The Eric Metaxas Show - Ryan Skoog

Episode Date: July 11, 2025

Ryan joins us for a to share some of his miracle stories

Welcome to the Eric Mattaxas show. It's the show about everything, and we do mean everything. Yes, even that. Yep, that too. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely that. Now, here's everything that you want in a host, Eric Mattaxon. Hey, folks, we are announcing a new segment. Actually, we're not announcing the segment.

We've already announced the segment. This is the new segment. What's the new segment? It's titled, well, it's the title of, I've written three books, not as well known as some of my other books. The first one is called Everything You Always Want to Know About God, but We're Afraid to Ask. And it's Q&A on all kinds of questions about God.

I wrote a sequel called Everything Else, you always want to know about God, we're afraid to ask. The third one is everything always wanted to know about God, I'm afraid to ask, the Jesus edition. And we thought it would be fun to do a segment on the program where I go back and forth with my interlocutor, who is Grace Paint. Grace, you're going to play the role of interlocutor.

Are you okay doing that? I am. I'm ready for it. You're ready? You're ready? So you're going to ask the questions and I'm going to answer the questions. And folks, this is all for my book. Everything I always wanted to know about God, but we're afraid to ask. You can order a copy of it. It wouldn't kill you.

But if you don't feel like it, I won't know and therefore I won't be offended. But so let me start with at the beginning of each chapter, I write a little vignette before we get into the Q&A. So the first chapter is called How Can You Prove God's Existence, the meaning of proof, what God is like, and the subject of miracles. And so I start with the following anecdote. It's kind of a personal story, as you'll see. Sometime around 1890, a man and the young woman who would soon become his wife were walking in a field when the man saw an ant on the ground. He stooped down, let the east. aunt crawl onto his index finger and held it up for his fiancée to behold.

This was in the days before anyone had heard of Albert Einstein, so when someone wanted to refer to the greatest scientific mind in human history, they referred to Isaac Newton. The man and woman looked at the aunt, and then the man, who was my great-grandfather, spoke. Tell Mr. Newton, he said, to make me one of these. My father told me that story a few times in my life about my great-grandfather, who was himself a great man, Panagis, Vergotis, and this anecdote of how when he was courting my great-grandmother, Eleni Vergotis, they had had this moment where he lifts up this aunt and says, tell Mr. Newton to make me one of these.

Anyway, that's the opening anecdote in the chapter. So now we get to the questions. And again, this is all in the book. But Grace Payne, would you ask the question? Yes. Well, the big question is, does God exist? Well, my joke answer in the book as well, yes, he certainly claims to exist. God claims to exist, yeah.

And if he does claim to, that isn't quite enough of an answer. It doesn't prove that he exists. So how can anyone prove that God exists when we can't see him? Right. Saying that God claims to exist is a kind of a cheap joke answer. But yeah, the serious answer, this is important. And I want to honor people who have this question because it is a good question.

Does God exist? Like, you know, I remember when I was not. yet a Christian, the man who was really leading me toward God said, you know, he should ask God to reveal himself to you. And I thought, how can I ask God to reveal himself to you to myself when I don't even know whether he exists? So it's a fundamental question. But I'll say this. To answer the question, we have to understand we live in a deeply materialistic culture. We're so obsessed with the physical and the material that we've pretty much lost the ability to think logically about anything outside the realm of the physical and the material.

What do you mean by that? Well, I think most people in the world throughout history have known that there's a realm beyond the physical, beyond our five senses. Most people have innately sensed that there is something beyond what we can see, touch, smell, feel here. I think remarkably few people would argue with that. But many people somehow believe there is no way reasonably to discuss anything outside the material or physical realm.

So they therefore conclude that everyone can have whatever opinion they want on a spiritual issue as though there might not be a reality beyond the physical. because if there is such a thing as a spiritual reality, and this is what I say in the book, obviously, then there is no reason it shouldn't be as solid, not literally, but intellectually, as a physical reality. In some ways, it's even more solid. C.S. Lewis talks about this.

