Prayer & Miracles from the Front Lines with Ryan Skoog

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What if the most powerful catalysts for spiritual revival aren't sophisticated strategies or cutting-edge methodologies, but something far more fundamental—prayer rooted in friendship with Jesus?

Ryan Skoog, founder of Venture.org and author of "Lead with Prayer," takes us on a riveting journey into what he calls the "three uns"—unsafe, unreached, and unresourced areas of the world. Having witnessed unprecedented church growth in the most challenging environments imaginable, Ryan reveals the surprising truth behind the global revival that missiologists call the largest numerical expansion of Christianity in history.

Through hundreds of hours interviewing Christian leaders across six continents, Ryan discovered that effective prayer isn't primarily about technique or discipline, but relationship. From a woman who walks with Jesus through war-torn Myanmar jungles to a New York financier who schedules "Waste Time with God" in his calendar, the foundation is the same—friendship with Christ.

The contrast with Western prayer habits is stark. Research shows Christian leaders pray less as they gain more education and influence, essentially declaring through their actions, "I'm busier than Jesus." Yet neuroscience confirms what global church leaders demonstrate: relational prayer physically rewires our brains after just eight weeks of consistent practice.

Ryan shares breathtaking stories of miracles, deliverance, and transformation happening regularly in places where prayer is not a checkbox but a lifeline. From entire villages converting after witnessing demonic deliverance to crippled children walking after prayer, these aren't anomalies but consistent manifestations of God's power in responsive environments.

This conversation will challenge your concept of productivity, reframe your understanding of spiritual disciplines, and invite you into a more vibrant prayer life that starts with simply enjoying God's presence. As Ryan reminds us, we aren't called to approach prayer as experts but as enthusiasts, collecting prayer habits that transform not just moments but entire days in God's presence.

Ryan is cofounder and president of VENTURE.ORG, a nonprofit that works in the toughest places of the world, serving war refugees, trafficked people, oppressed children, and the unreached. Ryan is also a serial entrepreneur who co-founded several travel technology companies and co-authored the Bestselling book Lead with Prayer and the devotional Chosen.

Ryan's Social Links: LinkedIn Facebook Instagram

Chapters

• 0:00 Prayer: The Foundation of Global Revival
• 8:55 The Three Uns: Unsafe, Unreached, Unresourced
• 17:33 Why Western Leaders Don't Pray
• 26:32 Friendship with Jesus: The Core of Prayer
• 38:51 Crafting a Day with God
• 54:42 The Power of Miracles in Unreached Areas
• 1:05:23 Spiritual Warfare and Family Protection
• 1:18:31 Preaching the Gospel to Your Own Soul

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:04

And so our brains are literally wired to have a relational connection with Christ, like that's how we're wired to have all of the good character traits of God embodied into a person that we have a relationship with. That's how your brain wires. You can't grow in character without relationship, and so it's so cool that we're designed for relational prayer with God.

Speaker 2: 0:30

In a time when faith can feel flat, distracted and disengaged, the Blood and Oil podcast cuts through the noise to reveal the raw, unfiltered work of the Holy Spirit. Welcome to the Blood and Oil Podcast.

Speaker 3: 0:52

Welcome to Blood and Oil Podcast. We've got Ryan Scoove, founder of Ventureorg and author of the book Lead with Prayer. Ryan is presently active in reaching a number of places in the earth, what he calls the three uns. Ryan, you want to go ahead and tell us about those three uns before we get started?

Speaker 1: 1:13

Oh yeah, I was so excited to be here and I have high expectations for what God's going to do in this conversation. Yeah, the three uns. We say that we work in the three uns, which means the unsafe, unreached and unresourced. And what that means is, when you say unsafe, we work in places where 80% of the girls could be trafficked, or there's war or there's massive persecution. We've had seven of our partners killed for their faith in the last couple of years and another 51 arrested and other brothers tortured. And man, we even adopted our beautiful, our new daughter. Her dad was a persecuted believer.

Speaker 1: 1:57

So just diving into those really, really tough, unsafe areas. And then, when you look at unreached, we're talking about places that are so remote that they're sacrificing animals to rocks and trees and worshiping them. Or if a girl gets her period, they're kicking them out of the village to be able to, you know, because they think she's cursed by the gods. Or if she looks a man in the eyes, she'll make him sterile while she's having her period. So they kick them out of the village like that remote. And in fact we also have the Guinness World Record for the highest altitude Jesus film ever shown, at 19,000 feet.

Speaker 1: 2:29

So when we say the ends of the earth, man, the gospel is getting there. And then the last one is unresourced. We only go to places where they're less than 1% of Christian giving goes, so if it's really bad, they've never heard of God's love and virtually no one's giving. That's where we want to be, and Jesus said go for the least, go to the ends of the earth, and that's how we define it. And man, I'm excited to tell you that the kingdom of God is exploding in the unreached areas and in the tough places of the world. It's truly like the book of Acts, in fact, so much so that I've been taking the stories of our partners and lining them up with the chapters of the book of Acts and I've got one that matches almost every chapter now, and it's just a powerful thing to be able to witness the explosion of the gospel amongst the global church.

Speaker 3: 3:16

Amen, Amen, Glory to God. I was listening to one of your interviews and you had said that one of your partners said listen, if a brother? What did he say? He said, brother, being led by the spirit is a matter of life and death. Where they are.

Speaker 1: 3:31

Yeah, oh, it's so true. It's so true I mean, we have some partners that they were poisoned by people in the village for a week. Their water was poisoned and they came up to them and said what power do you serve? You've been poisoned. We've been poisoning you for the a week. Their water was poisoned and they came up to them and said what power do you serve? We've been poisoning you for the past week and they're kind of in shock, going wait what? And they were able to lead them to Jesus because of God's protection over them. But yeah, following the spirit and following when to go and when not to go is a matter of life and death, and so it just creates an atmosphere of total dependence on God. That's more precious than anything I've ever seen.

Speaker 3: 4:11

Amen, amen, and so listening as well that there is a deficiency of prayer in the West and your studies, you guys sat at the feet of folks doing this work in the third world and across the globe, and the one unifying factor was they've got a vibrant prayer life oh yeah, no.

Speaker 1: 4:32

So what what happened was? Let me take a step back. The the gordon conwell center for theological studies is one of the most prestigious in the world. They have a center for global christianity and they've been tracking the movement and the growth of the global church for a long time. And the missy ologist there they're saying that the growth that's happened, the explosion of the Christianity and Christ in the global church, is not just the biggest numerical growth we've seen in our lifetime, it's the biggest numerical growth we've seen in the history of the church. Wow, like the global church is exploding in biblical, like kind of end times type of ways all around us. The fastest percentage growing church in the world is in Iran right now. Wow, it's unbelievable.

Speaker 1: 5:18

And it's through book of Acts type things, people having dreams or encounters with Christ and seeing multiplication, where churches plant churches, plant churches, plant churches or whole villages coming to Christ. And you know we were in Nepal. There's a place where the brothel that had underage children shut down because of lack of demand, because so many people became Christians that there was not the demand for it and they ran them out of town, and like reformation type things are happening. There's another village. This is just last week. There's 145 people in the village and 145 families and families like eight, 10 people and 144 became Christian. And they asked us would you pray for the last family in our village?

Speaker 1: 6:02

So our whole team started joining in praying and last week I got a picture of the whole family the 145th getting baptized Like it's just awesome. And so so we started asking this question, saying, wait a minute, what is fueling this explosion of the global church? And we started just sitting and said, what? Here's the broader question what if we sat at the feet of the global church as the Western church and said, hey, wait, we have some things where we can help, but you have something that you can help us in how do you follow Jesus in such an explosive way? Could you teach us? And we wanted to sit at the feet of the global church and learn from them how to follow Jesus. And so, as we started asking that question and started learning, instead of some methodology or some new type of thing, what we found the core that's fueling everything was not a methodology but a prayer life.

Speaker 3: 6:55

Amen.

Speaker 1: 6:59

And that was just a eureka moment. And I came home and I looked at my in the scriptures where Samuel is saying God forbid that I sin by failing to pray for you as a leader. And I was like whoa. And then I realized I look at my shelf full of Christian leadership books and I was like where's the book on how Christian leaders pray? I didn't have a single one of them, and the reason was actually really, really sad.

Speaker 1: 7:27

My co-author, cameron. He was part of one of the oldest and largest and most established Christian foundations in America and they did a massive six-figure study on the prayer lives of Christian leaders and the results came back and they were so dismal they never even published the study and David Denmark, who paid for it, said this is the most depressing study I've ever invested in. And so the reason there wasn't that Christian leadership book on how leaders pray was because there wasn't a lot to talk about. And so we thought you know what? Let's go on a journey. Let's sit at the feet of praying leaders and say could you teach us how do you pray as a leader, what are your prayer habits?

