and they're doing
great. We're so proud of them. They live in the Nashville area, Spring Hill, Tennessee,
our old stomping grounds. And we're just so proud of them and love them. And we, we just,
we want to introduce. So our next child, our middle child, Chris. Now I have to say something
about Chris. Well, there's still children to us. I have a 43 year old son again from
our first marriage. And he called me last week and he said, mom, um, I heard that faith
had kidney stone and had to have surgery and all that bad mom moment. I almost fell over.
How did he find out? Because he was listening to our podcast. I didn't call him. So I felt
really, really bad. And, uh, I sought for a couple of days and then tried to get over
it. But I was really, I felt bad, um, because I had talked to Alicia briefly cause Alicia's
not feeling well and Chris is a pastor too. And I understand how difficult it is to be
able to talk to everyone you want to because you know, our lives are crazy. And so, yeah,
I've learned my lesson. So now I'm going to Chris, I'm going to make a point to call you
at least once a week, whether you can answer or not, or talk, I'm still going to call you.
So I remember after that phone call, you, you did feel bad. You told me something horrible
about this. He found out about something about our lives, not through a phone call or through
a podcast. So live and learn, right? Yes. That's what we do.
That's why we live up and down. For real, for real. So he's a pastor in Houston. Yeah.
And it's my turn to talk about this. Okay. You can talk about it again. He's one of my
heroes. I love Chris. I'm so proud of him. Chris, uh, surrendered to full-time ministry.
He's gone to school. In fact, he's getting his master's degree right now and working
through that even while he's pastoring and he pastors in the Houston area, a great church
called city life church. He and his wife, Casey, amazing couple, amazing together since
they were in elementary school. They were like in the crib, like cradle. They were holding
hands. I mean, literally they've been together most of their whole life, but what's been
really cool is to watch them blossom and ministry together. Not only as parents, cause they're
amazing parents too, but to watch them blossom as, as ministers together. She's going to
school too. Oh yeah. She's getting her master's as well. Casey in her own right. I mean, amazing
singer. Now she's writing songs and I mean, I'm just,
and the songs that are coming out of that church are so amazing. Yes, I said it freaking.
They're freaking amazing. And I can say that cause I'm proud of them. And, and two, I had
the privilege for at least a few years of getting to play music with them. So Chris
was my drummer when I was a youth pastor in California. And then later years when I was
a senior pastor in Abilene, Texas, uh, Chris was on the worst team and Casey, and they
led our worship. And he played the guitar. You taught him how? Well, he kind of taught
himself. Well, he started it. Yeah. But he's just, man, he took off running with that.
So, so they were leading worship at our church in Abilene and I was like, could I play guitar
for y'all? So everything flipped. So now I'm playing guitar for him. And that just, that's,
those are special memories to me of us having those amazing worship nights there and powerful
encounter nights with God and, oh, they were also part of our church plant in Brownwood,
Texas, where they were on the ground floor and we got to see God move in crazy, amazing
ways. So we're super proud of them. And then our third child, surprise. Well, it was an
adoption. It was an adoption. And once we talked about it, we told that story already,
but she's 22 years old. By the way, those of you that prayed for her and this kidney
stone, I mean, 22 years old and having a kidney stone, what's up with that? And we believe
it was there. She's, she was experiencing pain for six months. So we think that it's,
we think it could be our fault because we raised her on banquet chicken nuggets and
stuff like that. I mean, we didn't feed her. I know. And now she won't eat anything good.
Except that stuff. So maybe that's our fault to a degree, but we'll, we'll, we'll own that
the best we can. But anyway, we're so proud of her. She works on our staff and she does
all things digital and she's amazing. Oh, on the, on the kidney thing. Thank you for
praying because not only were they able to go in there and I don't know how they do it,
they Sonic blast it, but then they put a stent in. That was actually worse than having the
kidney stone. Her recovery was harder because they had to leave it in one week to let those
particles pass. And once they did in, in, I mean, like the day before we got the stent
out, I spent four hours with her in the ER. She had to go to the ER twice. It was awful.
However, as soon as they got the stent out last Monday, she almost snapped back immediately.
