Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Dreaming Of Heaven w/ Tony Stolzfus
27 Plays12 hours ago
In episode 110 guest Tony Stolzfus, Master Coach, trainer, best selling author, shares a dream he had over 40 years ago about heaven- that has influenced his life in profound ways and inspired him to write a recent book called Heaven: Experience the extraordinary. Tony is a deep well of wisdom and experience in encountering Jesus, as well as leading others to encounter Jesus themselves. We are fortunate to learn from the lofe experience and personal revelation Tony brings to this show- including his dream but so much more. You will leave feeling more hunger to encounter God in scripture and more connected to the beautiful heart of a good, good God.
Tony's Books: www.meta-formation.com
Bible Study: https://likeahumanbeing.com/
Rewriting Your Story: https://heavensperspective.com/
BREATHING UNDERWATER
Join the Community and Newsletter: HERE
Email: margaux@permissiontoreign.com
Intro Music by Coma-Media from Pixabay
Image by Claire Fischer from Unsplash
Recommended
Transcript
The Desire for Divine Wisdom
00:00:00
Speaker
We were designed to hunger for the deep things of God, to thrive on faith and wonder, to seek out divine wisdom that defies human logic. We were designed to unlock the mysteries of God.
00:00:14
Speaker
This is Breathing Underwater.
Introduction to Tony Stolzfus
00:00:27
Speaker
Hi Tony, i am so happy to have you here today. Everybody, this is Tony Stolzfus. Did I say that right? yes I was just corrected on how to how to pronounce his last name, but Tony is and an author, a creative, um a video maker,
00:00:47
Speaker
I guess you are ah a man of many talents. Used to be a furniture designer, I just found out. um He was a coach. He has created coaching content and has taught and equipped coaches for many, many years. Interestingly, I know of Tony because I've gone through a couple of his courses and I have a couple of his coaching books. I'm going to put links to all of those actually in the show notes because I recommend each of them. One in particular, he has a book called Questions with Jesus. That is probably an older one for you, but it's just so beautiful when you're wanting to connect with God more
Coaching and Devotional Tools by Tony
00:01:24
Speaker
one-on-one even. just I've used it in my own kind of devotional time with God. Or if you are coaching someone or in inner healing with someone and you need help
00:01:33
Speaker
prompting to ask Jesus questions, but he also has a brand new book out. Tony's also a dreamer. Oh my word. i could say so many more things, but Tony, we are really blessed that you're here.
00:01:45
Speaker
Yes. i can say one thing about questions for Jesus. There's a free mobile app for it too. Oh, hey. It gives you a short meditation and then there's five questions for Jesus and it plays soaking music while you listen. And then there's little journal in there where you can record what you heard. Isn't that beautiful? Like a little personal devotional app.
00:02:05
Speaker
Yeah. Oh my gosh. Well, Tony, you have done so much through the years. He was just telling me ah so many of the things that he had been going after in his life. do you want to tell us just a little bit of kind of where you've been, what God has done with you, and where you're at now? And then we'll jump into the whole dream book, heaven realm.
Personal Challenges and Faith
00:02:25
Speaker
Yeah, well, where I've been the last five years is really marked by the car fire and COVID. We lost our home in the car fire. And there were several other, that was the fourth most traumatic thing that happened in my life that year was losing the house.
00:02:42
Speaker
Wow. And i've reached this place where i it was just more than I could cope with. I've got great coping skills because I've been coaching people through their most difficult moments for years. But I just, so I, we sold our business. I didn't work for a year.
00:03:05
Speaker
um Just, you know, going through the healing process has taken several years to recover relationally and personally and wow one of One of my experiences, in the middle of it was going to God and saying, okay, God, I know I can talk to you whenever I feel like it. And I know that you talk back, but I just, I got nothing and I don't even feel like talking to you right now. And he would say stuff like, yeah, trust the process.
00:03:33
Speaker
Great. think like with Job, People read Job and they think, oh, this is a book about a really great guy and something terrible happened to him. And that's not what it's about. Job is about a guy who was just, he was afraid of God. He went and did sacrifices for his children every day, just in case they did something wrong, because he was afraid God would punish them. wow And his his integrity is his shield. He thinks if he maintains absolute integrity, that...
00:04:07
Speaker
that God won't hurt him. And his wife knows what's up. At one point, she's like, why do you keep holding on to your integrity? You know, curse God and die. And everyone interprets that as, oh, his wife's really a jerk. But the wife always knows what's going on, you know?
00:04:23
Speaker
She sees clearly. Yes. And in the book, there's several times where he says, I'd rather die than lose my integrity. And what happens at the end of the book is he loses his shield, his integrity, and he realizes he's done it all wrong. And yet God loves
Lessons from the Story of Job
00:04:40
Speaker
him anyway. And so the thing that Job most desired in life, the thing that was that that he would give anything for but didn't know how to get, God gave him that. Wow.
00:04:52
Speaker
And so for me, the whole experience of going through the fire and everything else was really about... the thing I've longed for all my life is just to be at peace with myself and with God and to reach the place where it's like, God, I've got nothing, absolutely nothing.
00:05:11
Speaker
And he's like, eh, we're fine. it gave my heart the thing I always longed for. So it's a beautiful thing in retrospect. It really sucked while it was happening. Seriously.
00:05:26
Speaker
and It's so interesting you said you know when I was going through the fire. i think that's such a common experience in Christian life, just how God he leads us right into the fire in these places where these seasons where we're experiencing things that burn away, literally in this case, but metaphorically things that maybe they're chaff in the end.