Speaker 1: 8:12

And that sent us on a journey of interviewing over doing 100 hours of interviews with leaders in six different continents, and it was leadership from all over the gambit. So you know somebody who grew up in a refugee camp, never went to college and has been caring for thousands of war orphans, and then a PhD from MIT in downtown Manhattan in New York over billions of dollars of capital. That's had this dynamic prayer life. And then Francis Chan and Tim Mackey and John Mark Homer and John Artberg and these other incredible Christian leaders, and it was one of the greatest experiences of my life sitting at the feet of all of these leaders and truly the most transformative interviews were with the global church, as they're describing how they pray, and so it was awesome.

Speaker 3: 8:59

Amen. What an encouraging thing that this sense of desperation. I think there's a one-to-one correlation between how hungry you are and how desperate you are for God.

Speaker 1: 9:09

Yes, yeah, no, that's so. Somebody asked me recently oh, eric Metaxas. He was like okay, ryan, I do a show on miracles. Why do you see so many more miracles in the global church than here? And I've said there's two reasons. One is we actually see a lot more miracles here than we realize.

Speaker 1: 9:28

People just aren't confident in talking about it and I can't tell you, when I started sharing miracle stories or the book of Acts stories, the amount of people that have emailed or contacted me on social media or whatnot, saying, hey, by the way, I had a miracle too. I just don't feel confident in telling it and I thought, oh so, wait a minute, we do see a lot more miracles than we realize. Just people are so afraid of telling their miracle stories. They feel ashamed and I call it a browbeating of the hangover of reductionist materialism. It's just this crazy thing that we have this hangover of that where you say anything that's out of that and you're considered spooky and yet, if you look at the data, in America, more people believe in prayer than even believe in God. It's crazy how open people are to the spiritual and yet we feel kind of ashamed to talk about it or whatnot. So that's the first thing I say. But then the second thing I say is this there still is more happening in the global church, and I think that there's good soil for miracles, and the good soil of miracles is a dynamic prayer environment, desperation and humility. And you add desperation and humility and a dynamic and prayer environment. And actually that's what the scriptures say If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves, pray and seek my face that's desperation repent of their sins, I'm gonna come from heaven and heal their land. And that's the cool thing that we're seeing is we're seeing land being healed and restored, as the people of God are doing those things and creating that good soil for miracles. So yeah, man, it was just so dynamic.

Speaker 1: 11:10

And so can I tell you like the biggest thing that blew me away was I thought that these prayer lives of these leaders would be so different. Like all over the map and you talk about people as various as a New York financier or Francis Chan or someone at a refugee camp or planting churches out in the middle of the Himalayas their lives would be so different. And in fact, the opposite was true. They were so similar. I couldn't believe how similar their prayer lives were, and it was just this Eureka. That was the other Eureka moment where we're like, whoa, it looks like any leader that really wants to lean into becoming a praying leader. The Holy Spirit is gonna lead them into similar practices.

Speaker 1: 11:56

And so that's what the chapters of the book were all of the commonalities that we found amongst leaders across the world. And then we even looked into the history of really amazing praying leaders and oh, these match up as well. It's, this is a Holy Spirit thing, and so that was that was super powerful to be able to see that and experience that and go. Okay, if there really is kind of a path that the Holy Spirit leads people on, let's dive in a hundred percent and see what happens in our own lives as that happens, as the Holy Spirit leads people on. Let's dive in 100% and see what happens in our own lives as that happens, as the Holy Spirit leads. And then the last thing I was going to say about the leadership side. There's another verse in Jeremiah 10, 21. It says the leaders sorry, the shepherds, which is their word for leaders that the shepherds are stupid. They don't inquire of the Lord.

Speaker 3: 12:46

Right.

Speaker 1: 12:47

And the crazy thing about that if you look in the Hebrew Bible, that's the only time you see that word stupid. There's never another time that that word is in the Hebrew Bible. And the scholars this is my joke, but the scholars when they dive into it, what it really means is stupid. That's what it means as you dig into the Hebrew Hebrew and they're like, yeah, this is. There's one time the Hebrew Bible says the word stupid and it's reserved for a leader who has all the power of heaven available to them and they never tap in All the grace of the Holy Spirit and they never grab a hold of it. Every spiritual gift and every spiritual blessing, and they never tap into it. And God says that's. There's one time I'm going to say stupid and that's it. And so that really cut me to the core, saying okay, we've got to redefine productivity, we've got to redefine what it truly means to be a spiritual leader. It can't just be influence and growth, it has to be something about, like Moses saying I'm not going to step without you, jesus.

Speaker 1: 13:48

And you know I'm not going to step, or God, yeah, at the time you know we're saying, hey, I've seen everything else, but God, the thing I want is your glory, and and that's the type of leader that God wants to see, and and even Christ, when, um, one thing that was in the study that's really powerful was and I'm just riffing, sorry if we're just kind of going off, but one thing in the study that was really insightful that was never published was that the more education and influence and authority that a leader had, the less they prayed. Wow.

Speaker 1: 14:26

And that was just so. It was almost as if the more we thought we could do on our own, the less they prayed. Wow, and that was just so. It was almost as if the more we thought we could do on our own, the less we prayed. And Jesus's life was exactly the opposite. If you count up the times where it says that he went away and prayed early in the morning while it was still dark, he went away to solitary places to pray, or late at night he stayed up all night, those types of things. Actually you see more frequency of those statements when his ministry got bigger and so he prayed more. When the ministry burden got more, not less, as far as the mentions of him praying.

Speaker 1: 14:56

And so we just kind of asked the question we're like so do we think we're busier than Jesus? And a prayerless leadership life is, by our actions, saying we're busier than you, jesus. And I think this isn't in the book. But the stuff I just have been meditating on is I think it's because we put on an axis like prayer on one side and then productivity on the other axis, and that's not really what it should be. It should be prayer is one and activity is on this axis and when you put them together, that's productivity.

Speaker 3: 15:33

Wow, well said.

Speaker 1: 15:35

And we have this lie that's oh, I'm going to be prayerful and then I'm going to be productive. No, no, no, no, no. Combining prayer and action is productivity. Acting only, not productive, you know, praying only and not obeying. Jesus says nope, you got to get out there and act, put them together, and that's productivity. If we can redefine productivity to be the union of heaven and earth, the union of prayer and our action and obedience, then I think we'll start not feeling guilty as leaders for taking copious amounts of time to pray and not just say, oh, I'm going to leave my prayer and get to my activity. It's like no, no, no, or, to be sorry, leave prayer and get to my productivity. No, it's prayer and activity marrying together, and so that's something that we really have started to see in the incredibly powerful global church. There's no difference in their mind between prayer and productivity, like they're just that's all, it's the same thing, and so it's just awesome. So, yeah, I'm just kind of riffing now, but this is fun.

Speaker 3: 16:39

Yeah, go ahead Tell us about the miracles you're seeing and the stuff you're seeing.

Speaker 1: 16:44

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, first, let me okay, so the first. We'll hit that in just a second, but first the first thing that I wanted to say that was a shocking thing sitting at the feet of all these leaders was I thought that they would just be the most incredible people at calling down heaven on earth and they were really powerful intercessors. But that wasn't the core or the basis or the foundation of their prayer life. Instead of it being like that and what it was is the foundation of their prayer life was friendship first, and and so let me tell you that the first interview we had was with Rosabelle. She's a saint man. She, literally her home, was bombed seven times by the time she was 14, her, her village in a war zone in myanmar, and, and, and she would have everything she owned was in this cardboard box and her mom would say go grab your box, the army's coming. And that happened multiple times. And even one time she's 14 years old and the planes came and started dropping bombs on her village. So she ran and hid in a small little cave and in front of her was a cobra Wow, and she'd become a believer by this time, and she said Jesus, you shut the mouths of the lions for Daniel, will you shut this cobra for me? And she saw the snake coil up and it just did not move for an hour while she waited for the airstrikes to leave. And so that's her faith. And I asked her. She took in her first war refugee orphan baby when she was 16. And now we partner with her to help about 5,000 war refugee orphan children. It's just incredible.