It was like, just needed that foreign object out of her body. So she's doing great. So
thank you for praying. We're so thankful, but we want to introduce our kids to you because
first of all, we are so proud of each one of them. They have, they are amazing young
adults. They brought it. They gave us grandchildren. That's true. Six, six, maybe one on the way
or in the, in the oven. Say in the oven if you're somewhere like that. Is it oven or
incubator? I don't even know. I have no idea. We may have another one on the way. We're
getting super excited and here's the craziest thing. We could be great grandparents at any
time. We're too young. Caitlin, if you ever listen to this podcast, we're ready. Let's
get this done. Get this going. So, so yeah, so we'll be great grandparents, which is mind
bending because I still play lead guitar at a band and all. I mean, I'm like, what? You
still act like a child. I feel 17, except for this weekend when you had me clean out the
garage. I did not feel 17 after that. I felt 77. You know what we accomplished. I know
it's great. Oh, our garage looks like, it looks like we've moved away. There's nothing
there. Yes. You said two cars in a leaf. You said, it looks like we're moving. I know nothing
in here. I said, that was the point. Every time I go to Adam and Tina's house. Oh my
gosh. Oh, you know, not drive me into her drive. I'm not sure if this is an Adam ruined.
Is it Adam or Tina? I don't know. We'll have to ask. Oh my gosh. You can eat off the floor
in their garage. You really can. It's mind bending and it Adam. Thanks. Cause you, you
put me through, um, double toothpicks be over this deal because and that was like, we've
got to clean our garage. I'm like, because the Curry's have a clean garage. Are you kidding
me? Really? Oh, I'm embarrassed when people come through here. I'm like, it's a garage.
Everybody comes through the garage. Hardly anybody comes to the front door. Cause you
open up the garage door. Well, now they tell people to come in and scoot across on their
butt if they want to. I'd like to have it so clean. I think it'd be nice to have it
painted. We'll have this. This is an offline conversation. We're done. I'm done. That was
a spring cleaning and literally on Sunday when I got up to preach, I was so sore. I
felt like, and you didn't feel bad at all cause your garage was clean. So, and I'm in
pain and I'm going to keep quit whining. Okay. All right. Onward. So we've had a, again,
gosh, we've been on this really amazing journey. We won't, you don't have to go into detail,
but Annette, you made some decisions about a little over a week ago about just saying,
you know what, I'm ready to clean up some things. I'm kind of in a purging mood, which
is why we purged everything out of the garage. Got rid of things that I kept saying, we'll
get rid of that someday. And we've moved 10 times and it's still with us. Jesus, take
this refrigerator. Take this, take the wheel and everything else. Okay. Well, sorry. So
anyway, I've been on this purging. I've went through all my clothes, decided I kind of
wanted to become a minimalist. Isn't there a TV show that we watched on Netflix? Yeah.
There's a documentary called the minimalist and that I love those guys, Josh. I can't
remember the name. And then Marie, what's her name? Marie Konda Marie Konda. That she's
the one who talks to objects as she's throwing them away. Thank you for blessing me. Now
I don't go that far. That's weird. But anyway, throw that thing out. But I went through a
couple of years ago where I just decided to do a Marie Kondo moment and get rid of clothes.
And I've kind of continued to do that. And if I buy, if I get rid of something, you know,
that's great. But if I buy something, I really need to get rid of something. Right. But I
just decided to do that with all areas of my life. God had been dealing with me for
over a year about purging things that aren't important. Yeah. Um, for instance, just some
TV shows that we love to watch that, you know, they're great to veg with. So it dawned on
us one day that we were being entertained by the stuff that hurts God's heart. People,
I mean, police shows, investigative shows, and it dawned on us like we're watching this
for entertainment and yet decimation of people's lives. And I wouldn't say convicted. We just
made a decision. Yeah. Good decision. Well, I came home from the conference and just,
I knew that if I didn't say first off, I said, can I tell them how this rolled out? Well,
right. I had to tell Tina first before I could tell you that accountability scared me. I
know you come home and you're like, we need to talk to you. I need to talk to you. And
usually just so you know, any of you that are married when your wife says in a serious
tone, I need to talk to you 99.9% of the time. That's not a good thing. Means you're in trouble.
