90 Minutes in Heaven

We have been so blessed in our town to have many wonderful Christian speakers and musicians come to speak, perform and worship. John and I try to go to these kinds of events as often as we can.

Tonight we heard Don Piper, author of “90 Minutes in Heaven” speak about the experience, which caused him to write his book.

In January 1989, at the age of 39 he was leaving a Baptist convention in Texas in a very small car and was run over by a very large truck. He died instantly. His talk was about the accident, what was going on on the road in the 90 minutes after he died and what was going on in Heaven during that same period of time.

There are many things to take away from his talk. Not only his description of Heaven, which gives everyone hope, but: how small decisions can make a huge difference, for instance going one way home instead of the other, putting his seat belt on or not.

He also talks about the power of prayer: the Pastor who climbed in to the car with him and prayed even though Don was dead, the immediate prayer chain that went out from his church, which only had gotten a call that he was in a serious accident.

He also talked about the message for people who do have loved ones die. That if they are Christian and so are you – the separation is only temporary.

He talked about in the face of a trial like his recovery he needed to get past the “why?” and decided to make something divine out of it. To help other people who are hurting. (In the Bible Paul tells us that’s one of the reasons we have trials. To comfort others going through something we already have.)

But, most importantly, he stresses the Way to get to Heaven. Jesus said I am the Way. You get to the Father through Me.