Speaker 1: 18:23

And I asked her about her prayer life. And this is a war zone, this is where people are dying and there's landmines in the jungle across the river and mortars going off. And I asked her about her prayer life and I was like, mama Rosabelle, can you tell me about your prayer life? And she just paused and just was like I love Jesus. And it was as if I was bringing up her best friend because I was and she's just, you know, you're like, oh, I love that guy. She's just like, oh, yeah, I love that guy, jesus. And she said when I was 18, I had no money but I wanted to tithe and I figured the only currency I had was my time. So I started praying about a total of about 200, two and a half hours a day and I've been doing that for the past 30 years and that was the first interview and I was like whoa, we've got something to learn.

Speaker 1: 19:15

And then I asked her what does it look like? And she said it starts with a walk. She said I just go out and I walk in the jungle and maybe I'll see the light pierce through the trees and I'll say, jesus, can you your light pierce into my soul that same way? And you know, see a spider web that's all intricate and beautiful. And she'll say, can you knit my soul like that, jesus today? And she's just enjoying her friend Jesus. Two hours away there's mortar rounds going off and there's like landmines nearby and she's just walking enjoying Jesus in the middle of a war zone. And I thought I was not expecting that to be the core of your prayer life, the foundation of it.

Speaker 1: 19:57

And then I ended up talking to Francis Chan and he's like I have all this pressure of an international ministry. He says there's no way I can do it if I don't just go out and take a walk with my friend Jesus, just to be with him. And then I talked to this New York financier, john Kim. He's again, he's a PhD MIT, so not very smart, right. And he's over billions of dollars of capital downtown Manhattan and he has these big blocks of time in his schedule that say waste time with God.

Speaker 1: 20:29

And I said why'd you call it that? And he said well, it's a double entendre. He said most people in my world, if you're not trading, you're wasting time. So a big block of time of prayer is wasted. And he said but that's not why I put it there. I put it there because that's what friends do. They waste time with each other. They spend time without agenda, just being with each other. And that was so revolutionary because I think I was good in my mentality of wanting to be a servant, but I was pretty bad at wanting just to be a friend of.

Speaker 3: 21:01

Jesus Well said Come on.

Speaker 1: 21:06

And so I just started taking a walk and talking with my friend Jesus, and that's one of I mean one of many habits, and intercession and all these other things are a huge part. But, man, is it fun just to be out there without an agenda? God, can you speak to me? Hey, how am I pleasing you? Hey, is there something I can do to make you happy today? Hey, who am I pleasing you? Hey, is there something I can do to make you happy today? Hey, who could I pray for? You know, just start asking questions of the Lord. And just hey, by the way, well done, these trees are beautiful. Like you did a good job, you know, like just incorporating everything into that. And that's been one of the most transformative practices that I've ever done in my prayer life, formative practices that I've ever done in my prayer life.

Speaker 1: 21:47

And even Mother Teresa we didn't interview her, but there's a reporter that did right and Mother Teresa, he said what do you do when you pray? Because she would, four times a day, leave the house of the dying kind of like Roosevelt, there's a war zone going on Leave the house of the dying just to be in the presence of Jesus. And she said what do you do when you pray? And she's like, oh not much. Most of the time I just sit there with my friend Jesus and listen and he goes, oh, what does he say? And then she goes, oh not much. A lot of times he just sits there with me and if you can't understand it, I can't explain it any other way and it left that mystery of the presence, that mystery of Christ, and there's so many times where I just crave taking a walk and being in the presence of Christ. Once you start. It's something that you just can't leave because it's so vital to everything. It's the foundation of everything.

Speaker 1: 22:47

Jesus said I know they don't call you servants, I call you friends. And he said if you abide in me, that's when you're going to have eternal fruit. And that abiding man, learning and practicing abiding it's not a skill that you naturally have as a human. We don't. We're built, you know, like in some ways we're built to just keep pushing on to the next thing, next thing, next thing and not to be able to stop and pause and listen and be quiet.

Speaker 1: 23:15

You know our whole culture is built to resist that and so, like you're fighting all the hell just to have a time alone, with no agenda with Jesus, and to be able to carve that out and to say, hey, this is productive and just giving people permission to do that. It's just so powerful. And one last thing on that in Genesis 3, it says that God came down to walk with man in the cool of the day and sin interrupted that walk. But then in Acts, chapter three, peter got up and said repent and believe so that and there's translations that say this so that the cool of the day can return to you.

Speaker 3: 24:01

Wow.

Speaker 1: 24:02

And that idea of you going out and walking in the presence of Christ is actually restoring Eden. It's restoring the walk that was broken, and so the death and the blood and the sacrifice and the resurrection of Christ have come so we can walk with God in the cool of the day. We have no idea, no idea how amazing that privilege is, and if you stop and remember who you're talking to and what you're actually doing, you're kind of just like, ah, this is amazing, Like I cannot believe this. So that was the first like dramatic shift, after you know, sitting down with all these leaders. And then the second one was the idea of crafting a day with God. And the reason I say that is we're so like check the box as Americans that we just like work out, take your vitamins, pray, check, check, check and then move on to the next box to check, and God wants to be invited into every portion and every moment and every aspect of your day.

Speaker 3: 25:11

Amen.

Speaker 1: 25:12

And I had a prayer time, but I didn't craft a day with God. And being able to stack habits on top of each other and disciplines was something that all these praying leaders did. They were just habit collectors. They were collecting prayer habits. Dallas Willard, john Ortberg and Tim McEaly all these guys, they said the first thing in my lips in the morning is a psalm. I just want to be praising God. So I started rolling out of bed onto my knees every morning, just first thing, roll out of bed on my knees, and then I'll recite a different psalm and let that and then I'll go for a walk.

Speaker 1: 25:51

And what are your morning habits as you're crafting a day with God? Some people they just sit in silence with one verse, saying it over and over and over again, just to attune their mind and thought and spirit to Christ. Again, just to attune their mind and thought and spirit to Christ. And so having those habits, vital to be able to get through, not just get through scripture, but let scripture get through you as you're diving into it. And then, what are afternoon habits? Crafting a day with God? The idea of we talk about this in the book, but Pope Sabinian in 605 or 604, and he instituted the idea of having a church and a bell tower on the top of the church, in the center of every town, and he wanted it to ring every hour to remind people Christ is with you, god is holy, god is here. And that was the impetus behind a bell tower on a church. And like, what does it look like to put these metaphorical bell towers in your day so that you're stopped and reminded that the presence of Christ he is here, I am not alone, like he's with me, like practicing that presence throughout the day.

Speaker 1: 26:58

And you know, one leader said that anytime someone annoyed him it was a call to prayer and he's like I pray all the time now, like it was just call to prayer. And he's like I pray all the time now, like it was just hilarious, right, or for me, I hate lines and so whenever I'm in a line, I'll I'll say okay, I'm going to pray, that everyone in front of me has an encounter with the risen Christ and and it turns something of me being annoyed into a moment for heaven to come on earth, you know, in the middle of that. So, like, how do you invite Christ into the cracks and moments and into your meetings and, like one of our co-authors, he said why do we pray at the beginning and the end of a meeting? What if we were talking in the middle of the meeting? Let's just stop and pray, let's ask Jesus. He's here. And at first he did that. I was even taken aback, like what, right now, okay. And then it was like this beautiful way of hey, well, in a meeting you stop and talk to different people. Why don't we stop and talk to Christ? He's the smartest one here, he's the wisest one here, and so that, just inviting Christ into all the pieces.

Speaker 1: 28:02

And then the last thing was what are your evening habits? And one of the cool things and I just never saw this before but if you look at the disciples, they were traveling with Jesus. Most likely they had a campfire every night. And they're like hey, what'd you mean by that parable? Hey, where did we miss you today? Hey, you know what? And Jesus was like well, when you wanted to call on fire and burn that whole village, that was a little off. And they're like oh, okay, he's like I do want you to call down fire from heaven, but it's going to be a different one now. And so those types of campfire moments.

Speaker 1: 28:37

How many of us rush through our day and never stop and replay and praise God and thank him and then ask him like, hey, what could I do better? Where did I miss you today? What did you mean by this Lord, that this happened today? What are you trying to teach me? And I know one leader. He was so committed to this. He had gotten a diagnosis of cancer that day and he went home and he had a campfire with Jesus and he said Jesus, what are you trying to teach me today? And it was just phenomenal to see that discipline carried through, no matter what was happening during the day, and it anchored him and our family. We ended up taking communion every night and remembering the body and the blood of Christ, and it came out of an intense time of spiritual warfare in our family. That we can talk about later on.

