his attention to his toys. Then I remembered that the Bible talks in several
places about people who had seen heaven without dying. The apostle Paul
wrote to the church at Corinth about a Christian he knew personally who
was taken to heaven, “Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not
know—God knows. And I know that this man... was caught up to
paradise. He heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted
to tell.”^2
Then, of course, there was John the apostle, who described heaven in
great detail in the book of Revelation. John had been exiled to the island of
Patmos, where an angel visited him and commanded him to write down a
series of prophecies to various churches. John wrote:
After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the
voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, “Come up here, and I will
show you what must take place after this.” At once I was in the Spirit, and there
before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it. And the one who sat
there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian. A rainbow, resembling an
emerald, encircled the throne.^3Rainbows... now where had I heard that recently?
As I stood there and thought through a scriptural basis for experiencing
heaven without dying, I realized that Colton, in telling me he had died “for a
little bit,” had only been trying to match up his pastor-dad’s assertion with
what he knew to be the facts of his own experience. Kind of like walking
outside and finding that the street is wet, and concluding, well, okay, it must
have rained.
See, I had this tidy little box that said, “People have to die to go to
heaven,” and Colton, trusting me, concluded, “Well, I must have died then,
because I was there.”
Suddenly, he piped up again. “Daddy, remember when I yelled for you in
the hospital when I waked up?”
How could I forget? It was the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard. “Of
course I do,” I said.
“Well, the reason I was yelling was that Jesus came to get me. He said I
had to go back because he was answering your prayer. That’s how come I
was yelling for you.”