00:05:47
Speaker
But I'm also so sorry to hear that's when you lost your house. I know so many people who actually lost their house and yeah if Just briefly from that point, giving up but your business, was that the furniture making business at that point?
00:06:03
Speaker
No, no. Okay. I had been running a training school that trained coaches and coaches are for years. and And COVID was at about that time. And so when we sold our business after putting 12 years into it, it was worth nothing. Yeah. because it was a it was in-person workshops and you couldn't do that at all during COVID. So man, oh man, another devastation. Yeah. But you know, God provided for our retirement through our house burning down. all in all,
00:06:39
Speaker
so all in all It was really painful, but at this point, I'm really glad it all happened.
Finding Peace in Loss
00:06:47
Speaker
And there's loss. Three weeks before the fire, I'm out praying in my yard. And I said to Jesus, Jesus, could I really live without all this stuff?
00:06:57
Speaker
um And Jesus doesn't burn your house down to answer your prayers. No, no. But it wasn't long after the fire that i realized like the things I had made.
00:07:10
Speaker
had all this furniture that I had made. I made a table for our engagement with my wife and that burned and our four poster bed with hand carved post burned and I had made this leaded glass piece around the doors of my office. It had 1500 individual pieces of glass in it, Frank Lloyd Wright style and all.
00:07:28
Speaker
It just melted into a puddle. um But i realized a couple of weeks after the fire, what was really important to me wasn't having the thing I made, but the fact that I made it.
00:07:41
Speaker
And nothing can take that away from me. And so I pretty quickly came to the place of, yeah, I can live without all this stuff. This isn't that big of a deal. Wow.
00:07:53
Speaker
So since that turning point, what's your life looked like? What's God been doing in you through you? Well, um, when I was, I was in Israel about a year ago and, uh, this would be, it's February now. So yeah, it was February, March. And, uh, I got sick and I'm laying there in bed and God spoke to me and said, you know, next week is your
Retirement and Contentment
00:08:19
Speaker
64th birthday. I want you to retire.
00:08:21
Speaker
And I always thought that I would work as hard as I could, as long as I could. That was always my, you know, retirement is this American thing, you know, that it's just about yourself and blah, blah, blah, blah. blah And so a little before that, I'd been in in Maui, our son lives in Maui and God's we're out walking on Thompson road, which is this gorgeous. You know, Oprah has a house there. oh And, uh, you have this fantastic view of the Island and the ocean. And, and Jesus says, you've been living for significance and there's a whole other life you can have if you want to try it.
00:09:02
Speaker
And I was like, okay, that sounds exciting, but I have no idea what you're talking about. Yeah.
00:09:09
Speaker
And what I've learned is that I had this idea of I want to make something of my life. I want to be significant. I want to leave a legacy. And so I had ordered my whole life and paired off other things.
00:09:24
Speaker
um I paired off. learning how to do food prep because I was going to spend the minimum amount of time on food so that I could be strategic. And wow I paired off exercise and I paired off a lot of things relationally. And, and so what's been happening is first I had to realize I'd done that, which I was just the strategic thing is the important thing, you know? Sure.
00:09:52
Speaker
And, and to realize, i think, to encapsulate my revelation, it would be, I'm not called to change the world. I'm called to change my world.
Impacting Immediate Surroundings
00:10:04
Speaker
wow And I think there's a bunch of Christians out there who are trying to change the world. It's especially evident in politics and are just making enormous messes. They're just besmirching the name of Christ by how they're they're trying to change the world and they don't realize, I'm not responsible for that. That's my own hubris.
00:10:28
Speaker
I'm supposed to change my world. So if I meet a homeless guy, I'm going to invest in him. It's not strategic in the giant kingdom sense, but that's the need that's in front of me. um So that's been my life in the last couple years has been this creaking turning of the ship toward a direction that it nothing in it was going to go this way.
00:10:56
Speaker
So, yeah. And it takes a little while to turn a ship, especially a big one. Yeah. Wow. So in this time, you had mentioned before this dream, this very powerful dream that we're going to talk about in just a moment. um But how that was really the impetus to this book and to a bunch of um classes or encounters that you have been leading I'd love to hear a little bit about that.
Dreams of Heaven
00:11:25
Speaker
let's Let's actually start with the dream and then we'll go into the book because I definitely want to talk about the book as well. Before we talk about this dream, have you always been a dreamer or was this dream you're about to share kind of a one-off?
00:11:38
Speaker
Every so often I'll have a dream where it's like, okay, this is not a regular random dream yeah of my neurons firing this is something significant um and this particular dream it wasn't this enormous profound experience in the sense of there was a awesome revelation in it you know that changed my life it was cool and i wrote a song about it which helped me remember it um but it sort of started in me a
00:12:12
Speaker
I thought a lot about heaven over the years, and I've incorporated heaven into, like when we did workshops at the training school, every workshop had a heaven room with actors and staging and lighting and original music. and wow We would rewrite people's stories from heaven's perspective, and when they'd come to the heaven room, they got a handmade leather journal with their story from Jesus in it. And so...
00:12:35
Speaker
I incorporated all these heaven things into what I did. So it sort of set me off in a direction. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So why don't you go ahead and share with us the dream? And then I'm going to ask you more about the heaven rooms and rewriting the story. Okay. So this is in my twenties. So we're talking 40 years ago.