It means what did I do? Cause immediately I'm wrecking the look on your face. I know what
I'm going, wait, I've been a good boy. I've been great. I even told Tina that I wasn't
going to say anything. I was just going to, if you said, you know, turn the TV on, I was
just going to say no, or you know, well, let's watch this. And I would have fell over backward
in a, I know. And that's what I decided. You might have a heart. I know I am. I know. No,
it's not a bad thing. It's just a nostalgic thing with your dad and I love weird connection
you've got with your daddy and uh, I can take it or leave it. In fact, when you're gone,
I don't watch it. I know. Just don't. So when I sat you down, you were scared. It's kind
of fun to watch you walk. And I'm like, I have men, men, boys, men. Have you ever felt
guilty and yet you knew you had not done anything? That's how I felt. I was like, what did I
do? I mean, I'm racking my brain. Calm down. This isn't about years ago. Yeah. Right. No,
I actually told you this is about me. Yeah. And then you're still thinking, well, if it's
about you, what did I do to you? Yeah. It's kind of, it's not you, it's me. It's still
not a good thing. The way to lead a conversation. But I, but I got it out there and just told
you, I felt like if we were going to, you know what I loved last year, we were out in
our pool and we were, we were just because we were out there a lot in the evening and,
and during the daytime we talked the whole time. It was beautiful. I felt like we talked
more while we were outside than we ever do. And when we're on the inside, because we're
usually watching TV or built a pool thinking this is going to be about therapy, about exercise,
about kind of a getaway. We love water. We're both water babies, grew up water babies. And
it turned out the best benefit was we talk because TV's not on. Our phones are in the
house. Our screen, there's no screens. We put on some worship music, some really jamming
good contemporary worship. And I, that's why I'm so excited about summer. I'm already pumped
about summer, about us getting in the pool right now at 68 degrees in the water. But
we do have a hot tub. We do, which we can enjoy, but I kept just going back and remind
and reminding myself about how much we spent, how much time we spent on all, you know, on
just talking and reminiscing and dreaming and visioning. And I thought we could do this
all the time if I would just give up the one thing and that's TV, not all TV, because not
all TV is bad. I mean, we watched Jesus music last night, which is an amazing documentary.
We watched movies. There's, I just, I just don't want anything on Saturday. Yeah. And
there's nothing wrong with that. I just don't want to get into these dramas that I've been
into and you get into their lives and it's stupid. It's almost like soap operas used
to be at night. Well, as a young person, I was addicted to soap operas and all I did
was change it from morning to night. I was addicted to one for my children. I know because
it came on at noon. It was during my lunch hour. She's still probably on there. I don't
believe she's ever had. Remember Tad? Yes. Anyway. Okay. We digress. Okay. So anyway,
no longer addicted. I came home and made that decision and it's been a week, a week today.
I feel so free. I can't even tell you. I would say the best week. Yes. I've just, we've got
all this time. So what have we been doing? We've been reading, we've been getting in
the word. We went and worked out. We've been watching sermons from one of our favorite
pastors, pastor Robert Morris of gateway church in South Lake, which we are connected to.
Our church is a gateway network church. And so, and, and it's been amazing. I mean, really,
really, it feels like weight's been lifted. You know, I started thinking about these shows
we were watching and, and you know how we'll get mad at something that happened. We're
like, we can't believe he did that. And then in my mind, I'm going, the writers wrote that
he really didn't do that. So I'm thinking what is wrong with us? I know we caught up
in somebody else's drama. I just feel like I'm in a season where the Lord says, just
put it all aside. Spend time with your husband. Tell them how much I resisted when you shared
this. I think you almost fainted. I almost cheered. I was like, yes. It has been wonderful.
Not that I didn't enjoy those shows too, but cause it's just, it's time with you. It's
what you love to do. So I'm going to do it. But inside there have been many times where
I thought, gosh, I'd rather be have the TV off. Maybe have some music going. And what
I love about it too is, you know, you started a series on heaven. And so now we're really
talking about it together even more as you're, you know, finalizing, you know, your sermons
and I bounce off you all the time. But I feel like, I don't know, it's even, it's bonded
us even more. Yeah. It's almost like you use the word purge, which it's, is a word of kind
of a purification type of word where I don't know if this has ever happened to any of you,
but sometimes our life just gets cluttered and it's not intentional, you know, and you're
not doing anything necessarily wrong. It's just cluttered begins to build up. And so
just as we did the garage and you were like, gosh, it feels so good. I'm over there crying.