So there's no reason we shouldn't be able to discuss it the same way we discuss anything else, like flying a plane or painting a landscape or like physics. It's real, just because it's not physical, doesn't mean it's not real. And if it is real, it is subject to logic. So we shouldn't talk about it as though it is hopelessly subjective. I think we can say that just because it's mysterious doesn't mean that there isn't

some kind of objective reality there. And we can talk about it. And it's not whatever I want it to be or whatever just because we can't see it. So then it is possible to prove that God exists in a way. Well, I guess it depends what you mean by. prove. I think there are people, I just recently for a Socrates in the studio interviewed William Lane Craig, who is a genius philosopher and he can give you philosophical proofs of God's existence in the way that Aquinas could. I never found those compelling. So it depends on what we mean by proof. I think if you're open minded, yes, ultimately you can come to believe that God exists. And again, it depends what we mean by proof exactly, you know. So for you, how would you define what you mean by proof?

Well, I wrote a book called, very recently, called Is Atheism Dead? And in that book, I talk about the evidence from design. In other words, we can look at science. I mean, with the tools of science, we can now look at the world around us. The level of design, and this gets back to my great-grandfather's point about the ant, the level of design is so astonishing to say that this could have just happened. And this, we can put evolution completely aside. The idea that the universe just happened, the idea that the four fundamental constants in physics were just perfectly set to allow for the universe. I think when you look at that, you have to conclude that it didn't just

happen by accident. I think that's one of the strongest arguments. It's kind of like looking at Mount Rushmore. If you look at Mount Rushmore, people could say, well, it's conceivably an actual formation. Isn't it possible? Is it not possible that the wind and erosion did that? And you say, yeah, I guess it's possible. But how is it then that I know that didn't happen? How is it that I know? that Jefferson and Teddy Roosevelt and Lincoln and Washington that their faces didn't just happen. Is it possible? I guess theoretically it's possible,

but something inside me says no. Something inside me says the level of design, it would make a mockery of anything to say that that level of design could have just happened because of erosion and wind over the millennia. And I think it's kind of the same with when we're talking, about design, the design of the universe, I think we've gotten to a point where we can know, again, if you're open-minded, if you're so hostile to the idea of God that even that can't

convince you, then I don't have much to say. So we're at a time in this segment, but I'll be doing these segments pretty much once a week. Some of it is really fun. So anyway, every week we'll be doing a segment like this. But to answer this one, my biggest answer now comes from the book that I wrote recently because the book, Everything I always Want to Know about God came out in 2005, so that's 20 years ago. But to answer the question whether God exists, I would point people to my book, is atheism dead? Honestly, I just the other day I was with someone who's an atheist, and I said, I dare you to read my book.

I would almost guarantee if you read the book, you will at least be an agnostic by the thing. You cannot be an atheist because the evidence for God. is simply so overwhelming. You only have to confront it. Okay, that ends our segment. See you soon. Mike Lindell and MyPillow employees want to thank you, my listeners, for all your continued support. Mike has a passion to help everyone get the best sleep of their life. He didn't stop by creating the best pillow. He created the best bed sheets ever. Yes, Mike is offering the best deal on his percale bedsheets. You can get a set now for as low as 2498. The MyPill Perkale bedsheets are breathable and have a cool, crisp feel. They have deep pockets to fit over any mattress.

They look and feel great, which means an even better night's sleep for me, which is crucial for my busy schedule. Also for limited time, when your order is over $100, you'll receive $100 in free digital gifts. Did you hear that? Go to mypill.com. Use promo code Eric to receive the MyPill Pheelsheets for as low as 2498. Order now or call 800-978-3057-80-80-800-800-9757. 83057 and use promo code Eric. Go to mypillow.com. Use promo code Eric or call 800-978-3057. Ingredients. When I flip a container around and I can't pronounce or recognize the ingredients, I put it back. That's why you'll find balance of nature's fruits and veggie supplements on a shelf in my home because every single ingredient is a fruit or veggie plucked from the soil. No binders, no additives or artificial colors, no fillers, just whole fruits and veggies, gluten-free and vegan friendly.

these harvested ingredients are freeze-dried into a fine powder using an advanced vacuum-cold process to better preserve nutritional value. I can say with absolute confidence that I'm getting 31 ingredients from fruits and veggies every single day with balance of nature. Imagine a platter with 31 different fruits and veggies on it every day. Join me in taking balance of nature and use my discount code, Eric, to get 40% off plus free shipping this week only. You've got to use my discount code Eric. call them at 800 2468-751. Use discount code Eric. Order online at balance of nature.com. Use discount code Eric to get 40% off this week only. Hey there, folks. I'm going to talk about the miraculous today, at least on some level, because my guest is back by popular acclaim. Ryan Scoog. Ryan, welcome back.