00:12:55
Speaker
um And in the dream, it's like it was a normal dream. I'm walking down the hall in my elementary school as a kid, you know, with the the lockers and the walls and the linoleum floor and whatever. And all of a sudden, the hall just came to an end. It was like someone had carved off the side of the building.
00:13:12
Speaker
And I'm standing at the edge of this cliff, And down below the cliff is heaven, um you know way down there. But I knew it was heaven. And the fragrance of heaven is rising through the air. and And so I'm like, oh, I want to go down there. It's a big jump. And I, i to test it out, I picked up a little stone from the ground and i tossed it over the edge and it turned into a butterfly and just flew away. And I was like, oh, and so I i jumped and I just floated down. it It wasn't a, you know, I just floated right down and I was there in heaven.
00:13:52
Speaker
And the spot I landed, there was this giant green lawn that went on forever. with rich grass and stuff. And there was one big oak tree and underneath it was a picnic table. And there were a group of guys just talking and laughing at the picnic table.
00:14:09
Speaker
And I walked over and took my spot and they just, you know, I was just part of the group immediately and we talked and hung out and the the thing of the dream that so struck me and and has always been with me is this sense of timelessness. Like there was nowhere where I needed to be.
00:14:32
Speaker
and I think of sometimes when I'm at church and I'm talking to someone, but out of the corner of my eye, I'm looking at this other person that i know I need to talk to. And so I'm not all here because I'm partly there. Yes. There was none of that.
00:14:45
Speaker
I could have sat there for 100 years and talked to those guys. And and it would have been totally cool. And we're having a great time. And someone comes up behind me and taps me on the shoulder and says, it's time for you to to go back.
00:14:59
Speaker
And they were all like, oh, I'm sorry, you know, we'll miss you and please come back. And I floated back away and that was the end of the dream. wow um But that that expansive, timeless, I have enough.
00:15:20
Speaker
That was the big impression of the dream. Abundance. Yeah. Wow. Was it, was it something that when you woke up that feeling stayed with you? i think.
00:15:35
Speaker
So my background math. I'm a math and physics major. um ah So i I think I kind of converted it into, okay timelessness. This is what this would be in physics. and Amazing.
00:15:50
Speaker
And, you know, yeah. And then writing the song, there was a feeling around the song and then that stuck with me. Yes. And is it that feeling, if you were to describe that, it's the feeling of abundance?
00:16:02
Speaker
Or what other words would you use? No pressure. um Peace. ah It's not like abundance, like a bunch of stuff. Right. It's it's abundance like...
00:16:19
Speaker
completion. oh i don't need anything and I don't have to go get anything. It's an interesting bookend to what I'm dealing with now of letting go of the strategic, great objective and being content in the moment.
00:16:37
Speaker
That was total contentment in the moment. Total contentment in the moment. That's, yep, that's the way to say it. I love that. um I want to hear about how this led to the book, but I was struck by a part in your dream where there were these guys at the picnic table and you said, I went and took my spot.
00:16:55
Speaker
Like, did you mean there was a spot like, you know, oh, that's my spot. I'm going to take that. It was more just, you I was totally welcome. Yeah. I'm not interrupting anything. I'm not disturbing anything. i'm One of the things I think about heaven and the timelessness of heaven is if you're having a conversation in heaven and you go do something else or you talk to someone else, when you come back, the conversation is ah exactly the moment you left it off. wow So we're so used to being trapped in linear time where I get one moment after the other and I can't go back and I can't go forward. And in heaven, you're free in time.
00:17:36
Speaker
And in each moment, you have an infinite number of moments. So, for instance, I think... One of the questions people have about heaven is, okay, there's like however many billion people up there. Do I get one five billionth of Jesus's time?
00:17:53
Speaker
So if I spend five minutes with him, it's 100,000 years till I get to see him again. oh No, because Jesus has an infinite number of moments within each moment, which is how he can be omnipresent and how he can answer all of our prayers. And so in heaven, you can be with Jesus whenever you want.
00:18:13
Speaker
And so can other people. And so from a physics perspective, this isn't totally weird, but you could look around and see 20 Jesuses talking to different groups of people all at once. Right.
00:18:24
Speaker
Right. And it's an it's an artifact of the way time works, but you in heaven, you just say, hey, Jesus, and he shows up. Like Siri, you know, hey, Siri. Like Siri. but Yep, sounds like Siri. And also it sounds a little bit like Narnia, you know, how there was up so much time that passed there, and then so little, maybe just the opposite.
00:18:50
Speaker
But how has this affected the way you look at life, your life? Has it impacted you? Yes. i but couple of things. My wife and I have this thing we do. It's called the heaven game. And when we've had a rough day or when we're frustrated with something, we'll just start out and one of us will say, yeah, there's no, like I have a squirrel that's been living in my attic and I i keep plugging up the hole and then I realize it's stuck in there and I unplug the hole. And we've been through several iterations of this now.
00:19:22
Speaker
But we might say, okay, there's no squirrels in your roof in heaven. There's no mosquitoes in heaven. There's no lions at the DMV in heaven. there ah And we'll just go through the things that are not in heaven.
00:19:38
Speaker
um and nut So it's it's an encouraging thing. Another difference is I find myself, we all have these dreams, you know, I want to climb this mountain. I want to go here. I want to...
00:19:51
Speaker
And I find myself more and more saying, eh, I'll do that in heaven. um I don't have to go and accomplish everything because I have infinite time in front of me to do whatever I want. Oh, my gosh. And my back won't hurt. And...