Speaker 1: 29:34

If you want or whatnot, presence, evening, habits of worship and reflection and you know, remembering the cross or all all those different things, intercession and mapping out those different types of prayers, uh, throughout your day and scheduling them. We we have a tool to help you do this that leadwithprayercom. That's free, you can download it and and I even map out like theme days like, uh, you know, like Mondays I really focusing on family, and Sundays I don't ask God for anything. I pretend he's answered every one of my prayers. And what would you do and what would you say to God if he'd answered all your prayers and I just sit, I thank him, I'm grateful, I worship, I listen. It's just this beautiful way. So just theming different days for different types of prayer. Focus is so powerful too, so we have tools to help you do this and different types of prayer.

Speaker 1: 30:33

Like Raju, who is just our crazy partner in Nepal. He's planted over 8,000 house churches in the past few years and like 26 unreached people groups have multiplying house churches. And he's a crazy man. He got beat up for his faith and they're like surrounding him, kicking him and ripping the cross and necklace off. Get out of our country and all these things. You know Christians don't belong here, all of that stuff. And then he gets like the police come and they separate them all. And Raju's just. I just want to let all of you know I forgive you. He's like that's him, like he's just insane and I was like how are you doing, brother? And he's like I just it's such an honor to suffer for Jesus. I'm like, really, you got that, you got beat up, brother, and he's like it's an honor to suffer for Jesus. I'm like, okay, I got to change that mentality. And then I asked him about different prayer practices and he goes, brother, sometimes you just have to pray loud, you just have to pray loud. He must be good at that.

Speaker 1: 31:36

Remember that, yeah, and I was like, okay, okay, I'll try that. So I went out in the woods and I, just like it from my gut, started worshiping, calling on heaven, and and something happened to me, like something broke in my heart and my spirit and it was just something. Like something happened. I was like he's right, sometimes you got to try all the different ones and then then someone else is like why don't you practice silence? That's completely opposite spectrum. And I sat in silence and it was like after a few minutes, oh God, you have been whispering this whole time. I just haven't been listening and giving that space is so beautiful. So trying all Paul says, pray, all kinds of prayers, so he's like do them all.

Speaker 1: 32:22

And one of the most crazy miracles about this I got to tell you this, this is just like a couple weeks old. I was on a radio show talking about you know, people are going to call in and share miracles of answered prayer. And this guy from Alaska I was born in Alaska so it was super fun to connect with him A guy from Alaska during COVID. His son had kidney issues and then got COVID and went into a coma and the doctor basically called him and said in a few days you're going to have to come in and pull the plug on your own son. I mean the most devastating sentence I think you could almost ever hear, right you're gonna have to come in and pull.

Speaker 1: 33:01

We're gonna pull the plug on your own son. Well, he was a christian biker and he let the christian biker gangs know about this all around the country, 48 chapters jumped in and started praying for his son. And they said two days later in the morning he woke up and had a vision of a thousand hands holding his son up to heaven.

Speaker 3: 33:21

Amen.

Speaker 1: 33:22

And he turned to his wife and said I can't tell you how, but I know our son's going to be okay. Wow. And they showed up at the hospital and, instead of pulling the plug on their son, he came out of the coma and he walked out of the hospital. It's just, that's our God. We're the people holding a thousand hands up. And in the scripture, when Paul says, pray, all kinds of prayers, one of them is petition. And what do you do with a petition? You get people to sign on. And he got people in 48 states to sign on his prayer and become one of a thousand hands holding his son up to heaven. And I thought, oh gosh, how little do we use what God has already given us the ability to petition others in prayer, the ability to be able to sit in friendship, the ability to pray loud, the ability to whisper and be quiet and listen to the whisper, like all the types of prayers that God has given us. It's just awesome.

Speaker 3: 34:14

Amen Amen.

Speaker 1: 34:17

So, yeah, I don't know where else you want to go. I've been ranting and just going on a riff here. This has been fun, oh we're good.

Speaker 3: 34:25

We're good. Tell us about the intersection of prayer and the supernatural that you guys are seeing regularly. We tend to see we're Pentecostal here.

Speaker 1: 34:33

Yeah, I think that groups yeah, you know, I think that, yes, no, no, it's so. It's so funny. Uh, when I was in a room with a like most of the room were non-pentecostals. They're church planters, though, and and he said uh, when are we all going to admit that, as try as we might, when we try to plant churches in the global church, we're all non-pentecostals planting Pentecostal churches because they're all jumping in. It's hilarious.

Speaker 1: 35:01

And yeah, it was one of the funniest conversations. He's like so I think us non-Pentecostals have planted more Pentecostal churches than we have the non-Pentecostal churches in America. Yeah, it was just hilarious. And that's true. It's the global church. They don't have the same blinder set of the crazy reductionist, materialist Descartes type of Foucault and Sartre and all these things that have just seeped into our minds, where we can't even process miracles and yet they're happening all the time. And again, most people it's like oh, I never told you this, but you know, and I just had this happen last week, it was a financial advisor and he said I have a hard time telling people this, but my son was completely miraculously healed, even documented by the hospital, he says. But I'm still embarrassed to tell people. I'm like what.

Speaker 1: 35:55

Like you even have documentation, like you can tell people this, and so, yeah, no, the, the, the, the intersection of prayer and miracles, it's. It's one of these things that people get off on both sides, either like God doesn't do miracles, or they get off on like here's your formula for miracles and and I, instead of saying formula I just talk about there's good soil for miracles, because God doesn't want to be a exchange for exchange. If you pray this way and not this way, then you'll get your miracle and that gets really weird. It removes the friendship from it. But if you get into good soil, oh man.

Speaker 1: 36:33

We started launching 24-7 coordinated prayer centers in the different countries that we serve and there is a. They brought a girl into one of these prayer centers who was crippled, and one of the ladies just said hey, I feel like the Lord said we're supposed to do round the clock prayer right now and just keep taking turns until she walks. And so they just had shifts and they prayed around the clock for 30 hours and after 30 hours the girl said I think I feel something in my legs.

Speaker 3: 37:04

Wow, come on.

Speaker 1: 37:05

And then she got up and started taking her first steps Come on. And I think in our world we'd be like oh, we said a prayer, maybe a five second prayer, and I guess God hasn't answered. And that mentality is not in the global church. They're just saying sometimes the Lord just says pray until it happens.

Speaker 3: 37:21

Amen.

Speaker 1: 37:22

And pray until you see something. And the miracles that, like Roosevelt, I was like how often do you see miracles? She goes, oh, not every day, but multiple times a week. You know there's some dramatic miracle. And she has these prayer books where she puts on one side of the book she puts the request, on the other she puts the answer.

Speaker 3: 37:42

Amen.

Speaker 1: 37:43

And then she flips the page and then keeps going. She says, brother, I have books upon books, stacks of books of answers.

Speaker 1: 37:50

It's just these miracles that God does. It's so good and, and so that idea of even just like getting permission to pray for a miracle and knowing that you're creating good soil, this might be the miracle, you see. Or God might do a miracle a different way, and sometimes the miracle is his presence, right, and that is the miracle that's needed in the moment. But having that type of a boldness to pray, regardless of what the miraculous answer is, that mentality I've seen around the global church. They see a lot more miracles. We'll dive into we're Pentecostal here, we'll dive into some stuff, but you would not believe this. But I've got picture after picture of villages where someone is so demonically oppressed that they started hurting children, and so the village just chained them up. And I have picture after picture of people in chains because the village didn't know what to do and they're hurting children. You got to stop them. And so there's these humans chained up because they're so demonically oppressed, and our church planting partners. They would go to the village, they'd pray with them, they'd get radically delivered, and you see them and they're in their right mind. You see pictures of them farming, leading people, planting churches, like doing all of these things, and so that idea of the book of Acts or even the gospels happening right in front of us is very, very common and people think, oh, is that like a rare instance? I'm like no, in fact there's a church in a village that's like the village is maybe 700 people and the church is like three to 400 people. I mean, the whole village has been transformed, but the way it transformed was the pastor's wife. Before he was a Christian. She was hurting children. They had to chain her up and somebody said to him hey, in the neighboring village there's a Christian, and sometimes God does crazy things through that Christian you might want to bring him here. And so he comes, prays for his wife, she gets set free and so many people in the village knew her that 400 people were baptized. And that's just a. That's very common in the global church how that happens and it's just normal, like when they read the scriptures and they see you know Jesus casting out a demon. We are as like man. Is that like a? You know schizophrenia or something you know like label? And the global church is like oh yeah, like my uncle. You know, like it's just, you know like that, like, like label, and and the global church is like oh yeah, like my uncle, you know like, you know, like that's, it's just normal, you know, that's how it happens and it's just life, and they're pretty normal about it. It's not spooky or weird or anything, and and they're like oh yeah, and and and when Jesus prays.