Oh, so excited to be here. Well, I want to talk to you about a couple things. First of I want to remind my audience. you're the author of a book called Lead with Prayer. We talked about that last time. The spiritual habits of world-changing leaders. Lead with prayer. The spiritual habits of world-changing leaders. You're also the founder and president of Venture.org. What is Venture.org?

So the word venture means to go to a difficult or dangerous place. And we serve as a ministry that serves in the three uns, the places that are unsafe, unreached, and unresourced. And we see the kingdom of God. breaking out in the toughest places in the world. And unsafe, when I say that, we're talking about, like, we've had about seven, over seven killed for their faith in the past two years, 51 arrested for their face, so really difficult countries.

And then also the unreached, places that are so remote that if a girl is having her period, they think that she's cursed by the gods and they kick her out of the village and she drops out of school or gets trafficked. And then the unresourced, we only go to places that less than 1% of Christian giving is going to, and so it's like the toughest but also the least reached and the least resource and we figured that's where Jesus would want to be. If it's really bad, they've never heard Jesus and no one's giving. And the kingdom of God is breaking out in these places. We've seen tens of thousands of, actually over 15,000 house churches planted and thousands of girls rescued from trafficking and all of these incredible miracles happening on the frontier.

And it's truly one of the most remarkable times to be alive because the explosion. of the global church. This is such great news. We need to hear this. Thank you, not just for doing this, but for talking about it. So I want to hear about that, but before we get to that, in case people missed you the last time you're on the program, what is your background? How did you find yourself doing what you're now doing?

Sure, sure. My, I, born in Alaska, and my parents came to know, actually, the Lord invaded our family. My dad was on a business trip, and their marriage was on the rocks, and he was kind of a borderline alcoholic, and he was on a business trip and heard that a messianic Jew was going to be speaking at a small chapel. And so he wandered into the chapel and heard the gospel for the first time. And he was like, who wouldn't do this? And at the same week, my mom saw a Billy Graham special on TV while he was gone and got on her knees and accepted the Lord. And so he came back and said, you wouldn't guess what happened to me. And she says, you wouldn't guess what happened to me.

And they both shared their salvation stories. and they were in the travel world. And so we grew up not going to Disney World, but going to refugee camps as kids. And being able to see firsthand the incredible global church. And I met a guy named Brother Moses in China. I was smuggling Bibles when I was 18 into China, kind of as you do. And I met a man named Brother Moses, who was, he had been beaten for 100 days straight for his faith. And yet he started sharing all these miracles.

and he had more joy than anyone I'd ever met in my life, even though he'd been tortured for the name more than anyone I'd ever met. And I thought, I'm hooked. I want to serve heroes like Brother Moses the rest of my life. And so in college, a buddy of mine said, hey, let's bike across the country and raise money for some of these incredible missionaries and national leaders. And I was like, that's amazing. I didn't know you're a cyclist.

And he goes, oh, I'm not. I was like, well, do you even have a bike? And he's like, nah. I said, do you know how to raise money? He's like, no. Do you have any money? No. And so we pulled off this cross-country bike tour and it raised like, I don't know, maybe $16,000. So for us, that was like a million bucks right at a college. And now we just kept doing more and more tough things for the tough places. And God, by his grace, continued to grow venture. So that $16,000 turned into $65 million that we've been able to raise for the global church and be able to see incredible things all over the world in 10 different countries. And really, this is, according to the miscellologist, this isn't just the past 30 years is not just the fastest growth of the church in our lifetime. It's the fastest numerical growth of the church and the history of the church.

And that's what we get to see and be a part of. That's Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary. They're Center for Global Christianity. They're talking about this. So they're talking about radical growth of the church in places that most of us are never thinking about. So what are some of these places? What are we talking about? Yeah.

