Heaven is For Real, by Todd Burpo

[This, to the left, is my Dad. He's been gone since 1971. Would have been 101 this year.]


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This is one of the best books I’ve ever read. It is very moving and inspirational, but I think what makes it one of the best is that it is very challenging to me. Moving, inspirational, challenging, all at once.


·         If you’re not a “believer,” you’ve gotta read this book  because it is just a wonderful read, all about a little boy.
·         If you are one who totally believes in heaven just as it is depicted by this little boy, you’ve gotta read the book because it will absolutely affirm your faith.
·         If you are one who believes in heaven but has no idea what that means other than some sort of euphoric, infinite life with God ( that’s me), you’ve gotta read this book because it will enlighten you in a very credible way.


A little four year old boy has a near death experience and finds himself hanging out in heaven for three minutes. The events he describes would have taken much longer than that in “our” time.  He comes back because Jesus tells him Jesus is answering the boy’s daddy’s prayer. Over the course of some time, he describes his experiences. He is not “reporting.” He is, in a matter of fact manner, answering questions as though he doesn’t understand why the question was asked in the first place. He describes people and things he could not possibly have learned or experienced at three and four years old. He met and conversed with a relative he’d never heard of. He couldn’t identify the relative from photos shown him until he saw a photo of the person much younger than when he’d died. He immediately recognized the photo and identified the relative. “In Heaven,” he said, “no one is old.”


The book is filled with those sorts of descriptions and the challenging part is that the telling and manner of the relating is totally credible. The only possible way to discount the credibility is to simply discount the entire book. You’re free to do that.  If you are a believing Christian like I am, it’s implausible to discount it entirely. So, I’m left with the challenge: how can this be true unless it is? Is his father, who is the author, simply making it up? You just about have to say that if you need to discount the book entirely.


The boy was asked what Jesus looked like. He couldn’t identify him from any of the traditional depictions we are all used to seeing. But, when shown a drawing of Jesus done by another child, from another country, many years earlier who mysteriously began drawing pictures of  heavenly figures but who had no Christian upbringing at all, the boy’s face showed clearly that he was looking at an accurate depiction. And he said, “that’s him.”