00:20:07
Speaker
Oh, my gosh. And I don't have to take two days to fly there to get there. I'll just show up. Whoa. Tony, this is a big deal. This is a really big deal, especially in our culture where everything is fast, fast, go, go, hurry, hurry. Don't miss your window.
00:20:23
Speaker
i mean, this is even something in the church that I think we deal with. Yeah, but ahead here's some more things. um When Jesus is on the cross, he says, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.
Forgiveness and Heavenly Judgment
00:20:36
Speaker
And I always just thought of that as, oh, Jesus is so nice. He went and forgave the guys. But, you know, and the somewhere in the back of my mind was, but when they get to heaven, you know, God is really gonna.
00:20:49
Speaker
And then I thought, wait a minute. Jesus is asking Father to do something in heaven that he's doing on earth. Oh, so does father then go and judge them for that particular sin at the last judgment?
00:21:05
Speaker
No, because Jesus didn't press charges. And then I thought, oh, shoot, can I do that too? and then a friend reminded me of Stephen when he's being stoned. He says, don't count this sin against them. It's like, oh, forgiveness on earth translates to heaven.
00:21:23
Speaker
Wow. And I think the last judgment for the saints It's not going to be a lot of people's images. God will put this big screen up and play everything I did wrong in my life. And we're like, nah, it's exactly the opposite of that. We'll get up before Jesus and he'll say, come blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food and I was thirsty and you gave me drink.
00:21:50
Speaker
And we'll say, but Lord, when did I do that for you? and then Jesus will say, okay, church, do your thing. And people will start coming out of the crowd to speak in front of heaven. And they'll say,
00:22:03
Speaker
i was a homeless man crumpled up on the sidewalk and car after car drove by me and you stopped and called the police. um And then Jesus will say, when you did that, you did it for me. And there'll be a hundred thousand instances of the people of God coming up and testifying what you did for them. And Jesus will acknowledge that as done for him. And then Jesus will say,
00:22:30
Speaker
and tell me about your forgiveness. And people will come out of the crowd and say, you know, you treated me wrong in this day, but... I'm fine and Jesus has got it and I'm not pressing charges. And Jesus will say, well, then I'm not pressing charges either. And we'll have this giant party where you will be acknowledged before heaven by God.
00:22:50
Speaker
um And the people of God will come around you and advocate for you with the advocate. And it it's going to be, i think Revelation reduces it to the, here's in general what's going to happen.
00:23:06
Speaker
But I think there's enough in the Bible to suggest this is going to be a community outing and we're going to have a party. ah And that really does feel so much more like God's character when it comes down to it. Isn't that beautiful?
00:23:22
Speaker
Yeah. His goal was to unite all things in him. What a unifying experience. Wow. Have everyone that you've, that you wronged come and forgive you.
00:23:35
Speaker
Wow. When you were just talking about the, when Jesus was on the cross and he forgave that man, this scripture came to mind, and this might not actually be in line with what you're talking about at all, but I just thought of the scripture where it talks about, you know, what what we bind on earth is bound in heaven. What we loose on earth is loose in heaven. it It reminds me of that. Do you feel like that's related? Yeah. When you forgive the sins of any, they're forgiven is one of the last things that Jesus said to his disciples. yep um So the fun part in terms of living now is I realized, oh,
00:24:08
Speaker
I can forgive people and they're forgiven in heaven. Who can I forgive today? oh gosh, ah it's true. That makes it sound so much more fun. yeah And we've made forgiveness into this thing. If you don't forgive people, it'll come back and hurt you. wow No.
00:24:24
Speaker
When you forgive, you're like your father in heaven and you add to the party. Wow. Wow. And in turn, you're so blessed because you're like, I'm actually getting to bless them. yeah Gosh, that's beautiful.
00:24:38
Speaker
Oh, I have nine other questions, but I want to get to the book. yeah I could tangent so many different directions right now. So this book, your newest book, tell us
Exploring Heaven in Literature
00:24:47
Speaker
the name of it. Tell us what it's about.
00:24:49
Speaker
And then I'd love to see. Yep. There it is. It's called heaven experienced the extraordinary and there it's in focus. Look at the dancing. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. AI for but helping me generate the cover.
00:25:04
Speaker
Um, This is a scene in the book where Jesus dances with us. And when I envision that in heaven, heaven is made of light.
00:25:15
Speaker
In Revelation, all things in heaven are bright and transparent. The streets of the city, pure gold, transparent as glass, the shining shining crystal sea, the river of life.
00:25:26
Speaker
um And so i envision heaven as a place where On earth, light is reflected. So you can see my face because I have a big light up here that's bouncing light off of me. In heaven, everything emits light. um So heaven is a place that in a sense is made of light.
00:25:47
Speaker
um And we are, the physical us is transparent to the inner light. So on earth, you meet a person and and what you see is their hair color and their eyes and whether their teeth are crooked like mine or... you know, what they're wearing on heaven, that's all transparent. And when you meet someone, one you see the inner person. And so you bond immediately because you can feel what they feel. You can see what they think.
00:26:17
Speaker
And there's nothing in us to be ashamed of. So we don't feel exposed because there's nothing we're worried about. Yep. There's no shame there. There's no shame there. Yeah.