So think of like Laos and Myanmar and places, the fastest percentage growing church is Iran right now. And places like, let's see, places in the Somalia, Sudan, Nepal, northern India, and Bhutan even is starting to see growth for the first time. Thailand, there's a lot, Pakistan, you keep going. There's some really beautiful things in Afghanistan happening. And the church is truly growing. and exciting.

It's a small house churches that are multiplying into house churches and multiplying all over. And it's just been one of the most phenomenal things is one of my friends who's a miscellologist with one of the largest foundations in the country, Cam Doolittle, he says, you know, if you ever get sad about the gospel in the West, just remember we're crushing it around the world. Like it's just incredible what's happening. Well, but it's interesting. We have such a secular world in the West that even the church doesn't report on this.

That's why it's exciting to talk to you on this program because most people are unaware of these kinds of things. And again, if you're tuned into the news, the news, you know, when Christians are being butchered for their faith in Nigeria or any place in Syria. And it was a Syrian Orthodox Church. I don't know, it was a couple of weeks ago. Not a word in the media. Not a word. Oh, no. I mean, yeah.

No, our brother, brother, Thao Koon in one of the countries, I can't tell you which, just a few weeks ago, they arrested him and they put him in stocks, like the old school, you know, 1600s torture device. And he was losing circulation to his feet and they were going to have to amputate his feet. And we rallied 250 people to pray every day for him around the world. And they suddenly released him just a couple of weeks ago. And two days later, he's out sharing the gospel again. Like he won't stop. And in that same region, Brother Thuncam, he was killed for his faith about six months ago. They warned him six times to no longer preach the gospel, and he kept ignoring their warnings, and so they shot him six times as a sign to, like, you know, intimidate the Christians.

And instead of being intimidated, this area is seen over 200 house churches planted, and 1,000 people have come to Christ. And before it was only just a small trickle. And after his death, all kinds, over 1,000 people have come to Jesus in that area. So we're truly seeing the book of Acts. And that's what we talked about a little bit last time was that I've been matching up the stories of all of our partners with the chapters in the Book of Acts. And I've got a story for almost every single chapter in the Book of Acts. And that's just, it's like it's happening all around us. But you're right. We don't hear about it as much. No. Well, have you, have you, have you written a book about that? Or are you writing a book about that? Or how do you, because

I mean, that's an amazing concept that you're seeing, you know, things that correlate to the book of acts happening today. Yeah, actually, we're just talking about that being the next book. Peter Kamen and I, my co-authors of Lead with Prayer, we're talking about that being our very next book, being able just to, because you can correlate it all over, really unique stories from people in northern Laos, they got poisoned for a week by, and poisoned didn't affect them. And so the people who tried to poison them came and they said, what power do you serve? We've been poisoning you for a long time and nothing's happened. And they'd share the gospel with them. So, you know, really unique stories to actually Colonel Raul.

He was a man that was committing genocide. He was in the army, a junta army in Myanmar. And he was with a machine gun shooting people who are minorities just because they're minorities. Committing genocide. And a bomb went off nearby and it knocked him into unconsciousness into a coma. And he sees Jesus, a vision of Jesus in his coma. And he says, quit. Jesus said to him, quit doing what you're doing.

and follow me. So he comes out of the coma and this is about two-month coma. He comes out and he's like, someone get me a Bible. A two-month coma? Yeah. And he said, someone get me a Bible. And so he gets a Bible. And this is a friend of mine. This is the colonel. I know him well. He's a very, very sharp. Oh, yeah. Articulate, man. When did this happen though? Chronologically, how many years ago? Chronologically, this is not nine to 10 years ago. Okay. And since, so, he gets a Bible and he starts going, okay, this is nothing, nothing like my life, the words of Jesus. He said, I'm the exact opposite of this.

And so he left his role in the army. And now we actually have been partnering with him to get millions of meals to the very minority group he used to be shooting. So just this Saul to Paul, he sees a vision of Jesus. And what is that minority group? So that would have been the Sean people group up in Myanmar, up in northern Myanmar. Okay.

Now, over there they call it Burma, though, don't they? We call it. Oh, Burma. Yeah, yeah, correct. Yeah. Just so people, in case people want to know where it is. Not that any of us could point out Myanmar or Burma on a map. They would take a minute.