I'm trying to think of what else we can purge. I mean, everything's hurting on my body and
you're like, this feels so good. And I'm like, Hey, I moved about five days from moved a
whole bunch of paint cans and furniture. I'm just being a whiner. But what I'm saying
is, is that it did feel good. It felt good to declutter, you know, less is more kind
of thing is something Andy Stanley's used for years. Less is more. And it felt good
to clear out the clutter, not only in the garage, but we cleared out the clutter in
our evenings. So now our evenings are free. They're free not only to, to enjoy each other
and enjoy time. We've been sitting at the dining room table doing supper together. I
know I forgot we even had no me too. We always sat at the bar. I asked Tina, I said Tina,
where do y'all sit to eat? She goes, well, we usually sit at the table every now and
then we'll sit at the bar. I'm like, really? Yeah, we see if we still have a table the
time you don't sit down and we eat. No, I'll stand up. So you know why? Typically? Well,
because I've been sitting all day. Why? Probably watching TV if it's a weekend. I'm like, no.
So now I want to sit and enjoy a nice slow. Yeah, we slow down. I don't have to wait for
a phone, a TV. We light some candles and then this happens. Oh my God. Here we go again.
I'm sorry. New toys. Candles. We need to light more candles. I agree. Flowers. But you know,
but we bought back time. That's what happened. Flowers. I feel like we shouldn't have said
that. Adam bought Tina flowers. Adam, you're killing me. You need to take it back a notch.
He gets back from a four day trip to flowers and dinner made. And the first thing she says
to him is you didn't take a shower. I know. I know. That's a hilarious story. She messed
up there. She didn't. I think she repented. Fumble, fumble. But the flowers. Now, Adam,
please talk to Jimmy. Bro, you're killing me. I used to tell him not to buy me flowers
because I didn't want to spend the money, but now I've thought of it. But I serenade
you with my, how many guitars hanging in this room? One, two, three, four, five. You need
to purge. Seven guitar, wait, six, seven, eight guitars in this room. And I serenade
you all the time. And how many do you have in a closet? Adam does not play the instrument.
How many do you have in a closet? He's interviewed metal bands all over the world. You're not
answering my question. What were you saying? How many are in the closet? They're going
to stay in the closet. I don't know. Couple, couple, three. Please let them out of the closet
and take them. I don't know. Let's not talk about me purging. You purged, it was amazing.
It's okay for me. It was really good. No, really though. Okay. Let's get serious. It's
because I just drank a spark and it's got me. I just finished a spark. Bouncing off the
walls. Cause I was like wanting to take a nap 30 minutes ago. You did fall asleep for
a little bit in the chair. Like an old man. Well, you are. I'm slobbering and drooling
on myself. Honey, you've just turned 61. You're older than I am. It's just a number. So anywho,
we were talking about purging the power of decluttering. And I love that idea of every
once in a while you just have to stop and evaluate, take a step back and really observe
your life as objectively as possible and say, is this stuff I need? Do I need all these
guitars? Absolutely. But other than that, we look at things and we say, okay, is this
really needful? And I love Maria Konda's thing. Is it bringing you joy? That's my whole point
of doing this. If it's not bringing me joy, it's out the door. And throughout the day
I was asking you, is that bringing you joy? As we loaded all that stuff into our SUV.
We treated our SUVs like a pickup. I know. We piled stuff. It's got a full load of stuff
in it now because I filled up a dumpster. I know. And people, if they dumpster stuff,
boy, they're going to get some good stuff. Oh, they're going to cash out. Yeah, they're
going to be out there. Oh my gosh. We should have taken some to Goodwill, but-
We were just trying to get rid of- Yeah, most of it.
Most of it's just stuff I wouldn't even give away. It's just stuff that-
I don't like to take things to Goodwill unless they're in really good shape and I can honor
and bless someone, not just give them our leftover stuff that's torn or whatever. I
just can't do that. Somebody's asking me what my fee is for a wedding. I just got a note
there. It's like $1 million. That should do it. Inflation and all. You just got it just
now? It was Abram. Abram. So I'm doing a wedding on Saturday. And a funeral. I'm doing a double
hitter. I've never done this before. I'm doing a funeral at 11 a.m. and then I'm doing a
wedding at 4 a.m. I mean, that's going to be a day. That'll be a day for the books. It's
a first. I've never pulled a double hitter. This is your third funeral in four weeks.
I know. I know. I can't believe it. Well, what's been interesting is I started a series
on heaven and then all of a sudden I'm at the bedside. I'm visiting. I'm praying over
people who are passing. It's been a really wild experience. We're moving from decluttering
into our topic. We won't spend long on this today, but I want to encourage you. Here's
what I'm learning. Let me just give you some learnings from three funerals in what? Five
weeks. You ever take six weeks? I thought it was four weeks. Yeah, maybe four weeks.
