God Is Listening and He Cares For Us: Andre Ward & John Burke
Andre Ward: I’ve actually had people tell me that, “There’s no way God’s involved with boxing. He doesn’t care about that stuff. And I’m like, “Well, if we’re made after His image and His likeness and I care about everything that my kids do, no matter how foolish it may seem, I would venture to believe that He cares about this, too.”
God Is Listening and He Cares For Us: Andre Ward & John Burke – Episode #405
Narrator: Welcome to the Jesus Calling Podcast. It’s often said that hindsight is twenty-twenty, and our guests this week look back on how God has shaped their own lives in profound ways—though it might’ve been hard to see in the moment.
Former boxing champion Andre Ward shares his life story, both inside and outside the ring, marked by struggles with family addiction and a sense of aimlessness. He reveals how he turned his life around and reignited his faith after the passing of his father, and became determined to become a warrior for God. John Burke shares insights he gained from researching over a thousand near-death experiences. These firsthand accounts convinced him—as an agnostic at the time—of the existence of God, and of the notion that God hears us and is answering our prayers.
Let’s begin with Andre’s story.
Andre Ward: This is Andre Ward, former boxing champion, Hall of Famer, and now author and also a minister. I’m happy to be with you guys today.
Boxing was actually not my first sport, baseball was. And I played baseball because my dad played baseball. I didn’t know what I was getting myself into, and I actually was not very good at all for the first three or four months that I was [boxing].
A lot of bumps, a lot of bruises, a lot of mistakes, a lot of life happening. I’m also dealing with things like anxiety and depression and not knowing that that’s what it is. I started to kind of separate myself from the guys that were beating me up. And I think we realized that I did have something after I won my first national title.
I just started getting these revelations over time that though there were areas in my life that were normal, there were things that were very much not normal. My dad was raising me as a single parent, then I started realizing that my mom wasn’t there, and realizing that my mom is a full-blown addict and my dad’s a functional addict.
I started to get bitter and started to get resentful. If things don’t change within your family dynamic or you’re not speaking about those things openly, as you get older, you start to resent sort of what you were born into. You start to resent the family issues, and then you start realizing, Oh, dad said he was doing this, but he really wasn’t. He was actually getting high. Or, My mom said she was gone for this reason, but it’s actually because she has an addiction.
Your heart’s kind of shifting and your heart’s getting harder. When you stay in that place for a period of time, now you have a real issue, because you’re not receiving any truth that’s coming in. I’m dealing with that, I’m dealing with life coming at me, and it’s just a lot.
Virgil Meyer, who’s my lifelong trainer and who also became my godfather, was telling me the right thing. He was telling me, “Dre, you’re not going to get away with nothing. Dre, you weren’t raised like this. Dre, you got to stop, man.” He would call those things out, and I just was not receptive. And instead of me trying to lean into my faith and let God be my outlet and communicate with Him, I shut down, I went inward. I didn’t speak to Him, I didn’t speak to the ones around me. And things got worse.
“Instead of me trying to lean into my faith and let God be my outlet and communicate with Him, I shut down, I went inward. I didn’t speak to Him, I didn’t speak to the ones around me.” – Andre Ward
Moving From Blame to Owning Our Actions
I don’t think there’s a person that is a drug addict or an alcoholic that woke up one day and said, “You know what? This is what I’m going to be for the rest of my life.” It always starts with a little bit of this, a little bit of that, a gateway drug or something that gets you going in that direction. And that’s what I did.
And then when my father passed abruptly, someone who was both Mom and Dad for many years in my life, that was the thing that took me over the edge. That was my excuse or my reason to go full steam ahead, abandon the sport that had gotten me to that point, and really just throw caution to the wind, including my faith.
My father gave me—even in the midst of all of that—a great foundation in my faith. I didn’t necessarily grow up in the church, but my dad always opened the Word. He would always just make sure we gave God the glory and teach us principles from the Bible. So that was in me, even though I wasn’t always seeing that being played out.
It took life happening. It took me hitting my head. It took me and Tiffiney, who was my girlfriend at the time, having two children early on, at seventeen, eighteen years old. My mom, who was just getting her life back in order, she was clean and sober at the time, she was sending me warnings and they weren’t always gentle. And then my pastor at that time was also a voice that was telling me he was praying for me and also trying to tell me the right thing. I just wasn’t interested in getting the help at that time.
