NDEs and God

Ritchie’s NDE began when he heard doctors in hospital declaring him dead. His spirit left his body and for a while wandered around and finally found itself in a small room where a body lay on a hospital bed covered by a sheet. This was 1943 and he knew nothing about NDEs. Actually, at first, he did not understand that he had died and was looking down at his own body! He had conceived death as non-existence, but here he was alive - and what was more, he could see and think!

The light in the room, at first dim, grew stronger and soon was very bright and Ritchie began to sense a “Presence”. Then he saw a shining Jesus Christ.

Christ’s Love for him was full and boundless such that Ritchie wished to stay there with Jesus forever. It was then that Ritchie’s Life Review began.

Years of his life passed before him in a speeded-up flow of time up until the present. He saw people he knew, who moved and spoke.

The time passed very rapidly; the whole of his life being presented in what he perceived to be just a few minutes. This difference in time passing between time in the afterlife and on Earth is a feature described in many life reviews.

As Ritchie watched and heard features of his past life, he perceived an unspoken question was being asked: How did you use your time on Earth?

Christ was not asking Ritchie about the facts that they both had seen, but rather was asking about the significance of those facts, of what value his life had been? What important things had Ritchie achieved in his life so far?

Ritchie quickly grasped that his personal achievements had not been important, but rather that it was his LOVE for Christ and for other people that had been the features of real value.

Variations of that same probing question confront us today and will do so in the afterlife at our own Life Review. How would you answer it for yourself if asked today, right now? Ponder this question carefully as we will all face it in the afterlife.

We all have lived different lives in different circumstances and may respond differently to God’s call on our lives.

After his NDE, Ritchie chose to become a doctor of medicine “so that I could learn about man and then serve God. And every time I have been able to serve our God by helping some broken-hearted adult, treating some injured child or counselling some teenager, then deep within I have felt that He was there beside me again”.