00:26:28
Speaker
Yeah. Wow. Honestly, I think I've had these kinds of experiences where I just feel like, oh man, i see I see you and it's really moving. And that kind of experience of a bond, even when I don't know someone of, oh, I see you and I and i genuinely love you. And I can't tell you why. I just do. Because it's not about something that you did or i don't even know you, but there's a resonance
00:26:54
Speaker
and an ability to see. yep And God has placed on earth all these little hints of heaven. And that's one of them that I have this little moment. And it's like, heaven is like this all the time. wow That's, that's one of the ways that's changed me is that I'm looking as I live for those little hints of heaven. Wow. Everything around me. Wow.
00:27:18
Speaker
So is that what this book is about? um That's a part of it. um The book is sort of, it's a journey of imagination into a multidimensional heaven. So my physics background, everything I've learned from 25 years as a coach about how God meets people in their pain. Cause the main character, Amanda has to work through her pain on her entry to heaven. And her pain is her, her,
00:27:52
Speaker
mother was bipolar and left when she was a girl. And at the end of the book, her mother doesn't make it to heaven and they get to work through all that too. Um, and her father dies of cancer when she's a teenager.
00:28:07
Speaker
So her pain is having closed her heart. Um, and she comes to the edge of the cliff. I, I incorporated the dream into the book. So she comes to the edge of the cliff and Jesus says to her um you know heaven lies at your your feet and she can't make the jump and Jesus says the problem is you don't trust me um and she says you're right I don't trust anyone with my heart and they have to go through that process of
00:28:43
Speaker
Yeah, you you can't... Trust is the bridge between heaven and earth. Wow. Faith faith and trust in the New Testament, you can substitute one word for the other. Interchange, yep. um But we have two different universes. There's no way rationally or scientifically to connect them, but trust and relationship can bridge across between the two universes where nothing rational will do it. So that's why... it's impossible to please God without faith. And, yeah you know, faith is a substance of things hoped for. yeah Gosh, that's beautiful.
00:29:23
Speaker
So in this, it it sounds like reading, it would be an encounter kind of in and of itself. Well, there's this heavenly impartation and experience and also this deep conversation with Jesus that will inevitably touch on things in our own life. Yes.
00:29:39
Speaker
It was that the intention of the book? Yeah, after not too long after my dream in my 20s, I thought to myself, I want to make a movie about heaven someday. Because if people could just experience heaven for 90 minutes.
00:29:53
Speaker
they they'd give anything to go back. um So if you want to read all the chapter and verse about heaven, get Randy Alcorn's book, you know, and he goes through every little scripture about everything.
Imagination and Trust in Understanding Heaven
00:30:06
Speaker
But the challenge I have with his book is he doesn't imagine anything beyond that. And this is an attempt to say, If you can't, if if trust is the bridge, you can't understand heaven by just looking at whatever rationally you can understand. You're going to have to take a leap into trust and imagination. And the cool thing is, is when you make that leap, you start finding all these things in the Bible that are like, oh my gosh, I never realized.
00:30:39
Speaker
like when one when one suffers all suffer when one rejoices all rejoice uh interestingly the word for they translate rejoice there is actually doxa it's glorified so when one is glorified all rejoice wow but on earth that's a choice you know you're part of my body and i I choose to engage and have empathy and hurt with you. In heaven, where we're transparent and I immediately feel what you feel, wow that's automatic.
00:31:11
Speaker
So the command in the Bible is actually live like you're in heaven now so that when you get here, it feels like home. And it puts a whole new spin on there's all these commands in the Bible that are more about preparing us for heaven than they are you know, that God had some arbitrary rule that we're supposed to do.
00:31:33
Speaker
Oh my gosh. Just a completely different perspective, even on reading through scripture. Yeah. I mean, talk about being seated in heavenly places. Talk about sitting and seeing everything from that perspective and operating in true identity already. Not once we get there, but that we're already, we can be seated there now.
00:31:52
Speaker
You are seated there now. Yes. Because we are seated there now. in earth time does not yet appear what you'll be you have a bunch of moments till you get to heaven heaven is an eternal now so everyone gets to heaven on the same day it's always today in heaven a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day so to god his current reality is that you're sitting there at his right hand in heaven and he sees the glorified you So when you're like, oh, Jesus, I'm so sorry I was bad today. And he's like, wait a minute.
00:32:27
Speaker
You're sitting right here. There's nothing wrong with you. What's the problem? oh that's so good. is That is so good and that is so true. Oh my gosh. Even just, just yesterday i was just in, in a soul, some turmoil and just feeling really bogged down. And I heard God say, come up, come up.
00:32:48
Speaker
And I was so mad. i was like, I don't want to come up. I want to fix this thing. You know, like, no, I don't want to just get above it and pretend like this isn't happening, but that's not, that's not what it is. It's like, this isn't actually how I see you. This isn't actually the reality of who you are.
00:33:03
Speaker
Just remember that you're already here and that I'm with you and this is how I see you. Isn't that absolutely beautiful? You mentioned the imagination multiple times and this is something we talk about a lot on this podcast because we're talking about dreams, we're talking about visions, we're talking about encountering God through the more abstract, I would say, ways. And there's a lot of people, a lot of listeners who've been working through a religious past, a religious experience.
00:33:30
Speaker
background where they're afraid oftentimes to tap into things like this because they don't want to be deceived. And I get that. And it is a process of being able to trust
Engaging Minds with Scripture
00:33:41
Speaker
this. But what would you say to those people who are maybe like, I don't know if I want to get into that imagination place because A, I don't know if I can trust it. B, sometimes I see things in there that aren't good.