It wasn’t until I humbled myself and started to really look up and have a conversation with God that I started to understand and be honest about what I was doing. Not blaming Mom, not blaming Dad, not blaming my circumstances, but just owning my stuff. When I had that conversation with God, this faith that was my father’s now started to become mine. Now I had to stop hiding from my father’s death and start learning what it means to mourn, stop trying to numb the depression and the anxiety and start trying to believe and work my way toward working on those things in an organic way. And simply put, I just started to build a relationship.
As I started on my own journey seeking forgiveness, I was able to forgive myself, right? And then I was able to forgive Mom and forgive Dad and get more wholeness about myself. That’s when I started to hear Him again and feel Him again, and actually get the grace that I needed to get out of my situation.
Becoming a Warrior of God
Boxing saved my life. I was always extremely competitive. I mean, the first day that I ever saw a boxing gym, the sights, the sounds, the smells—I loved it. I started identifying fighters that I loved. And I started watching them, and then I started imitating them and it just took off. So I think just an inherent competitiveness and inherent drive, an inherent toughness, it was a match made in heaven. I was born to fight.
It’s hard to imagine life without it, and I often ask God, “Man, why would you have me in a sport like that?” There’s a lot of beauty in it, but there’s some things that aren’t so nice about it. It’s a very physical sport. It can be a violent sport at times. People want blood, and it’s just amazing to me that God will take people and put them in these different spheres and use them even in spite of where they are, and what the atmosphere is calling for.
“It’s just amazing to me that God will take people and put them in these different spheres and use them even in spite of where they are, and what the atmosphere is calling for.” – Andre Ward
And I’ve gotten the question throughout the years, “Well, how can you represent God and do this boxing?” And I’m like, “Well, have you read the Bible lately? God has many names, and one thing that He is is a warrior.” And it’s been my prayer that I never get hurt in a boxing ring. But I’ve never wanted to hurt anybody in a way that would be lasting, that would take them away from their family. That was always my prayer, and I believe God was faithful with that. I think you can be a warrior and still represent God.
I was under no illusions. I knew boxing would end one day, but the question I continued to ask myself was, Who are you going to be when this is over with? Be yourself no matter how high you go. And stay focused and end not just on your own terms—in terms of stopping when you want to—but leaving with your integrity.
I’ve grown and I’ve evolved. And what’s helped me is that I’ve always known that boxing was a part of my life, but not my complete life. I’m really called to speak. I’m called to preach. I’m called to use those other gifts to inspire the world. And that’s what I plan on doing.
When I started to make that step and I didn’t obviously have it all together… My rags were filthy, I was dirty, I was in the thick of my mess. But the fact that I called out and said, “Can you help me?”—that’s when my life started to change for the better.
“My rags were filthy, I was dirty, I was in the thick of my mess. But the fact that I called out and said, ‘Can you help me?’—that’s when my life started to change for the better.” – Andre Ward
It’s very easy for people to look at God like this big figure that’s far off, or feel like, I’m not close to Him.
Sometimes our pride won’t let us draw near. Sometimes the addictions and stuff won’t allow us to draw near. He’s there, He’s available. But we’re not doing our part. And we’ve just got to stop and realize that if I’m not connecting with God, and I don’t feel that presence, it’s for a reason. Instead of me just staying far off, we should start seeking and asking questions: “What do I have to do to begin to draw near to Him and get closer?”
I mean, we love putting God in a box and saying, “He will do this. He won’t do that.” He can do what He wants to do. And if He’ll take someone like me who’s flawed, messed up, and is no good without Him, and put me in a flawed sport like boxing, and say, “I want to use this for my purpose. I want to use you as a light,” He not only can do it, but He will do it.
“We love putting God in a box and saying, ‘He will do this. He won’t do that.’ He can do what He wants to do. And if He’ll take someone like me who’s flawed, messed up, and is no good without Him, and put me in a flawed sport like boxing, and say, ‘I want to use this for my purpose. I want to use you as a light,’ He not only can do it, but He will do it.” – Andre Ward
Narrator: To learn more about Andre Ward, follow him on social media. And be sure to check out his book, Killing the Image, at your favorite retailer.
Stay tuned to John Burke’s story after a brief message.
The Joy of Motherhood
Motherhood—it’s a journey like no other, teeming with love, unparalleled dedication, and moments that pierce the very essence of your soul. It’s a trek that demands to be celebrated, lauded, and embraced in its entirety. Celebrate the moms in your life this Mother’s Day with two beautiful gift books, Jesus Calling for Moms by Sarah Young and Grace for the Moment for Moms by Max Lucado. These heartfelt devotionals will remind the moms in your life just how special they are. Jesus Calling for Moms and Grace for the Moment for Moms are available now where books are sold.