Speaker 1: 40:33

Or another guy he was this witch doctor in Nepal and he was deaf, but he was the witch doctor. He had all this crazy hair and he had convinced everyone that all of his demonic power was in his hair. And you can't make this stuff up. And so the whole village was kind of subjected to this guy, seen as this crazy, powerful, weird, spiritual witch doctor. Well, we have these church planters, like 26-year-old women, like hiking through tiger-infested jungles and coming to these villages and praying. And he gets prayed for Instantly he goes from being deaf to being able to hear in the name of Jesus. So he shaves his head in front of the village and gets baptized, and almost the entire village gets baptized because of it. It's just awesome what God's doing and that type of stuff. And then people go well, what about here? Like, what about here in America? And the answer is if you have the soil for miracles, it happens no matter where.

Speaker 1: 41:37

And the global church started like challenging us, my wife and I.

Speaker 1: 41:41

They said how often do you pray for your neighbors by name to come to Christ? Come on. And we dropped our heads. This is years ago. We're like we don't do that. And they're like how do you expect your neighbors to come to know Jesus? And I was like, oh so we were totally convicted. So, by name, we start praying for all of our neighbors. And three months later the neighbors behind us were like, hey, your kids are really good kids, is it because you go to church? Could we come with you? And we're like sure, and my neighbor, he'd never been to church before. And so he goes first week, goes the second week and he goes. Man, this church stuff is good SHIT. And I was like, yeah, I think Jesus would be really, really complimented by that. He is. He's good SHIT, you know.

Speaker 1: 42:35

And so then the neighbor in front of us she was kind of this real spiritualist worshipped crystals, energy, everything.

Speaker 1: 42:43

You got a lot of those here.

Speaker 1: 42:45

Oh man, we prayed for her for years by name, every day, and she came to us two years ago.

Speaker 1: 42:54

She came to us and goes I wanted to talk to you guys because I think I heard the voice of God and we're both just like, okay, what messed up crystal, you know a thing like that. And she goes. But when I heard the voice, I knew it was the God of the Bible. And I found a Bible that was in my house and I just started reading it. Can you guys help me? Like yes, yes, we can.

Speaker 1: 43:19

And and so now she's actually leading a ministry in a church, um, and she's got one, one of her, one of her kids, coming to Christ, and it's like starting to see multiple disciples who make disciples, and it starts just by praying your guts out. So here she is, has this dramatic encounter, hearing the voice of God in in a suburban American neighborhood, because we just start leaning into praying for someone daily, fighting for them in prayer, and so that's the cool stuff that God's saying it's all available to you, it's here for you, let's tap into it. And, yeah, beautiful miracles that are happening here in america just as well as as overseas, and, um, you know, I I can go off on the, on the uh, one more if you're telling stories.

Speaker 1: 44:07

All right, um, so my, uh, my, my wife. Well, let's, let's step back. So our friend hannah. She was Our friend, hannah. She was eight years old when she was pre-sold to be a slave in a brothel, and by the time she was 12, she was supposed to then be taken, and this is a place where the lowest of the low, the low caste they're actually called the traffic people by their own people group, and their story is you screwed up in your last life, karma sent you back low caste and you have to be abused or taken and you have to endure it, otherwise your next life won't be better, wow.

Speaker 3: 44:45

Works for you.

Speaker 1: 44:47

That's what Hinduism teaches, that's what the Buddhist reincarnation teaches. It's not like this Oprah happy, it's horrible, racist, institutionalized oppression and the story of the gospel that no, no, no, no, no. You're the head and not the tail. You're in God's family. God loves you. You're in the image of God that he made you and he saved you as a purpose for you. That's why the gospel is exploding in these areas. It's just such a better story.

Speaker 1: 45:12

So she gets rescued before and she has led over 450 people to Christ and planted all these churches. And then she started our feminine hygiene training, where she realized they're kicking girls out of the village and she's like, well, we can go in and train in feminine hygiene as women and then be church planters and start a group of women and then start planting a church and it's just beautiful. And so so 40,000 women in her nation get trained, wow. And the president of the nation asks to meet with Hannah. And this isn't a country that it's illegal to proselytize, it's illegal to share your faith. And so here she is, in front of the president of the nation, and the president of the nation looks at her and says give me three reasons why you follow Jesus.

Speaker 1: 45:57

And like she had a choice, like I could be arrested for this, and she looks at the prime minister, or as the president looks at the presidents, and she says I can't give you three reasons, because I have thousands of reasons and I'm going to you know, it just starts going off telling them all the you know so like she just tells them all these things that Jesus has done in her life, them all the you know so like she just tells them all these things that Jesus has done in her life. And so then a little while ago her uncle, out in a small Nepali village, gets deathly sick and he's in a Nepali hospital and that's like a dirt floor and a you know that's kind of a hospital. It'd be a dirt floor kind of little bed in there. And so my wife just feels prompted by the Holy Spirit to leave a WhatsApp message and she just leaves a prayer, sends it to Hannah. So Hannah takes her a couple of days before she's going to see her uncle because he's out in this crazy village. But she finally gets to see him a couple of days later and she walks into this dusty hospital floor with her phone and she prays the prayer that my wife prayed.

Speaker 1: 46:58

Wow, just plays it in English. He doesn't speak a word of English and she prays that prayer. He gets up and walks out, healed, out of the hospital and it's just like that Paul where he had the handkerchief, and it goes in a boat and then they lay it on him. But it's like a modern day version of that, with a WhatsApp, you know voicemail message and that's the kingdom man. You just take the second to pray. And what if my wife was just like, oh okay, well, that's bad. Instead of going, no, I'm going to pray, I'm going to send a blessing, I'm going to pray for somebody. And the Lord just the other month really reprimanded me and he said to me he said you, I've given you the power to bless and you're not using it.

Speaker 1: 47:41

Why don't you use it? And I was like, oh God, and I repent, and he's so kind. And now I'm like, okay, I'm gonna pronounce blessings over people because this is a power that God's given us. And just what would happen if we missed out on those opportunities to do that? So those are some of the just incredible kind of book of Acts type miracles, but they're all rooted in a dynamic prayer life. It's all rooted in, I mean, these coordinated prayer centers and coordinated fasting and coordinated together. We're joining all of our hands together in certain things that we're going to be praying for. And out of that good soil, man, miracles just start springing up and you can't even stop them. It's just beautiful.

Speaker 3: 48:29

Amen, amen. I was listening to one of your interviews and you were talking about your daughter was interceding for the girls in the nation. Yeah, and that was a very key spiritual warfare moment for you and it seemed to me that the actual spirits that were going after the kids in that nation came after your daughter Is that true, yeah, yeah, yeah, boy, that was Okay.

Speaker 1: 48:54

When I talk about sometimes God, the miracle is the miracle answer, but sometimes the miracle is his presence.

Speaker 3: 49:00

Amen.

Speaker 1: 49:01

And that was one of those moments. So for us the story goes like is during COVID, I do two things I run, you know, I own some travel technology companies and venture, and then our, you know, profits from the for-profit will cover the admin of venture. So when people give to venture, 100 of it goes over. So I split my time between the both and so they're really interconnected and god's just done miraculous things. And, um, so covet hits and we go from like selling 1500 tickets a day to like zero in three weeks. And then it gets way worse. We have to refund six months worth of sales. So we had, we had cash reserves, we had personal savings and we bled through all of those in months, and our retirement savings, all these things, and we had to lay off 100 of our employees. It was just brutal and still couldn't make it.

Speaker 1: 49:53

And then my daughter started having these nightmares, and these were horrible nightmares of demonic things happening to the girls that have been rescued in Nepal. And my daughter knows them, she's seen them, you know, prayed for them by face, or she's been to Nepal and seen them. And so she'd wake up puking they were so demonic and horrible at this time, I mean, and she'd be like crying Daddy, make them stop. And here I am like losing, losing everything, and at the same time, my daughter's having these nightmares and so out, night after night. I just say it was the time I got used to the smell of my carpet, where I'd lay on my face in front of the door of my daughter's room praying God, save us, god, save my daughter. This is so intense and it was so spiritual. Um, and we're used to that. I mean we do.

Speaker 1: 50:39

When we first started sending containers of food into a war zone, the very day that the container would ship out, there'd be a dark presence that would go into one of my kids' room and we didn't track it the first little bit. We were like what's going on? And then I just started realizing this is happening exactly when the containers are going. Okay, we need to get ahead of this in prayer and start really covering our home in the blood of Christ and speaking God's blessings over these rooms whenever these containers are going. And so we started doing that and no dark presence would come. So we've had some experience with that.