But, yeah. Yeah. Southeast Asia. But it's, yeah. Oh, man, and the miracles out of there. Like Mama Rosabelle, we work with her to serve about 5,000 orphaned kids who have been orphaned by the war. Because there's still landmines and they drop chemical weapons. on defenseless bamboo villages.

I can show you the pictures of our partners on their cell phones, taking pictures of it. You're talking about in Myanmar. In Myanmar, yeah. They spend a huge part of their GDP on military, and yet they have no outside enemies. It's all on the minority groups inside. One of the worst things that no one has really heard about.

Actually, we're going to go to a break. When we come back, we'll continue the conversation, folks. I know you're not going anywhere. I'm talking to Ryan Skug. He's the head of Venture.org. venture.org. And the book is Lead with Prayer. Welcome back, folks.

Miracle Monday. I'm talking to Ryan Scug. He heads up Venture.org. He's written a book called Lead with Prayer. You were just telling us a story we had to go to a break. Please continue. Yeah. Oh, so Mama Roosevelt was one of the people who

serves in these refugee camps in the middle of a war zone. And she herself, her home was destroyed by her village's bombs seven times as a kid. And there's one time where the bombs are coming and she ran into a small little cave. And in front of her in the cave, she's 14, in front of her in the cave was a cobra. And she's like, there's bombs outside and there's a cobra right in front of me. And so she prayed and said, Lord, you shut the lion's mouth for Daniel. will you keep this cobra from coming after me? And she saw it coil up and fall asleep right in front of her for two hours.

And then finally gets out and, you know, the mom stop and all those things. Well, she took in her first war orphan kid when she was 16. And now we partner with her to serve about 5,000 war orphan children. And she sees miracles all the time. And, you know, for her, she said, I wanted, I asked her about her prayer life. And she says, oh, I had no money. money when I was 18, but I wanted to tithe. And so I figured the only currency I have is my time. And so I started praying for two and a half hours a day, and I've been doing that the past 30 years.

And so these are the saints that we get to see. And when she said that, that just, boy, it gripped my soul. And that's what really the beginning of this whole idea of lead with prayer was that, man, the global church is exploding. And the leadership, it's not a leadership principle that's driving it. It's a prayer life. and you start interviewing these leaders around the world. What's really fueling the explosion of the global church is their prayer life. And when they say prayer, they're talking about it a lot differently than we say prayer. And it's just like Mama Roosevelt saying, I'm going to tithe my time in prayer. It's beautiful.

Prayer for those of us in the West is hard. It's interesting to me, you know, when you talk about prayer, we're supposed to pray without ceasing. What does that mean? Yeah. I often pray in a prayer language, but it is fascinating to me. And you obviously have written a book about this. Talk a little bit about that. Yeah.

So after that encounter with the global church, seeing their prayer lives, I came home and I realized that I had a shelf full of leadership books on how leaders lead and nothing on how leaders pray. And there's a reason for that. One of the largest foundations in the country did a study on the prayer habits of Christian leaders in America. and it was a six-figure study done by one of the most reputable firms. And the data came back and they said it was so depressing, they never published it. And the guy who paid for it said, this is one of the most concerning studies I've ever seen about the American church. And so we said, let's go on a journey and find praying leaders that are an example that can help start building a culture, rebuilding a culture of prayer in America and in the West. And so we did 100 hours of interviews with leaders in all six different continents.

Everyone from like a Rosabelle in the war camps to a New York financier to a couple of Christian billionaires and John Mark Homer and Francis Chan and Tim Mackie and John Orteberg and Johnny Erickson Tata. And we started asking him a simple question, how do you pray? Like what's your prayer life? What's your prayer habits? And I thought they would be all over the map. I thought there'd be just all kinds of different. and instead it shocked us. Their prayer lives were so similar,

cross denominations, cross business and pastoral and nonprofit work. They were all praying so similar to each other. Well, tell us about that. What kind of, what did you find then? Yeah, yeah. It was almost as if, like,

if you want to have an intentional prayer life as a leader, the Holy Spirit will lead you to similar things. The first one blew me away was I thought that they would, you know, they'd just be amazing. at calling down heaven, and they were, but the core and the foundation of their prayer life was friendship first. Like Mama Roosevelt said, you know, the first thing I do every day is I just go out and take a walk with my friend Jesus, and just to be with him. And I was like, wow, I mean,

and this is like, she's walking in a war zone, and she's just having a ball with her friend Jesus. And then we talked to Francis Chan, and he goes, you know, I have all this pressure of an international ministry, the first thing I do is I just go out and take a walk with Jesus and spend time with them. And we talked to a New York financier downtown Manhattan, you know, if you're one of the most busy places in the planet, and he's over at different times over billions of capital. And he said, I put big blocks of time on my calendar and says, waste time with God. And I said, well, why is that? And he said, well, a double entendre. He said, in my world, if you're not trading, you're losing money, you know, so it's a waste of time.

