Mike McKinsey thought he had the flu. It was the week of his son’s wedding, and he was not going to let a fever spoil it. By the time he reached the emergency room, his appendix had been ruptured for three and a half days. As he was wheeled into surgery, the doors opened, and Jesus walked in.
In this episode of the God’s Truth Podcast, Mike tells Abigail Smith about the heaven Jesus showed him, the second visit he kept secret for twenty years, and a prophecy that once made him laugh: “Millions are going to hear our story.” What follows is his account.
A home run derby and a ruptured appendix
Mike was a construction superintendent with a high-stress job, overseeing around 35 homes at a time. The family drove five hours to Ventura, California for his son’s wedding and arrived early for a mini holiday. In the park, he joined the kids for a game of whiffle ball. He did not know it, but the twisting of the bat ruptured his appendix.
He felt sick that night, but had none of the classic symptoms. He took Tylenol, joked at the rehearsal dinner that everyone should keep their distance, and got through the wedding without sleeping. Only afterwards did he go to hospital. A nurse tapped the bottom of one foot, and he shouted in pain from his abdomen. Her face changed when she heard how many days it had been. “You’re in a little trouble here,” she said.
“I want to answer your prayer”
On the operating table, Mike looked to his right and saw Jesus walk through the doors. Everything else dissolved into a sparkling white fog. Jesus reached out His hand and said, “I want to answer your prayer.” Mike was confused. The only prayer he could think of was that the surgery would go well. Jesus is here, he thought. This isn’t good. I think I died. He took His hand.
Instantly they were standing barefoot on a grassy slope. Mike was still in his hospital gown, his senses so heightened that he could count every blade of grass under his feet. Then the white before him drew back like a curtain.
A sunset with no sun
Below him, tiny pastel flowers covered the hillside, swaying as if in a breeze, though there was no wind. At the bottom lay a great city, perhaps a mile or two across, wrapped in white mist, with only its rooftops showing: a huge golden dome in the centre, smaller domes around it and many steeples. Mike noticed that none of the steeples had crosses. Beyond the city rose a mountain covered in perfect blue-green pines, and above it blazed the most beautiful sunset he had ever seen, in reds, oranges and purples. But there was no sun (Revelation 21:23).
Then a shimmering, pearl-like circle in the distance began sending out beams of light like glowing tubes. One passed straight through Mike and filled him with warmth and love down to his toes. Others struck the treetops and burst into brilliant white fireworks across the sky. Jesus said, “It’s the glory of the Lord.” Overcome, Mike fell to his knees, and in that instant he was shocked back into his body, with a masked doctor asking him his name. “He’s back,” the doctor said. Mike spent five days in intensive care and twelve days in hospital. The 70-year-old surgeon later told him it was the worst case he had ever seen in a patient who lived. “You shouldn’t be here,” he said. “God is not done with you yet.”
Mike describes Jesus as looking nothing like the blond, blue-eyed pictures of his childhood. He had dark skin, dark brown wavy hair, a short beard and the most beautiful greenish-blue eyes. “When His eyes looked into my eyes, He looked into my soul, and I knew immediately this is Jesus.”
The part he kept secret
Twenty-four hours after the surgery, Mike woke at 2am unable to breathe. He had pneumonia and a fever of 104. Packed in an ice blanket with oxygen at his nose, he was sure he was about to die, and that heaven had been God’s way of preparing him. Then he felt a holy presence enter the room and sit at the end of his bed. He could not see Jesus, but he heard the same voice, audibly: “Michael.” The nurse beside him heard nothing.
“I had to get you flat on your back, away from all the distractions, so you could hear Me,” Jesus said. Mike knew it was true. Between his job, his four children and coaching their teams, he had no time for God. “Am I going to die?” he asked. “No,” Jesus said. “You’re going to make a full recovery. But I’m going to ask more from you for My kingdom. Millions are going to hear our story.”
Mike laughed. “You’ve got the wrong guy. I’m not Billy Graham.” Twenty-two years ago, there were no testimony channels, and he got nervous speaking to a dozen children on a little league team. Jesus only chuckled. When it was time, He promised, He would give Mike the words and the strength. He also warned that when Mike stepped out in faith, the enemy would step up his attack. Jesus stayed for two more hours, comforting him.
When Mike told friends about the first encounter, they wept with him. When he got to the second, they looked at him as if he were crazy. Then he heard the Lord say, “You don’t have to tell this part yet.”
An answer forty years in the making
Mike now understands which prayer Jesus meant. At his grandfather’s funeral, when he was about five, he heard the priest describe heaven as a place with no more pain or tears. “That sounds like a really cool place,” young Mike prayed. “Could You show me heaven, so I know it’s real?” Forty years later, God answered. Mike believes everything had to come together first: growing up, marrying, raising children, a son in sports, a wedding and a game of whiffle ball.
For the next twenty years, God gradually put Mike in front of bigger and bigger crowds through youth football and high school sports, until speaking to 500 people no longer frightened him. Then one day, watching a podcast, he heard the same voice say, “Contact him.” He emailed the host, who called back within ten minutes. Two weeks later, Mike was in the studio telling his story, and millions have since heard it.
He still held back the hospital-room visit. Then he read a comment calling his experience a “high-temperature hallucination.” But his fever had already dropped to 100 that night while Jesus stayed with him. And he heard the Lord say, “Now’s the time to tell our story. Tell the whole story, hold nothing back. The world is ready, and so are you.” So he wrote a book.
Don’t wait
Mike believes part of the reason Jesus came to him as a physical person was to show that He is not a distant spirit somewhere in space. He is real, and you can encounter Him without having a near-death experience.
His message to anyone afraid to share their testimony is simple: don’t wait. “You just don’t know how far and wide that story can go,” he says. One person tells a neighbour, who tells a sister, and the ripples may go on for generations. “I wish I hadn’t been afraid to open my mouth.” Like the man Jesus healed, go and tell how great things the Lord has done for you (Mark 5:19).
Connect with Mike McKinsey
- Book: I Held the Hand of Jesus in Heaven on Amazon
Scriptures in this episode
- Revelation 21:23, no need of the sun
- Psalm 46:10, be still, and know that I am God
- John 10:27, My sheep hear My voice
- Matthew 10:19–20, it shall be given you what ye shall speak
- Ephesians 6:12, we wrestle not against flesh and blood
- Mark 5:19, tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee
- Revelation 12:11, the word of their testimony
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