Speaker 1: 51:16

But this one man. We just kept fighting and fighting, and fighting. And on a Monday, uh, we, we didn't have payroll for Friday and I thought in the loans hadn't come in cause. No one wanted to loan the travel company in COVID and I thought this might be it. And then my daughter woke up or my daughter in the morning again was crying dad, make these stop. So I just went out and had it out with God. I just took the day. I mean, what else are you going to?

Speaker 3: 51:41

do when else can you go?

Speaker 1: 51:42

And I just praying and praying, and I cried more than I've ever cried in my adult life and I closed my eyes and I saw a picture of Christ and he had tears down his face and I heard a voice that just said you've never cried alone, Ryan.

Speaker 3: 51:59

Come on.

Speaker 1: 52:03

And I cannot explain this, but the absolute love of God was so real, it was like light itself, was love like pouring into me. I don't have words. It was in the infinites of the love of Christ, who. No one has ever cried alone. Anyone that's ever shed a tear, he's shed a tear with them. And I was just so overwhelmed with the love of God. It didn't matter, like all the other things didn't matter. All that mattered was the love of Christ and I knew, no matter what, it's going to be okay.

Speaker 1: 52:35

And I came back and we had this incredible prayer time with my daughter and we took communion and for the first time in three months, she didn't have nightmares. And then we took communion the next night no nightmares. And I was like, hey, kids, we're Catholic. Now we're taking communion every night, we're doing this, and we bought a big box of them and and we've been doing that for years, and and we we ended up getting a bridge loan able to secure financing for the company, and and then we've had our best year in company history. Now we grew out of it, hired back our employees, like, but all of those things didn't, were still secondary to experiencing the presence and the love of Christ. Amen. Like Psalm 23,. Right when that Psalm switches from third person to first person.

Speaker 3: 53:25

Amen.

Speaker 1: 53:26

Right. So it starts off. The Lord is my shepherd. He makes me light on green pastures, he restores my soul, and then it switches to you. Like, you anoint my head with oil, you prepare a table before me in the presence of my name, so that switch to you happens in the valley of the shadow of death. Come on, you are with me. And that's what happened to me. Was that valley of the shadow of death? Jesus went from the Lord to no, no, no, no, jesus, you are with me.

Speaker 1: 54:00

And that third person to first person. That's something that happens in the valley. And then here's the crazy thing on a spiritual warfare standpoint. So we go to Nepal shortly after and, with our incredible feminine hygiene training, church planting girls, and, like Esther 26, goes to a village. She just starts teaching feminine hygiene and then starts pulling a group together, starts studying the Bible. There's two crippled kids and she prays for them. They're five and eight. They both get up and walk and the whole village gets baptized. That's Esther, 26 year old. I mean just amazing, amazing. And so part of that team there's a girl named Mari Koma, and Mari Koma is part of that team. There's a girl named Mari Koma, and Mari Koma is part of that team.

Speaker 1: 54:40

We were all praying together and she started sharing that she'd been having nightmares every night, same ones, they were identical. She started sharing them. They were identical nightmares to my daughters, and so then my daughter had this moment of going oh, okay, like we're all in this fight together, it's real and we're up against the same thing and it's just wild. And so we pray with. Maricoma has been delivered of having those as well, and um, but it's, it's real and that's.

Speaker 1: 55:11

These are the things when I start sharing these stories, even the demonic ones, you know, like I've. I've had experiences where, had experiences where I was in a foreign country and I wake up shocked at night and there's these hands pushing me into the bed. The springs are making noise. I know I'm being pushed into the bed and I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs the name Jesus, but all that came out was like Jesus. And then the hands loosened a bit and I went Jesus and they loosened more and I finally could scream the name Jesus, like Jesus name, and it broke and fled. And so those are real things. When you're in these other places, it's not a game, it's not a, and so, like you said, being connected to the spirit is life and death. Being connected and a prayer life is like your lifeline. You can't do it. You're up against hell man, and we are too, but we don't realize it, like we don't see it all the time, but we are, and I tell stories like that, and then you'll have really like professional, multi-degree people come up to me and go. I've never felt freedom to tell people this. I had a demonic encounter and boom, boom, boom, boom, and so just being able to open the conversation up and then to tell people what to do in those moments.

Speaker 1: 56:31

The name of Jesus is not just nice sounding, it has the entire authority of heaven and it destroys every dark spirit in this world or another or any other world. That power of the name of Christ is something you realize in those moments. That's way different than just oh, in Jesus' name. It's like no, no, do you realize what you're saying? When you say in Jesus' name, like that's a big deal, and when you have those moments overseas, or you have those moments in those encounters, then you're realizing, oh gosh, just saying the name Jesus is a privilege, just right. When he says, hey, I give you my name, that was not a small thing, that was not just a refrigerator magnet where you're like, oh, I give you the name of Jesus, it's literally the power to push back hell itself. And that's what we get to see happening.

Speaker 3: 57:27

Amen. We interviewed two ex-Satanists from South Africa a couple weeks ago and they were sharing how the blood is the highest currency in the spirit realm. Oh yeah, and so your celebration of communion is huge in dealing with that.

Speaker 1: 57:43

Yeah, oh yeah. No, there's something about communion that I would say is particularly even the. You know, if you study the early church fathers, they even talk about this pretty calmly. Again, right, you know, like, you know, the spiritual darkness hates it and things like this, but they were real about it. They're like no, literally, you take communion and spiritual darkness, the blood of Christ.

Speaker 1: 58:07

There can be nothing more precious than the blood of Christ. There can't be anything conceivably, because it is sacrificial love in liquid form. The blood of Christ, like that is the highest and we don't realize it. And, yet again, God's given it to us. He's given it to us and overcome by the like it's so overcoming. So yeah, I encourage people, if you're in a spiritual battle, it's communion time, it's time to celebrate the blood, the sacrificial Like. If you know, we even have language for this, and when a soldier gives blood to save a country, that's the most precious thing. Is there anything more precious than that? And that's the same idea with the blood, and that's just. We're just riffing now, going off on it. But man, I do believe there might be some people that don't realize the power of the blood of Christ when it comes to demonic forces. So yeah, and it's set our family free, it's transformed our family.

Speaker 3: 59:12

So, yeah. That's beautiful. So I had a couple questions here for you. If you were to have a group of people that you were teaching in the church and you wanted to provoke them to prayer or to motivate them to prayer probably, yeah, yeah. If you were to motivate yourself, what stories would you say to yourself when you get up in the morning?

Speaker 1: 59:44

Yeah, no, that's so good. I've read a lot of the saints, the prayer books, even like your EM Bounds and Andrew Murray and all these incredible men of prayer. You know these, these, you know Andrew Murray and all these men of incredible men of prayer. My, my one thing about those was that I felt guilted about prayer instead of invited Right and and. So when I encountered the global church and they were inviting into this beautiful friendship, inviting into this unbelievable power of heaven, inviting into an adventurous life of miracles, inviting into never knowing when God's going to show up in some dynamic, powerful way, you know, like that type of invitation, inviting into the protection of Christ and the covering of Christ, like that really transformed things for me. And then I started going from okay, I don't have to be an expert in this, I just have to be an enthusiast, I just have to try all of it. And and when it became like this amazing adventure of trying everything and we actually took um all of the different prayer habits and we put into a deck of cards of that we learned from these leaders and this has been so dynamic to be able to have. I'll just pull out five or seven cards prayers of petition, prayers of listening, prayers of gratitude, prayers of receiving, prayers of playing blessings over people, like all these different types of prayers, and realizing that there's so much more than just saying quote unquote saying your prayers Right, that there's so much more to experience. And so that invitational side of things, of going okay, how do we, you know? Let me grab seven prayers Because I would say most people they almost approach prayer without any guidance and that's like going to the gym without a workout plan.

Speaker 1: 1:01:36

You got all these machines and all these things available to you but you just kind of mess around on that one, mess around on this one, and then you're done in the hot tub and whatever and you don't get a good workout. But if you come in with a plan, it's like, okay, I'm going to do this and then I'm going to do this and I'm going to do this, and it's like a trail in the kind of take you into the presence and then you can kind of go from there. And I've really enjoyed that idea of having some guided prayer practices. Scheduling things out and chopping them up throughout the day is really powerful too.