And he says, but the reason I put up on there is because that's what friends do. They waste time with each other. They just spend time without agenda. And so I make sure I have non-agenda friendship time with God. And it was friendship first. And this is what Jesus said. You abide with me. And then there's going to be fruit.

And he said, I don't call you servants. I call you friends. So this is the core of a beautiful prayer life for leaders is that they come and spend time without agenda, just listening and being with Jesus. Mother Teresa even said that. They asked her about her prayer life, and she said, oh, they said, what do you do when you pray? She goes, oh, not much. I just sit there and be with my friend Jesus.

And I listen. And they're like, oh, what does he say? And she goes, oh, not much. He just sits there with me too. And if you don't understand that, I can't explain it any other way. And it's just this string that we saw throughout the world, actually, of leaders, the foundation of their prayer life being friendship. And as one leader said, the people that have great prayer lives have learned to find a way to like it. You know, just to like being with Jesus and ask him, what's on your prayer list, God?

How can I please you today? How can I be with you today? What's on your heart? And so that was, that blew me away. And that's radically changed my prayer life. I've been doing that ever since, just taking a walk. And if you think about it, that's really what happened was God came down for a walk with man and sin interrupted the walk. And Jesus came.

Wow. And get to bring the walk back. And Peter even alludes to that in Acts chapter three. He said, repent and believe so that times are refreshing. But actually what he said is repent and believe so the cool of the day can come back to you. He was referring to Eden. Wow. Hold on.

I want to come right back to that, folks. I'm talking to Ryan Scugue. The book is Lead with Prayer. Welcome back. I'm talking to the author of Lead with Prayer. That's the name of the book, Ryan Scug. You were just sharing something which I'd never heard before. I feel like I've heard of everything.

I had never heard that before that Paul, make the reference again to what Paul said. Yeah, yeah. So God came down to walk with man in the cool of the day and sin interrupted that walk. And Peter, when he gave his Acts chapter three sermon after seeing a crippled get up, he goes, repent and believe so that times are refreshing can come to you. And in some of the translations, they say that he's actually saying so that the cool of the day can come to you. And he's making a reference to Eden. saying repent and believe so you can have the walk with God that was interrupted by sin again.

And that can be restored. So the idea of going out and just taking a walk with God outside, like that's a core idea of the whole scripture. Jesus came and died so that we could have a walk with God again. And that's beautiful. So I've been doing that every morning. I roll out of my bed under my knees and surrender and then I go take a walk. And I just want to be with God and listen and ask questions and just praise him and thank him. and that no agenda time becomes just the most beautiful foundation of a prayer life.

Well, that's extraordinary. And it is, it's such a cliche, but it is true that many of us are so busy, I can speak for myself, that that's challenging. That's challenging. Yeah. Yeah. So there's one thing that we talked about was if you look like a two-by-two, a lot of times people say, like, prayer and productivity is on your two-by-two. But the truth is prayer and activity on the two-by-two, and productivity is a prayerful life and action. And we asked this question, too, our co-author Peter, he said, hey, hang on here.

So if Jesus found time to pray, are we busier than Jesus? And if you look in the scriptures, it lists Jesus went away to solitary places to pray more often when his ministry grew, not less. And the one thing in that study that I told you about, that six-figure study, they found, was that that the more experience, the more leadership, and the more education you had, the less you prayed, not the more you prayed. And so we have it reversed. And it's so that real, that reversal of saying, you know what? It is never a wasted time to pray.