Anyway, I'm losing count to be honest. I know. But here's, there's some takeaways that I'm
walking away from this. For one, I'm beginning to realize that the veil between life on earth
and life in heaven in the next chapter is very thin. Upper story, lower story. I love
that. And the veil is much thinner than I thought. You know, we've used these, I use
this phrase a lot, life is fragile because being a pastor for 38 plus years, you never
know. And I'm not trying to freak anybody out. Just honestly, you really don't know.
We don't. When I was closing the message yesterday, I was talking about heaven and I made this
comment. I said, I may never, what if this is my last message to ever preach, my last
sermon? And everybody's settled in with that. Well, yeah, that'd be sad. And then I said,
but what if this was the last sermon you ever heard and you haven't stepped over the line,
you haven't gone all in with Jesus, you haven't accepted his free gift of salvation, you know,
freedom. We're not guaranteed the next breath. Not guaranteed the next breath. My mother
passed away at 45 years of age. I mean, who's, none of us saw that coming. Elizabeth Pete.
Yeah. Another friend of ours. I had met with her the day before she passed away. 44 years
ago. You said she was in the shower in the afternoon. It was actually like 11 o'clock
at night. Oh, was it? Oh yeah. It was, it was in the evening and she has a, I think
they said it was an aneurysm while she's in the shower, 44 years of age. She stepped in
the shower and when she came out of the shower, she was in another world. So she was in the
next chapter of her life. She was in heaven. She loved the Lord very godly. Daughter, young,
daughter, founder, heart breaking. But it's, but it's that reminder. And so as I've been
doing this series on heaven, and by the way, it's called heaven in the real world because
it's not just like, you know, we're going to cross over the river and go into Beulah
land and get our harp and our, and our halos, you know, and our wings. No, it's about, it's
really about what's on the other side. And so I did some reading and some studying from
an author named John Burke, fascinating. And so I started reading his book called Imagine
Heaven. He studied over a thousand near death experiences and he, he only would, would,
he would try to corroborate details, things that people couldn't know otherwise. So he
ended up with about studying a thousand of those over 35 years as a pastor in Austin,
Texas. And then he took about a hundred of those and put those into kind of a detailed
story. And so I've been reading through those accounts and, and there's a lot of commonalities
and what it has done for me, it is literally, and Annette will tell you this, this is changing
my life. This is, it's shifting my perspective to where now I'm not afraid. And by the way,
culturally speaking, one of the greatest things that people fear the most, it's the fear of
dying, the fear of death. That's why we do everything to try to push it off and put it
off and we try to distract ourselves with the stuff of life so that we don't have to
think about dying. It's true. Interesting. I've had a lot of conversations. People will
say things like, like this. I'm not afraid of what's coming after death. I'm afraid of
death itself. We're afraid of the pain of pain or if I get a cancer or if I have a heart
attack, I mean, I'm driving and I have a, an aneurysm or whatever. There's a lot of fear
surrounding that, but here's a commonality. I won't go long. Just want to encourage everyone
because this is encouraged me because I'm the same way. I'm like everybody else who
wants to think about, you know, one day you're just, it's over and you go out with pain or
you're in an accident. But here's the thing. Everyone who has had one of these NDEs, a
near death experience, a high degree of commonality here is that they come back and they say things
like there was no pain. There's an account of a doctor. She, she was a spinal doctor,
a surgeon, and she's from America, but she was down in Chile and they were doing kayaking
on this wild river and this beautiful area. Her, she was in her kayak strapped in. Her
kayak went off a small waterfall and it went nose down and it stuck in the rocks underwater
and she began to struggle and fight. Break me out because I can't handle water. Well
yeah, you're claustrophobic. So it's like the worst kind of death, a drowning death.
And people have, there's a lot of people have a very real fear of drowning and which she
said she actually did have that. I can't even go kayaking because I'm, I have fear of that.
