What happens after we die? In 1982, New Zealand surfer Ian McCormack was night diving off the coast of Mauritius when he was stung five times by deadly box jellyfish. As the venom shut down his body, Ian—who had walked away from Christianity as a teenager—found himself calling out to the God he wasn’t even sure existed. What happened next changed the course of his life.
In this episode of Rooted, Josie & Symone sit down with Ian to hear his extraordinary testimony of prayer, repentance, forgiveness, death, and what he describes as an encounter with Jesus and eternity. Ian shares how his mother was praying for him from the other side of the world, how he surrendered his life to Christ in an ambulance, and how he was later pronounced clinically dead before experiencing complete darkness and eventually overwhelming light, peace, love, holiness, and the presence of God. IanMcCormack
Ian also recounts the moment he says God gave him the choice to remain or return, why he ultimately chose to come back, and the shocking moment he opened his eyes in the hospital mortuary after doctors told him he had been dead for 15–20 minutes.
More than four decades later, Ian has shared his testimony in approximately 60 nations, and his story inspired the feature film The Perfect Wave, starring Scott Eastwood. In this conversation, he shares what his experience taught him about the power of prayer, forgiveness, salvation, faith, the character of God, and what it means to truly know Jesus.
The episode concludes with Ian leading listeners through a prayer of surrender to Christ and sharing the truth he wants every person to be rooted in: “God is love.”
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00:00 — Ian is pronounced dead
02:45 — Ian’s life before Jesus
04:45 — The deadly jellyfish attack
12:40 — His mother is called to pray
17:20 — Repentance, forgiveness & surrender
22:00 — Ian dies and leaves his body
25:20 — Experiencing complete darkness
30:20 — Entering the light
35:00 — Encountering God
39:40 — Experiencing unconditional love
49:00 — Ian describes seeing Jesus
57:00 — Choosing whether to stay or return
59:30 — Waking up in the mortuary
1:04:20 — Becoming a born-again Christian
1:11:00 — How to give your life to Jesus
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1. “Forgiveness isn't saying what they did was right. God was showing me that forgiveness was actually releasing the bitterness and anger out of my own heart so he could heal it.”
2. “Once you've been forgiven, you can forgive. Once you've received mercy and grace, you can release mercy and grace to your fellow man.”
3. “I was immediately out of my body and found myself wide awake, upright, in complete darkness.”
4. “This peace hasn't left me in 45 years, because when you get to know Him, His peace, His presence resides in you.”
5. “Ian, God is light, and in Him there is no darkness.”
6. “Instead of judgment and anger, pure unconditional love and acceptance.”
7. “Ian, in that ambulance when you prayed the Lord's Prayer, I didn't forgive some of your sins. I forgave all of your sins.”
8. “The cross was the point of entry. The blood of Jesus isn't the end, it's the beginning.”
9. “We're not to have faith in a doctrine of faith. We have faith in a person.”
10. “God is love… my prayer for each person listening to this podcast is that they'd be rooted in love, and all the fear would leave them, in Jesus' name.”
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Support: https://bio.site/rootedtoprosper
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