00:33:53
Speaker
Could you speak to that at all? well before the heaven book i spent three years full time working on a book called how to read the bible like a human being and the idea behind it is i had this realization one day i forget what passage it was maybe the the woman with the issue of blood But for whatever reason, I tried to visualize it and I realized I've got a picture of the woman. I've got a picture of Jesus and they're out in some field somewhere. There's no, there's no background. There's no surroundings. And all of a sudden it hit me. This is how we visualize this back in Sunday school, 50, almost 60 years ago on
00:34:41
Speaker
a little flannel board thing, a flannel graph. There was the character of Jesus and there was, you know, the woman. and then there's just flannel. Green flannel. My pictures of New Testament scenes had not changed since I was a child.
00:34:56
Speaker
Wow. My theology had changed. My application had changed, but my visualization I never worked at. And you have a ah rational brain and you have an emotional brain. And we've been taught to study the Bible exclusively with our rational brain. What does it mean? What is the theology? What are we supposed to do about it? So believe and behave are the...
00:35:22
Speaker
um But what we haven't been taught is how to engage scripture with our emotional brain, are the visual part of us, our imagination. And you need to to, scripture needs to renew your mind, but it needs to not just renew your rational mind, it also needs to renew your emotional mind. And if it doesn't, you're a half-brained Christian. you've got this studly rational brain that knows all about Jesus and you've got this little wimpy child emotional brain that doesn't experience him.
00:35:54
Speaker
So the book is about, let's take the, so I'll explain the the woman with the flow of blood. please um She's 12 years, she's been bleeding. She's anemic. She's been unclean this whole time. She can't go to the temple. She can't participate in the synagogue services.
00:36:13
Speaker
Anyone she touches has is it's like she has COVID. Anyone she touches has to go home and quarantine for the rest of the day. So nobody wants to be around her. She's living outside the community, maybe in a cave. Who knows? So she's weak. She's dirty. She, you know, 12 years of isolation. You've probably got mental illness issues.
00:36:35
Speaker
So she hears that Jesus comes to town. And she's too weak to push through the crowd. So he starts off to toward Jairus' house. I think this all happens in Capernaum. They start off toward Jairus' house. Jesus is with this crowd. So she gets in the street ahead of him and hides in the corner of the wall. And a street in Capernaum, I've been there.
00:36:59
Speaker
They're like six or eight feet wide. And in antiquity, there was a 10-foot high stone wall on either side, right on the edge of the street. um So you're in this little narrow channel.
00:37:11
Speaker
There's a moving crowd in there. And when Jesus goes by, she flits out of her little place in the corner and she touches the hem of his robe.
00:37:22
Speaker
And the hem of his robe is actually in the small of his back. It's not down on the ground because you wore this himatian, which is wrapped around you. So she touches him. And the Greek word is for a firm touch, not just a little tap. So she's trying to be incognito, you know, because she's not supposed to be there. Right. committing a crime, a literal crime to be in the crowd touching people.
00:37:47
Speaker
And she she goes to touch him. And I think maybe she gets jostled. And so if she touches him harder than she thinks. Right. Oh my gosh, and then Jesus turns around. Well, what happens in a moving crowd if the celebrity they're following turns around?
00:38:03
Speaker
Everybody accordions into Jesus. So and this unfortunate woman is pushed into to Jesus, and then the guy next to Jesus turns around, and who is it but Jairus? Jairus is the archa-synagogus, the ruler of the synagogue. He enforces the purity rules in the community.
00:38:22
Speaker
And one little detail in the passage is he has a 12 year old daughter and it's been 12 years. So I'm guessing that he was the guy who ruled that she couldn't be part of the community. He's the chief of police. And so she's just committed a crime. She's found out. Jesus says, who touched me? And she squashed up against Jesus and the chief of police.
00:38:47
Speaker
And she's literally trembling. She's having a panic attack because she's crushed in by this crowd she's not supposed to touch in this narrow little alleyway with big high walls on either side.
00:39:02
Speaker
And she's freaking out. And you don't understand the story until you can see it And then for Jairus, Jairus is my daughter's dying, so my only daughter, and so I've gone to get Jesus, and he's agreed to come. And Jesus and Jairus know each other because Jairus is head of the synagogue, and Jesus has fixed it, or healed the Roman guy who funded it Um, so they know each other and they're going to his house and, you know, Jairus, think about how he'd feel.
00:39:37
Speaker
You're taking the healer to, to visit your daughter. And in the moment where the woman, Jesus stops at the seven 11 along the way and starts chatting up the clerk, you know, and he's, he's witnessing to her. And Jairus is sitting there going, come on, come on, come on.
00:39:53
Speaker
She gets healed. And in the same moment, they come up to Jairus and say, your daughter has died. And I think what's going on in Jairus is a little bit of, oh my gosh, my sin has come back on my own head. I rejected this girl who was probably only 12 or 13 when this happened. I rejected her and ruined her life.
00:40:15
Speaker
And now the rabbi has healed her and my daughter has died on the same day. And I'm paying the price for what I did. And then Jesus says, don't be afraid.
00:40:27
Speaker
Just come with me. So there's so much emotionally in the passage that we never get to because we don't study it emotionally. single I went a long way around to answer your question, but we need those kinds of things from scripture to renew our emotional brain. And until you try to imagine it and visualize it, you won't get there.
