Television adventurer and author Bear Grylls is encouraging people who feel far from God to come home, drawing on the simple prayer he offered after losing his godfather.
“That little prayer has been the backbone of my life ever since,” Grylls wrote on Instagram earlier this week, reflecting on the faith he knew as a child and later rediscovered through grief.
Before the survival shows and mountain summits, he remembered a relationship with God that felt natural and personal. He believed God was there and regarded Him as a friend, without needing an elaborate explanation.
School complicated that picture. Grylls described encountering a version of religion that made him question whether he had misunderstood God, and he quietly walked away from faith.
Then his godfather died unexpectedly. Grylls described him as a second father, and the loss left him wanting to pray without knowing quite how to begin.
His request was simple: he wanted God to be the friend he remembered from childhood. Looking back, Grylls described that unpolished prayer as an enduring foundation, rather than a passing response to a painful moment.
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He has spoken publicly about that turning point before. During an October 2025 appearance at Liberty University, Grylls recalled reaching out to God as a grieving teenager and finding a presence that stayed with him through the adventures that followed.
For a man who recovered from a broken back after a parachuting accident, climbed Everest and hosted MAN VS. WILD and RUNNING WILD WITH BEAR GRYLLS, his account of coming back to God begins not with a feat of strength, but with asking for help.
For anyone wondering whether it is too late to return, Grylls pointed to a familiar picture: the father welcoming his wayward son in Jesus’ parable. The son has run off and squandered what he was given, yet his father runs toward him when he finally heads home.
“God doesn’t make us earn our way back,” Grylls encouraged, connecting that welcome to the mercy he has relied on himself and inviting followers to consider their own distance from God.
The account in Luke 15 includes both the son’s recognition of his wrongdoing and the father’s eager compassion. The young man returns ready to confess, and his father meets him with an embrace and a celebration.
For families, that makes this more than a familiar Sunday school story. It offers a way to talk honestly about failure, repentance and forgiveness without making a person’s worst decision the final word about who they are.
Grylls’ reflection does not present faith as a way to avoid loss. Instead, he remembers finding someone to turn to in the middle of it, then carries that experience into an invitation for others who may have stopped praying.
“It doesn’t matter how far we’ve wandered, or how long it’s been,” he reassured. Returning begins with turning toward home.
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