Right. So she gets stuck. So her, her, the nose of her kayak is wedged between rocks
and she's fighting to get out and she realizes in the middle of this initial struggle that
she feels fine. I mean, she's like, no fear. She's, she even uses the words. I was not
air hungry. Powerful word. You think you'd go into the fight or flight syndrome. You
start struggling. Now she said, I was trying to get out, but I didn't feel, are you, are
you tied in? Okay. See, I've never, yeah, she was strapped in. So she's trying to get
out. She was under the water for 14 minutes at one point during that struggle. Uh, she
said, I felt no air hunger. I felt no fear. She said, in fact, I felt fully alive. And
she said, I felt arms wrap around me. I knew they were arms of Jesus Christ and I knew
it was Christ. It's like, I knew it without having to know it. I knew it. And she said
that, that she, uh, she found herself lifting out of the water in the arms of Christ. And
then as she was looking down on the waters, and that's another commonality is just floating
out of your body's out of body experiences. She was looking at the body. All of her friends
were on the shore and her body pops up in the kayak. They get her and they're, they're
working on her on the shore and they're, they're crying out to her and she turns. Also one
other piece of this, not only did she come out of the water with cries, she saw the great
cloud of witnesses waiting for her and they were cheering like she's like stepping over
the cross crossing over a finish line. They're cheering for it. She feels welcomed and loved
and they're like, welcome home, welcome home. And she's like, this is the most amazing feeling
ever ever. And it's like her senses were heightened.
Why would you even want to go back to the earth when you feel this way?
Really didn't. But here's what happened in at least in her account, cause there's different
accounts. Again, a lot of commonalities. She looks back and she sees her friends weeping
over her body and begging her to breathe. So she's, she looks back at the crowd and
Christ and she says, I'll be back. And she said out of compassion, she, she was allowed
to go back. She said, I laid down where my body was and I took a breath. She had been
out. She'd been underwater for 14 minutes out for another 16, 30 minutes total. She
was completely out and no brain damage, no physical issues. She was completely healthy
and resumed her practice, but with a very changed perspective, she'll never fear death
again. And I love that. That so encouraged me because like everyone else, it is in the
book. Imagine heaven, heaven devotional. There's two books. There's a book full on book. This
is a devotional where he takes those. He said that he got a lot of flack is when he very
first started. Yeah. When he first started investigating, people are like, well that's,
you know, the Christians were actually going, Oh, you shouldn't be doing that. I feel bad
for people that are really trying to do some good and get some information. Well, for me,
I mean, I already have this great hope. I already know where I'm going. I know that
I know, I know in my knower, but it really encouraged and inspired me of not to fear,
not to fear the process of getting to the other side, what we would call a transition
or passing over or step or a new chapter of life. Cause we never die. We never, our bodies
expire but our soul, our spirit lives on. So many people think it's just going to get
black and that's it. Oh man. That's just, I can't even imagine thinking that way. Yeah.
I mean, that's called fatalism where you literally use, you don't see that anything could ever
get any better. And so, I mean, how would you live if that's all you knew? First of
all, you would fear death terribly, but as believers and followers of Jesus, we don't
have to be afraid. There's amazing throughout the Bible, over 700 references to heaven,
87 just in the book of Matthew references to heaven and the glory that will be met with
the one of the commonalities, Burke, and I'll finish with this. One of the commonalities
that Burke came away from all these studies, thousand, you know, over a thousand cases
is that they all had this, they said once their, their body expired, they were, they
were clinically dead that they, their senses like, you know, for example, the scripture
says that in heaven, there'll be no sun because there'll be no need for the sun to produce
light because God himself and the lamb, Jesus Christ is the book of revelation is like themselves.
They actually like the kingdom. And he said, you know, the difference is, is that in our,
in our, in our current spectrum, the, the colors of the sun and the light that the sun
produces our color spectrum is just limited. It has a certain amount and that's what we
see. But these people that had these near death experiences, they, their color spectrum
was expanded to the spectrum of God. So they saw colors and experienced light they had
never seen or felt before. So you can imagine if you're, if your senses are hyper excited
because you're now in a glorified body, a new, a new state of being. I know all this
sounds really out there, but if you think about it, the Bible addresses these things
and it says in terms of preachers don't preach on heaven much. Yeah. And, and you know, there's
two things the church doesn't talk about enough and that's heaven and hell. And that's another
thing we're going to address too at our church in the next week. I kind of tiptoed into it
a little bit, but we're going to talk about that as well. So here's how I want to land
the plane. First of all, if you have a fear of death or dying, I want to encourage you
to get John Burke's book. It's called Imagine Heaven. There was a devotional version. It's
just a hundred of those cases. It's a more to the point, very good. And then there's
the actual book. So it's John Burke, Imagine Heaven, another documentary and or book, depending
on whether you want to watch a documentary or read a book is by Lee Strobel. And it's
called the case for heaven, the case for heaven. Very well done, very well made and powerful.
All right. We love you. We want to land the plane today. First of all, by saying thank
you for the comments. Thank you for the, for those that watch us on casamatic and on, on
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hope that you'll have a great week living up in a down world.