Our next guest is author and pastor John Burke. He shares insights from his research into near-death experiences, highlighting commonalities in testimonies that offer us a glimpse of heaven. He also draws parallels between these stories and scriptures in the Bible.
John Burke: I’m John Burke. I am a pastor and author. And I’m really focused on helping people understand how God is raising up near-death experience testimonies all over the world that are pointing not only to the reality of the life to come shown in the scriptures, but also the reality of this amazing God of light and love who is personal and who revealed Himself through Jesus.
“I’m really focused on helping people understand how God is raising up near-death experience testimonies all over the world that are pointing not only to the reality of the life to come shown in the scriptures, but also the reality of this amazing God of light and love who is personal and who revealed Himself through Jesus.” – John Burke
From an Agnostic Alone to a Walk with God
My dad was dying of cancer when someone gave him the very first research on near-death experiences. I saw it sitting on his bedside table, and I picked it up and just started reading through it. And I’m reading about people who clinically die, they have no heartbeat, no brain waves. And yet either modern medicine resuscitated them, or I think in some cases, just miracle. And they come back talking about this experience of a life more real than this one, in a place more beautiful than Earth ever dreamt of being, and in the presence of this God of light and love, that they never wanted to leave His presence. And some of them knew He was Jesus.
When I read this book, I couldn’t put it down. And at the end of it I said to myself, “Wow, maybe this is actual evidence that this afterlife and God/Jesus stuff is real.” And that didn’t convince me, but it opened my mind. And not long after I started studying, looking into different religions, I started reading the Bible and I came to understand what God had done through Jesus and the prophetic, historical fulfillment of what God said: “Here’s how you’ll know it’s me.” I came to faith in Christ, and I ended up going from a career in engineering into ministry.
Revelations from Near-Death Experiences
Over the last thirty-five years, I’ve studied well over 1,000 near-death experiences because I’ve just been so curious, like, how do these experiences align with what the Bible’s been saying all along?
There are about forty commonalities that I trace, things like when people initially die, they say they leave their body, but they still have a body. They have a spiritual body. The apostle Paul probably had a near-death experience. In Acts 14, he was stoned to death in Lystra, and they dragged him out of the city and left him for dead. And as the believers rallied around and prayed for him, he gets back up, and he goes back into the city—I wouldn’t go back into the city where they just stoned me to death. But in 2 Corinthians 12 he says of himself, “Fourteen years ago, whether I was in my body or out of my body, I don’t know.” Why doesn’t he know? Well, because we still have a body. We have a spiritual body. He says, “I was taken up into the third heaven, and I was shown and saw things that are inexpressible.” So Paul may have had this experience, and he writes about how when our bodies are buried a natural body—1 Corinthians 15—they’re then raised into a spiritual body. They’re buried in weakness, but then raised in power.
What’s fascinating is near-death experiencers commonly say they leave their body, but they don’t even know they’re dead sometimes because they feel more alive than ever. Not with five senses, more like with fifty senses. And at first, they are still in the room of their resuscitation. And for me, as a skeptical engineer, this is what began to convince me there’s something real about this, because what they would say is they could make observations even though their heart had stopped beating and they had no brainwaves, and they’re observing things happening in their resuscitation.
This is another commonality, that often they will travel through a tunnel that opens up, or maybe it’s angels that are there with them and that will take them, and they just travel out of our world and into a place that is exquisitely beautiful.
This one commercial airline pilot, Jim Woodford, he had never prayed in his life. He was a very wealthy man. His wife was a Christian, praying for him, praying for his salvation. He dies. He had Guillain-Barré syndrome, overdosed accidentally from opioid addiction, and as his head is hitting the steering wheel of his truck, he said, “You know, John, when you’re dying. I had this sudden realization, I’ve never thanked God for the life I thought was my own making.” And in that moment he said, “God, forgive me.” And he’s taken up to this beautiful place. As a pilot, he said, “I’m always trying to find the sun to orient my direction.” He said, “There is no sun,” and he sees six streaks of light, like shooting stars going up across the sky. He said they were kind of like contrails from a jet airliner. And he asked the angel, “What are those?” And the angel said to him, “Jim, those are the prayers of your family for the salvation of your soul going up to the throne of heaven, even now.” And it turned out when he came back, six family members had gathered at that very moment when they had heard from the Canadian Royal Mounted Police that Jim was found dead in his truck, and they gathered and locked hands and prayed for his salvation, or that God would miraculously send him back.