My dad, the quick story on that is my dad spent 10 years building a business and they got to have an exclusive, 10 years in, they got to have this exclusive with a Fortune 50 company, which is, you know, like your dream as an entrepreneur. And he said, no, I'm going to go pray about it. And he felt like the Lord said, do not do this deal. And his business partner was apoplectic, just through the roof. And he's saying, why are we going to do this? This is what you worked your whole life for.

And while in prayer, the Lord was like, do not do this. And so he said no. The company was shocked that he said no. And six months later, that company shocked Wall Street and the world by declaring bankruptcy. And it would have taken his company down with him. and so the Lord saved 10 years of work would have been all down the tube and he not listened in one hour of prayer

so we've always just said it's never a waste of time to pray because listening and hearing the voice of God can save you 10 years of work it's just beautiful so yeah thinking of that way it's like oh but on one last thing on the prayer side in the west there's a psychological study that they did where they put people in a room had nothing in it and they were supposed to just sit there for 15 minutes or they could push a button,

they would give them a mild electric shock, and then they could leave. And a majority of the people would get electric shock versus sit in a room by themselves with nothing to do. And so, like, our whole physiological body is fighting the idea of prayer. And so we have to overcome that, you know, and there's all kinds of ways, liturgies.

And I have, I mean, that is the question. How do we overcome that? Because it's easy to say we should. How? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Well, the cool thing is, is that in our book, we list all of these different prayer habits that the different leaders do. And one of the ways you asked about one of the commonalities, well, the second one that shocked me the most, and this is the answer to your question, is I went from having a prayer time to crafting a day with God.

Because these leaders were intentional about crafting their day with the Lord. What does it look like to wake up? And Dallas Willard and John Orrburg and John Markomer said, I want the first thing out of my lips to be a psalm. and then what does it look like to have a posture to take some time of kneeling in the morning? And what are your morning habits of a walk or a scripture memory or something that effect? And then throughout the day, what are some habits that you can have to start peppering in, practicing the presence of God? And opening meetings with prayer or taking a walk with prayer. Or here at this drive, I'm always going to pray for this.

And it's funny, Pope Sabaenius in 605, he came up with his idea of putting. You said it like, you said it like, Pope Sivinius in 605, I'd be like, oh, yeah, of course, of course. Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah. I've never heard of Pope Sivnius. And I've never heard anybody mention the 7th century. So please go ahead. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, this is awesome. You'll love this. So he came up with this idea of putting the church in the center of a town and a big bell tower, or a big tower and a bell on it. And it was supposed to ring every hour to remind people to stop and remember that God is with them, to remember the presence of God. to remember Christ died for him, to remember that God's presence and his blessing is upon their lives. And so that's the idea behind the bell tower and the church in the center of town was to be this, like, God is the center of your day and reminding you hour after hour that God is with you.

And so I actually have these prayer cards that I have on my desk and I just, like, stop and I'll do one sentence prayers and just remind myself of a scripture or stop and say a prayer. And just, God, help me not miss your presence in this moment. or just take my hands in 60 seconds. I'll let go of all the anxieties that I have. And then I'll just take my hands and lift them up and say, oh, God, can you give me the grace that you have for me right now? And just doing those little bell towers throughout the day. What are the bells and those habits?

And I think you know Mark Batterson, he had a funny one. He said, whenever someone annoys you, that's a chance to pray for him, he said. So I pray all the time because people annoy me all the time. So he just has that that's one of his bell towers. you know, and for me, I hate lines. And so I decided, you know what? Every time I'm in line, I'm going to pray for the people in front of me to have an encounter with Jesus.

And it turned this boring part of my day into a part for heaven to come to earth. You know, like just, and then what are like evening habits too? Like Jesus had these campfires with his disciples. And they're like, hey, what do you mean by this, Jesus? Or how do we do here? Or how could we do this? And they'd kind of walk through their day. And so what does it look like to have evening habits?

And our family, we take communion every night because of some, really difficult things that happened with my daughter. And we took communion. There's these horrible nightmares that she was getting that were just demonic. You told us that the last time you were with us. I forgot. Yeah. I remember it now.

That was kind of amazing what you were sharing. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't have to go over it again unless you want to hear it. But it turned into us taking communion every night and just that idea of remembering the body and the blood of Christ. And what does it look like to craft a day with God? And we have tools to help you do this at lead with prayer.com.