00:40:56
Speaker
I'm just pausing. Say what? Go ahead. Go ahead. I spent four months in Israel and read, bought 130 obscure books about culture and diseases in the ancient world. and wow Here's something fun.
00:41:14
Speaker
This is the Jesus boat. Oh my goodness. I was just reading this story today. Look at this. That he sailed on. So this is an exact scale model. I made the clothes for the action figures.
00:41:25
Speaker
Did you really? yeah So did you buy that in Israel? I made this from scratch. made the boat? Wow. Yeah. So, and I did all kinds of research on boats and stuff, but to understand what it was like,
00:41:39
Speaker
You know, okay, the stilling of the storm. Where are the disciples? I mean, this this boat, there were 13 guys on this boat. It's crowded and overloaded, and there are guys sitting down in the well at the bottom. And so cold water is splashing over them. and Wow.
00:41:58
Speaker
But it's so... To be able to see it and imagine it just adds a whole new dimension. So... Gosh, Tony, it's so profound. I mean, I think we we are learning the importance of what we have called the head to the heart, this kind of, okay, I understand it here, but I really need to understand it experientially. And I mean, Jesus, that's that's a part of why he actually came in the flesh is we get to experience the father, not just hear about him, but actually experience who the father is. And this idea though,
00:42:36
Speaker
the language you're using around reading scripture and understanding it through our emotional brain, not just our visual brain, because our visual and our emotional brain are, from what I understand, kind of in the same space, but really reading it emotionally and understanding. I think a lot of people wouldn't give themselves permission to imagine what that felt like out of fear that that maybe they were reading it wrong, or maybe they were misunderstanding. Maybe they were putting their own experience onto this. What would you say to that?
00:43:09
Speaker
Well, I've been running these Bible study groups for five years now. um I have one that's been going the whole time and we're halfway through the book of Mark. That's how far we've gotten. So you're still running these? Oh, yeah. Oh, my gosh. They're free and they're online. So I'm joining. We'll put all of this information, people. Don't worry. Okay.
00:43:28
Speaker
So, okay. What was the question again? Sorry, i got The question is, what would you say to people who are afraid they're putting their own experience? So one answer I'd have is that question's come up in our groups. And so we asked Jesus, Jesus, you know, what do you think if I put words in your mouth or try to imagine stuff that's not in the Bible? And Jesus is like, oh, I like it when you try to imagine me in my world.
00:43:57
Speaker
Yeah. Wouldn't you like it if a friend took the time to try to... Wow. um The other, the more, how do I say, the more theological answer is I make theology with my rational brain.
00:44:12
Speaker
um I don't try to make theology with my emotional brain. My emotional brain's job is to experience and to energize and to motivate me. So any insight I have...
00:44:25
Speaker
through the imaginary process, I take back to my rational brain and say, okay, let's make sure this is in line with scripture and with the Jesus I know and whatever. So as long as I have the guardrails in place of...
00:44:40
Speaker
I'm going to bring this to scripture. I'm going to bring this to the community and we're going to discern it, you know, and I'm not going to just say, oh, I i imagine this and therefore that's what it is.
00:44:51
Speaker
um Then we're fine. and The opposite is if we never do that, then we're back to being half brained. You know the double-minded thing in James, a double-minded man is someone whose mind is going one way and his heart and emotional brain is going enough going another.
00:45:10
Speaker
What does it say about him? They can't receive anything from the Lord. Wow.
00:45:16
Speaker
They need to be united, integrated, one. Right. So wow it's imperative that we use our imagination with scripture. It's not just optional. Mm-hmm.
00:45:28
Speaker
We're going to have to close soon. I'm so sad about that. We can always do another one. We might need to because like the questions are just multiplying, but really and because of your, your background with coaching and mine as well and inner healing and the importance of the imagination and encounter in that space is very important as well, because God will often a bring us back to a memory sometimes and rework some things there.
00:45:57
Speaker
Or he'll give us a new experience. Even in the dream realm, when we're interpreting dreams for one another, we're looking at symbolism, we're incorporating what did it feel like? What were you feeling? And there's just a need for that, um that encounter space to be activated.
00:46:16
Speaker
When we are, how do I say this?
Rewriting Life Stories from Heaven's Perspective
00:46:24
Speaker
Maybe you could give us an example. Maybe you could give us an example. When you had mentioned this book and the heaven space and having a room where people actually go to experience heaven and in there, there're you're rewriting their story from heaven's perspective. It feels like that's kind of a picture of what God often does in these encounter spaces for us when we're going through inner healing or having an encounter for for yeah ah restoration.
00:46:51
Speaker
Can you tell us what that looked like and how the listeners can actually incorporate that themselves in their own quiet time? Okay. Well, what it looked like is I had this idea and and I audaciously, I had 30 people coming to a workshop and I said, tell you what, I will interview all of you before you come dan about your worst experience in life. about That was the mission. Tell me about your worst experience in life. And I will rewrite that from heaven's perspective. and And then, you know, so it was a total act of faith.
00:47:25
Speaker
I had done a lot of coaching where I'm helping people rewrite their stories. And there's set of principles around that. But so I would interview them for an hour and then I'd go get a drink and I'd give myself an hour and a half and I just start writing.
00:47:41
Speaker
And In the month and a half where I was writing that first set of stories, it was like I could ask Jesus any question I could think of about heaven and I'd get an answer. So i had ended up with 80 pages of notes about heaven. And that was the foundation of the book from that experience of.