Speaker 1: 1:02:12

Being able to go like the first thing for me was uh, in football. They do two a days. You know when they really want to train, so make sure you have two prayer times. And I thought that's cool. But then the global church was like no, no, no, no. You craft a day with God, craft all of the habits. And if that, if you have an invitation into that, what I'd say is this start one habit in your craft a day.

Speaker 1: 1:02:40

And then, when you get that down, add another habit, and then add another habit, and then add another habit, and then you realize you're starting to spend more and more of your day with the Lord. And then you add habits, like you know, taking some time for retreat, and I started with just an afternoon, you know, taking a Friday afternoon. Then it was like no, let me take the whole day Friday once a month. And let me okay, let me try a fast. Okay, let me try a longer fast, Okay, let me try. And that invitational into this where it's like don't go out and run the marathon, go out and run a mile or two and then the next day try and run a little bit more. And that invitational draw to more and more and more. And what happens is you enjoy it more. Like one of the spiritual disciplers, if you will, or just people that have really mentored me. He said the people who have really good prayer lives have found a way to enjoy it.

Speaker 3: 1:03:29

Right.

Speaker 1: 1:03:30

You know, and it's just so cool to see that happen. So, and do you mind if we veer for one second?

Speaker 2: 1:03:36

on that.

Speaker 1: 1:03:37

Yeah, Even since the book has been out, there've been a lot of more studies on the effects of prayer on someone's brain, and this is unbelievable stuff. Like it truly. People who have a dynamic prayer life, like you've prayed 20 minutes a day for over eight weeks. That alone can transform your brain synapses so much that it shows up on a brain scan.

Speaker 3: 1:03:59

Wow.

Speaker 1: 1:04:00

Okay, and the Hebrew word for prayer, palal, is this really weird word. That's something that happens to you, so like it's you do it, but it happens to you, like if you step in a river and the river takes you, or if you step into a shower and the shower happens to you, that's the word palal. Is you step into the presence, but the presence happens to you? That's the word palal. Is you step into the presence but the presence happens to you? And so prayer, literally. This is documented by agnostic scientists like National Library of Science and Andrew Newberg and some of these really incredible scientists that are neurologists and they're saying, yeah, prayer is medicine. You can actually measure the effects of prayer on somebody. Like you can medicine. Their blood pressure is lower, their stress and anxiety is lower, they sleep better, they recover from injury better, like it's unbelievable the effects of prayer. But it has to be relational prayer. Wow, it can't just be like sand is soft and water is wet, because for all those good things like the joy and the peace and the graciousness and the optimism, for those to grow in your brain, you have to fire the relational parts of your brain. And so our brains are literally wired to have a relational connection with Christ, like. That's how we're wired to have all of the good character traits of God embodied into a person that we have a relationship with. That's how your brain wires. You can't grow in character without relationship, and so it's so cool that we're designed for relationship and there's science behind it, and it's so cool that we're designed for relationship and there's science behind it, and it's just unbelievable.

Speaker 1: 1:05:35

So what I've been noticing is that a byproduct of spending time, wasting time with God, abiding with God, is things that used to make me angry don't make me angry anymore, come on. Things that used to just take me off into what do you want to call it? Going into a dark place, sadness-wise, or hopelessness, or anxiety, or those things that doesn't happen as much anymore, because it's happening like God happens to us in prayer, and that wasn't even what I was praying about. I was just spending time with Jesus, and that wasn't even what I was praying about. I was just spending time with Jesus and being able to, and so the byproduct of the presence of God is so transformative and you can see it on a brain scan. It's science, it's just so cool, and so that's the thing, too.

Speaker 1: 1:06:24

I just encourage people is this is going to happen to you. Not just you do it, it happens to you. Just jump in the water Right and the river takes you. And that's literally the word, the idea behind palal, the word prayer in the Hebrew. And, yeah, they've always believed that. This is one of those other cool things about the miracles, is that so the priestly blessing that they gave? That Lord bless you and keep you. May his face shine upon you, may he be gracious to you, may he turn to you and give you his peace, his shalom. They believe that that was so holy that they would take their shoes off when they give the blessing, because they feel like the moment that they're giving that blessing, they're actually standing on holy ground. And so there is all of these stories for hundreds of years before Christ, of miracles that happened when rabbis were giving the priestly blessing.

Speaker 3: 1:07:22

Wow.

Speaker 1: 1:07:22

And the miracles were a young girl. They thought she died and she came back to life. A leper was cured of leprosy People that were starving. They had a miraculous harvest and she came back to life. A leper was cured of leprosy People that were starving. They had a miraculous harvest. Like going through all these miracles and they're basically the list of the miracles that Jesus did in the Gospels and these are hundreds of years before. And so Christ coming, he's actually like they would have seen all the. These are the stories that were in the water. You know, in the time that Christ came, have seen all the? These are the stories that were in the water. You know, in the time that Christ came of like, do you know when the priestly blessing was given? You know, this blind man received his sight and all of these things. So when Jesus did these miracles, he was literally announcing like I am the blessing of God.

Speaker 3: 1:08:03

Personification.

Speaker 1: 1:08:05

I am the person like it's coming to a person, and so I think of that now. When I'm blessing is I'm literally releasing the joy and the presence of Christ in somebody. It's just so cool. Sorry, that was a bit of a parenthetical, but we'll have some fun.

Speaker 3: 1:08:22

We're good, amen, amen. So we're about an hour eight in, so I think a question that I had for you is how do you preach to you? How do you preach to yourself?

Speaker 1: 1:08:39

Yeah, I think the most important thing you can tell yourself is every day. First off is the gospel. Like, preaching the gospel to your own soul is one of the greatest habits of a believer. Teaching the gospel to your own soul is one of the greatest habits of a believer, and I really. And you remind yourself how far away you were from God and how much Jesus did and how low he sank to meet us where we're at, and the blood of the cross and the love of God shown in a perfect, perfect image of total sacrifice. And then the resurrection of Christ and the resurrection of his soul. Like reminding myself that, and on my very, very worst day I was still running away from God and he grabbed me and dragged me into the presence of God in heaven for eternity. You know like you start with that and when you start with that.

Speaker 1: 1:09:31

One of the other things I preach to my soul is first the gospel and then the second thing I do a prayer all the time where I just hold my hands out and I say God, can you remind me how much you love me, because Paul said that we would know the love of Christ that surpasses all other knowledge. Know how high and wide and long and deep. Is that love, and everything comes from knowing that God loves me. And then I don't look for love anywhere else. I don't look for attention anywhere else. I pray my soul happy in God and then I don't look for attention anywhere else. I pray my soul happy in God and then I don't look for happiness in this world, right?

Speaker 1: 1:10:14

And so that idea of spending, just stopping and pausing and just the other day I grew up kind of just super hyper kid and so I'd get spanked all the time. I was always getting in trouble, right. I mean, I needed it. I probably got spanked every day. You know that? Yeah, right.

Speaker 1: 1:10:32

And so I was praying one day I said God, can you and I do this regularly, god, can you just show me how you love me? This morning, and I heard the words you're not in trouble. Wow, come on what? And I didn't. And I just start bawling because there is something deep inside of me that still felt like I was in trouble. Bawling because there is something deep inside of me that still felt like I was in trouble. And God's like Christ took it. You're not in trouble anymore. And I'm literally like I really stood up and I felt lighter, like I felt like the world was lighter. I felt like something lifted off my shoulders and I was like I'm not in trouble anymore, like I'm just, and there's no set of words, there's no phrase that God could have said in that moment that would have had a deeper impact than you're not in trouble, and I didn't even think about that, you know.

Speaker 1: 1:11:23

So, like that idea of giving God space to love you and then out of that, if you're loved, then you love others, you know, and the fruit of the Spirit actually come out of love. Like if you have the love of God, then you have joy. And if you have the love of God, you know you're loved and you're filled with joy, then you can have peace. And then if you have that peace, then it's easier to be patient and to be kind and like it's a whole progression that starts in that love and there's just nothing like knowing you're loved by God. So those are the first two things you got to preach to your own soul is the gospel and truly letting God love you.

Speaker 3: 1:12:05

Amen.

Speaker 1: 1:12:07

And then it's so much easier because what is fruit? Fruit is something that grows in you and then is taken and given to something else. That's what a tree does. It grows it and gives it. So the love of God has to grow in you and then you can give it. That's how fruit works. And so those are the beautiful things.

