Deion Sanders Opens Up About His Faith, Prays in Tongues on ‘Running Wild’ With Bear Grylls

NFL Legend and University of Colorado head football coach Deion Sanders opened up about his Christian faith while appearing on “Running Wild” with Bear Grylls.

“Coach Prime” – who is passionate about his faith – is not shy when he shares that his Savior is Jesus Christ. But as he told Grylls, it wasn’t always that way. 

Despite having success in his early career, Sanders shares that without God, he felt empty.

He said, “Honestly, man, behind the veil, behind the mask, I’m really different than my public persona. My public persona is ‘Prime Time,’ you know?”

“When I won my first Super Bowl, I was the first one on the bus, first one to bed,” Sanders continued. “I didn’t even go to party. It was something missing inside, man. It wasn’t as fulfilling as I thought it was. It wasn’t about the things, the outward things, because I had power, money, and sex. But it wasn’t fulfilling.”

Sanders says going through his first divorce caused him to question his worth. 

“That’s when I went through my first divorce in which the only things that I knew that truly loved me were my two kids,” he described. “Now they’re gone, now they’ve been taken away. It was devastating, and I went through suicidal thoughts, a suicidal period.”

“I ran this car off the side of the highway, and at the bottom, I thought this car would just flip, and it didn’t flip, and I was still there. Shortly after that, I just had to come to the Lord with my hands up and say, ‘I’m done. I can’t do it anymore. You got me. I give up. God, you take me,’” the coach explained.

Sanders said he surrendered his life to Christ in that moment. 

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“It has to be something bigger than you that you’re working for, that you’re living for. ‘Cause if it’s all about you, you’ve already lost.” 

Grylls opened up and spoke about how they share the same Christian faith. 

“There’s a great power to be able to achieve amazing things and yet hold them so lightly because you have something far more precious,” Grylls expressed. “We share a faith together and it’s like a backbone to me as well. It’s like all the achievements and the summits, they are nothing compared to that something inside and I totally see it in you.”

The pair shared a moment of prayer later in the show when Sanders and Grylls climbed on a cliff in the desert.

Sanders struggled with fear that stopped him in his tracks, but in that moment turned to prayer, praying in the Holy Spirit. 
 

“I began to pray in tongues,” he explained to viewers. “It’s a language between me and God. He knows. But I wanted a direct line, direct contact so God could expedite this process and issue the piece that I needed.”

After successfully scaling the cliff, Sanders shared his prayer to God. “I said, ‘Lord, you didn’t bring me way out here to end it. You don’t play games. You never lied to me. You’ve never forsaken me; You’ve never let me down.’”

Sanders wrote on Instagram when sharing the clip, “The Lord didn’t bring you this far just to leave you. Call on his name! He may not answer when you want, but he’s always right on time!”