Of these people all across the globe, over 1,000 that I’d studied, it aligns amazingly perfectly with the expectation of heaven. We fear what’s to come or we just don’t want to think about it because we feel like it’s going to be less real, less tangible, less alive than this life. And yet, what near-death experiencers commonly tell me is, “No, it’s the opposite. This is more of the shadow. That’s the real thing.”
Hearing the Holy Spirit Without a Sound
For me, when I was a skeptical engineer and just starting to study these near-death experiences, but then also study the Bible, I came to faith. Prayer was a difficult thing for me. I would talk to God, but I just kind of wondered, like, Are my prayers just hitting the ceiling? Is anything happening? I don’t hear anything?
In fact, the first year—I’d just been a Christian one year—and I remember being out running on a track, and I started thinking, Maybe I’m fooling myself. Maybe I’m making all this up. I talk to God, I’m not hearing anything. Maybe He’s not really there. And I kept walking, and then I had this thought: Maybe it’s like any other relationship. It takes time to get to know a person. You have to learn to trust them, and they trust you. And it’s kind of back and forth. And I decided, Okay, I’ll keep going.
And what I started to realize is we want God to speak in an audible voice because that’s what we’re used to. But that’s not the most direct way of communication. Right now, I’m trying to get my thoughts into your head, and I’m having to use the English language and my voice and the microphone and the airwaves and your speakers or whatever you’re listening to. And then some of my thoughts might get in your head. But a more direct approach is if I could just take all my thoughts that I’m trying to get across and put them directly in your mind. And if I could do that, then at least you would know what I’m trying to convey. And I realized that’s how the Holy Spirit speaks to us, through these direct promptings, these thoughts in our minds. I started to realize this, and it happened bit by bit.
Growing the Fruits of the Spirit Naturally
As we talk over all these things, and then we learn to listen to those quiet, prompting thoughts, and the way we know we’re hearing is when we act in faith. Then we look back, and we see. And that’s what I love about Jesus Calling is it reminds me of that every day, these promptings from God. He is so personal. And as we stay connected to Him, all those struggles that we have of resisting temptation or all that, it will fade away. Like Galatians 5 says, “Walk by the spirit and you won’t carry out the desires of the flesh.” But as you walk by the spirit, the fruits of the spirit will grow naturally, love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and gentleness and faithfulness and self-control.
“We learn to listen to those quiet, prompting thoughts, and the way we know we’re hearing is when we act in faith.” – John Burke
You are unique and you have a unique purpose. And it has to do with love, with loving God, and following His voice throughout the day to love and serve others with all that you’ve been given. And as we still ourselves before God and all through the moments of the day—yesterday I found myself just hitting a wall and I was like, “Lord, I need to take a walk.” And I just talked to Him about it and I was like, “What’s going on in my heart, what’s happening right now?” And it’s just amazing that as you quiet yourself before the Lord, He brings understanding, but He also just brings a peace that, like Paul said, surpasses understanding. And the truth is, He created us to walk with Him. We were never meant to do life apart from the God who created us for His love. And as we take time to be with Him, it starts to relieve the anxiety, it replaces it with peace. You start to realize that, You know what? I can trust that He is guiding me. And if I’m wanting His guidance, He is gracious and He’s kind and merciful, and He is guiding me because He promised, though sometimes I don’t see how it’s all working and where it’s all going.
“You are unique and you have a unique purpose. And it has to do with love, with loving God, and following His voice throughout the day to love and serve others with all that you’ve been given.” – John Burke
Jesus Listens, May 17th:
Comforting God,
I love to hear You whispering in my mind: “Don’t be afraid, for I am with you. Don’t be discouraged, for I am your God.” These loving words are like a warm blanket wrapped around me— sheltering me from the coldness of fear and discouragement.
At such times, holding on to Your hand keeps me standing—and enables me to put one foot in front of the other.
As I seek to endure adversity in trusting dependence on You, please bless me with Peace and Joy in Your Presence.
In Your dependable Name, Jesus,
Amen
Narrator: To learn more about John Burke, check out his newest book, Imagine The God of Heaven, wherever you buy books.
If you’d like to hear more stories about seeing God in the details, check out our interview with Tamera Mowry-Housley.
Next week: Dr. Josh Axe
Next time on the Jesus Calling Podcast, we’ll hear from doctor of chiropractic and certified doctor of natural medicine Josh Axe, who shares how his faith and his approach to wellness are integrated into every part of his life.
Dr. Josh Axe: My belief is when people really step into natural medicine from the standpoint of exercise, eating healthy, taking some good vitamins and minerals, practicing prayer, I mean, I think all of these things are natural ways of supporting our body and healing.