Speaker 1: 1:12:26

And then I would also say I have like a whole set of declarations that are in these prayer cards that I go through and I just remind myself the truth of all of reality and it'll just be like I'm a child of God, I'm loved by God, I'm chosen by God before the creation of the world, I have everything I need for life and godliness, that God prepared good works for me today. That there's, I have that there's. Literally, if the enemy comes in like a flood, the Holy Spirit will rise up a standard against. Just start grabbing hold of these promises and reminding your soul of these promises. And then the other part is I preach gratefulness to my soul and I think it says you enter His presence through thanksgiving and gratefulness. And maybe one of the reasons we don't experience the presence of God is that we don't remind our souls to be grateful. And if you, if you start cultivating gratefulness, you're literally cultivating opening the doors of heaven into the presence of God. That's what the scriptures say, the gates you know through Thanksgiving, and I think the ungrateful heart can't cross into the gates of heaven and into the presence of God, meaning metaphorically.

Speaker 1: 1:13:44

And there's this idea of going oh God, you did this for me, thank you. Like having a list of things he's done for you and writing them down that's what Psalms 136 is is like inserting his love endures forever. He did this for me and his love endures forever. He did this for me and his love endures forever. So those are like, those are like vitamins for your soul, man. It's just amazing. And then the last thing is and this is what I've been praying about lately is that the Lord's been saying take a moment to remember who you're talking to before you pray. Because if I remember like, oh wait, the one who created everything, oh wait, it's the one who literally put the stars in the place. Okay, it's the one who is beyond all comprehension and understanding. And he's the one saying you're my son. Wow, the more you realize how big he is, the more powerful those words you're my son are. And so I just take time to remind myself who I'm talking to, and I pray way differently.

Speaker 3: 1:14:52

Amen, amen. It creates a sense of reverence and awe, that is. And then he lifts you by your face and you're like, I'm sorry, what?

Speaker 1: 1:14:59

Yes, yes, oh, come on, yeah, it's astounding, and yeah it's astounding. And then you get to live in awe and there's actually a whole study on USC did about awe and how awe leads to a generous life and joy and all these other things, and like just cultivating awe is part of what happens in prayer. It's just beautiful. Yeah, that's amazing.

Speaker 3: 1:15:27

I was. I do a lot of fishing and I remember one one time I was getting ready to go on a fishing trip and for those who are, you know, in into fishing a lot, when you get ready to go on a trip several days before, you're like locked into, like oh my God, you know. So I'm driving on my way to work and it's like four o'clock in the morning and I'm trying to pray and I'm like Jesus, you're so amazing.

Speaker 3: 1:15:47

Oh my gosh, that fishing trip, wait, I'm no so you know, so, like you know, jesus, you're, you're good and you're glorious. Oh my, the fishing, and I and I, just I'm like, oh, like, I'm and I'm like father, I'm so sorry. And this is what he said I like fishing with you on the river, come on, and I was blown away and I was like I think there are some times where we think things that are big deals to him are not big deals to him yes, yes, yes, no.

Speaker 1: 1:16:17

But he's inviting and he's saying hey, I want to be invited into every part of your life.

Speaker 3: 1:16:22

Amen.

Speaker 1: 1:16:22

I want to be invited on the fishing trip with you. Yeah amen, and that's so exciting. I mean, Jesus showed up at weddings and celebrated with people. That's our God.

Speaker 2: 1:16:33

Amen.

Speaker 1: 1:16:35

And yeah, it's, and what one. Just one last thought as we're talking about this. There's one time that Jesus it said that Jesus did this like celebratory thing. That was the Greek of. It was a like so excited that you're physically jumping up and down, touchdown dance type of thing. And that was when the disciples came back and they started saying the miracles that you did, jesus, they're happening through us as well, and that's the touchdown dance of Jesus, and I just I want to encourage people that Jesus is like waiting to dance with us and excitement like touchdown dance, jumping up and down when he starts doing the same things in and through us miracle wise that he did, like that's the bingo for him, you know, in the gospels, and so that's an exciting invitation. That's way cooler than like a stuffy. You need to pray more. It's like you know, guess what you're invited to, and you're invited to fish with Jesus. You're invited to see miracles with Jesus. You're invited to be led by a voice and an adventure that you never thought possible.

Speaker 3: 1:17:47

So yeah, amen, amen. Well, everybody, thanks for tuning in to Blood and Oil this week. Ryan Skug, ventureorg leadwithprayercom. He's got the book Lead with Prayer. Go ahead and check it out Any plugs you want to shoot for the show.

Speaker 1: 1:18:05

Ryan. Oh man, pray for us, Please pray for us. We're in a spiritual battle. A lot of our partners are being threatened. Every night, I say we go to bed in safety and our partners wake up in danger. Oh, wow. And so I just really pray, pray for our partners. They're seeing miracles, but boy are they fighting. Boy are they fighting, and yeah. So that would be huge. And so adventureorg is the site for our nonprofit and our ministry, and if you would be so kind as to be one of those thousands of hands lifting up our partners in the front lines, we'd be honored.

Speaker 3: 1:18:47

Glory to God.

Speaker 1: 1:18:49

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:18:49

Glory to God.

Speaker 1: 1:18:50

Can I pray here for?

Speaker 3: 1:18:51

people listening, absolutely, please do.

Speaker 1: 1:18:54

Oh man, let's just pause for a second. Oh Jesus, what a gift, what a gift that you're near. You've been here this whole time and I just want to just stop and gift that you're near. You've been here this whole time and I just wanna just stop and acknowledge that you're here and you're so with everyone who's listening right now. You are so with them right now. So what I pray is that for an unbelievable an awakening of awareness for everyone listening, an awakening in their heart of an awareness that you are with us.

Speaker 1: 1:19:42

Jesus, come. Oh, we need you, jesus. This world needs you, our neighbors need you, our neighborhoods need you, our families need you, our marriages, our kids, this land, this nation needs you. God, the tough places of the world, this world needs you.

Speaker 1: 1:19:59

We join in with the last words of the New Testament that just say come, lord Jesus, come, come, lord Jesus, come. Come in power and come in kindness, and come with your authority and come, god, in your awesome and powerful presence. Come, lord Jesus, in your sacrificial love. Come, lord Jesus, into our hearts, into our minds, into our souls. Come, lord Jesus, into our past, into our present. Come and transform our future. Lord Jesus, come and stir us to be people of prayer Stir us to long for the presence of God, to look forward to spending time with our Lord, to be able to push out all of the things and the distractions that are buying for our time and buying for our attention and our worship. And I pray, jesus, you lead us into an incredible adventure of walking with you, of fishing with you, of just having that connection with you throughout the days. I pray, jesus, that you would raise up all of the prayer warriors and the laborers for your harvest.

Speaker 1: 1:21:06

Lord Jesus, we believe the time is short, believe the time is short. We believe that the calendar is winding down for God, for you to have an incredible, unbelievable end time harvest around the world. And you're already starting in our midst and we just say in our day, in our time, in our areas, in our neighborhoods, in our families oh, jesus, that you come. And so I just pray for everyone who's listening right now, god, that you'd stir and spark a hunger to pray and to seek your face, to fast, to practice all different types of prayer practices and to live the adventurous life following the voice of the Holy Spirit.

Speaker 1: 1:21:47

I pray for those that I'm guessing there are people who are listening right now, that if we were going to sit down, god, they would say, hey, there's some demonic stuff going on, I need to be freed. And I pray, jesus, that you would empower them to use the name of Christ and the blood of Christ and be set free. In Jesus' name and God, I know there are people that are hungering for your presence and for a miracle. I pray, jesus, that you'd be with them and I know, god, that there's just an awakening that you want to do in our day, in our time, and I pray, god, that you do that In Jesus' name, amen.

Speaker 3: 1:22:25

Amen.

Speaker 4: 1:22:28

Wow, guys, what a stellar interview with Ryan Skug. Thank you, ryan, for joining us. You can find him at Ventureorg or pick up his amazing book Lead with Prayer at LeadWithPrayercom. You can pick up wonderful prayer tools there as well, so please check it out, guys. Thank you so much for listening. Please like and subscribe, if you haven't already, and leave us a review if you feel moved. It helps more people hear all of the wonderful interviews and things that we're putting out. Guys, thank you for joining us again. Blood and Oil out.

Speaker 2: 1:23:00

Blood and Oil podcast is filmed and recorded by Pastor Jesse and Zane in California, with Terrence, on video call from the East Coast. We thank our supporters on video call from the East Coast. We thank our supporters and please be reminded to use your own discernment, as the views and opinions expressed by the hosts and guests may not reflect those of other people, institutions or organizations. A variety of guests will join us as we discuss modern events through a biblical lens, so buckle up and enjoy the ride. Thanks to all of our supporters and praise God for the opportunity to serve him in this way. We hope you have enjoyed this episode and pray for blessings upon your day.