00:48:01
Speaker
And things come out of it like. I had a woman, this wasn't in the first group, but I had a woman whose husband was physically abusive and she left him. And she was just riddled with guilt about, you know, what God has joined together, let no man put asunder and God hates divorce and all this kind of thing. And I'm in the middle of writing her story and in the story, Jesus is talking to her. And and all of a sudden Jesus says,
00:48:28
Speaker
You know, it it says what God has joined together, let not man put asunder, but it doesn't say anything about what I can do. That's right. And I was like, oh but what a great answer.
00:48:40
Speaker
um So I sort of learned to, I learned to trust. I think it's the extension of coaching and questions for Jesus. I learned to trust that Jesus would show up in the process. Yes. and That I didn't have to script at all.
00:48:56
Speaker
And then that translated over to the writing. I learned that Jesus would show up and rewrite their stories for them. So you actually connected with God and rewrote it. You didn't lead them through a rewriting.
00:49:09
Speaker
You did that. Yeah. With the lord That is and powerful. I mean, in the coaching process, I did the same thing over multiple sessions of helping people walk through, but this was more of a,
00:49:24
Speaker
A gift to them where you gave them a it bound in leather. Is that what you said? Yeah. Oh my gosh. oh I wish you were still doing these. I would sign myself up. There's a website where you can get this done. It's called heavensperspective.com.
00:49:39
Speaker
That yours? You can sign up. trained a team of story writers. We've done several hundred of these stories now. Wow. But you can sign up there and someone will interview you. Heaven's Perspective.
00:49:52
Speaker
Yeah. They'll interview you, they'll rewrite your story, and then you get, they'll sit down with you and process it. Unbelievable. Don't worry, guys. I'm going to put this information in the show notes. Everybody's like, I have to write it down. When you just mentioned, and and we'll close with this, the rewriting stories, you had said that you had a some other resources around that, or maybe it talked about in books. maybe there's What would those resources be that we could point people to?
00:50:22
Speaker
So there's a book called Heaven's Perspective. It is 17 of those stories. Okay. it has, you know, the way they told the story in the interview and then the Heaven story and then some of the page of their response to that.
00:50:37
Speaker
So, and that's people whose kids were abused. There's a guy in there, I think this in the book, that that he was in Russia and his family was harassed by the KGB, you know. Wow.
00:50:49
Speaker
ah ah real life stuff real hard stuff yes yes um so there's that um we teach a framework called the seven frames that are seven ways to reframe your circumstances and there's a whole class at leadership meta formation that trains you to use that process it's a it's a coach training class but it's built around taking a person's life and helping them see it from God's perspective. Um, so there's that, this is another resource, the invitation invitation. Yes. I've seen this one that goes through the whole process of how you coach the heart and let Jesus speak to them in the process.
00:51:36
Speaker
and So there's, there's an ecosystem of resources. If you start getting into it. Absolutely. Beautiful. And I will put this all out for people. um In closing, Tony, is there anything else you feel like if there's anything I want to leave everyone with that I feel like is a part of your message or feels important to you to release to this audience? What would that be?
Concluding Story of Restoration and Destiny
00:51:59
Speaker
I would say. heaven makes all things well. And if you got time for a short story. Yes, please. So years ago, my key ministry partner, I loaned him my life savings and it took five years to get our money back and destroyed our relationship. And, you know, we were living in the same building at the time. And,
00:52:26
Speaker
and It was a 10-year-long healing process. I went to see a counselor that I worked with for quite a while. And one of the things we got down to is I had this belief that my destiny was dependent on the favor of these big charismatic guys that I worked with. And I had to come to the place of saying, okay, my call is dependent on no man alone.
00:52:49
Speaker
But when I started doing these heaven stories, that counselor came to one of the workshops and I rewrote his story. And his father was a pastor who had a moral failure and blew his life up. And he was in the process of being restored and then died suddenly.
00:53:06
Speaker
And so my counselor friend's big question was what happened to his destiny? um Wow. And as I'm writing his story, the story that I wrote was...
00:53:18
Speaker
all destinies are collective it's not just you and God takes the parts of your destiny that you didn't finish and distributes them to the people around you so that when you get to heaven The word that he sent forth from his mouth will not return to him void, but will have fully accomplished his process.
00:53:39
Speaker
And you and your dad can get together and you can say to your dad, Dad, I know you failed and fell, but God put that part of your destiny on me. And this guy has traveled the world and and done healing with pastors all over the globe.
00:53:54
Speaker
And our destiny got converted from one community into this worldwide thing. And he and his dad will get to celebrate that together in heaven.
00:54:05
Speaker
And so a few weeks later, we're talking about something else. And the guy says, where are you on your healing journey? And in that moment, God spoke to me and said, this is your story.
00:54:15
Speaker
And this guy. Had our relationship not fallen apart, probably every book I've written would have his name on it too. And we had a destiny to do together that didn't happen. And God took parts of that and put it on me. And I've done it bigger than we ever dreamed. And so when I get to heaven, I get to go to this guy and say, hey, I know things fell apart on earth, but look what I did for us.
00:54:43
Speaker
And in that moment, our relationship will be everything that God intended it to be. And the betrayal on earth will not have been able to sabotage God's purposes. So in your life, whatever your greatest pain, your greatest betrayal, your greatest heaven is able to make that fully well, as if it better than if it had ever happened.
00:55:09
Speaker
um That's what heaven has in store for you.