They're all free. You can download them and put together a schedule and start putting habits. Leadwithprayer.com. We'll be right back, folks. In the meantime, you can go to lead with prayer.com. Welcome back. I am talking to Ryan Skug. Lead with prayer is the book.

And there's a website, leadwithprayer.com, which I want to look up as soon as we get off the air, lead with prayer.com. But yeah, any miracle stories before we go? Sure, sure. I know miracles don't happen all the time, but it seems like when you see an environment where people are praying more, more miracles do happen.

And that's really common in the global church. Like I'll give you an example, a girl was crippled and they have a prayer center in the mountains and the Himalayas, where they try and do 24-hour prayer. And a girl who was crippled came, and one of the ladies said, I feel like we're supposed to pray around the clock

until the Lord heals this girl. And so they brought people into the room, person after person, for 30 hours. And all of a sudden, she was paralyzed. She had no feeling in her legs. And she said, after 30 hours, she said, hey, I'm starting to feel something. And they brought her up, and she started taking her first steps. And I have pictures of this girl taking her first steps as the Lord healed this beautiful girl. And another one like that, Brother Durga, he's got the record.

He's one of our venture partners. and he's got the record for the highest altitude Jesus film ever shown. And it's like 19,000 feet, way up there. And there is a guy that they showed the story of when Jesus said to the paralytic, what's harder to say, your sins are forgiven or get up and walk? Well, they pray to them for his sins are forgiven. And he goes, does this mean I can get up and walk? And I have a picture of him walking to his baptism.

And the Lord heal him. He just got up right away. The faith is so amazing of our global partners all over the world. And this is what we get to see. This is my inbox at Venture.org. This is my inbox. All of these stories of all of our partners that we get to serve. And you're in Minneapolis.

Yeah. Yeah. Right now. That's, I mean, that's your base, so to speak. Yeah. Our base is Minneapolis, yeah. Your base camp is not at 19,000 feet. Yeah, we have, yeah, right, I wish.

No, we've actually seen beautiful miracles up by base camp, but yes, exactly. Well, that's, that's amazing. I'm just astonished at the idea of showing a film at an altitude of 19,000 feet. I mean, I would need oxygen. Yes, it's true. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, I'll wake. If I stayed at a hotel at about 17, 5, and I woke up, like, you have to just grab

your little oxygen tank and, you know, like, suck on it for a while and go back to bed. You know, it's just kind of what you do. Yeah, it's kind of what you do. No, that's just amazing. We've just got about a minute left. Lead with Prayer.com. Is that the word with lead with prayer? Yep.

Yeah. What can people find at the website lead with prayer.com? Okay, so we have things like these prayer cards that we took all the habits from the leaders that we interviewed. And we created a whole deck of cards where you can just go in a walk and take a deck of these. And they'll help you go from like five minutes to actually maybe 20 or 30 minutes. And they have little scriptures to read slowly and then an interactive prayer on the each one on the back of each one. You can also get a calendar to start like focusing out your day. Like I said, crafting a day with God.

It helps you develop your own personal liturgy where it's like Mondays. I'm going to focus on this and Sundays on this. And what are my morning habits and through the day and evening habits? And it just helps you craft a day with God versus just have a prayer time. And there's a whole bunch of other things to help build a culture of prayer for leaders. Well, there's no revival without prayer. So I'm really excited about this. Before we go, where are you headed next?

Are you home for a while? Yeah, I'm home for a while. Yeah, Nepal will be next. Man, God is moving in such a beautiful way in that country. We got to be a part of the first mass baptism in the history of that country. And over 1,000 people from 26 under-reach people groups all at once. And the authorities came to shut down the baptism. And the leaders gathered together and said, if you shut this down, we're going to all vote against you.

And the authorities went, okay, you can have your baptism. So it was like this critical mass inflection point that's happening in that nation. So I'm so excited to see the kingdom of God breaks out. Oh, you shouldn't do that. You shouldn't use the power of politics. You shouldn't do that. On the contrary, you should. They did, praise the Lord.

We're at a time. Ryan Scug, what a blessing. Thank you for being my guests. Love this. Yeah, this is such an honor. I just love your work. And I've just been a fan for so long. And so I just am honored to be here.

Our pleasure. Thank you so much.