Watching Deion Sanders from afar during his playing days one might think that he had it all. We saw the championships, the money and the fame but behind the scenes all wasn’t as it appeared.
While the world saw “Prime Time” there were things in Sanders’ personal life that he simply couldn’t tackle. The death of his father and losing custody of his children began a downward emotional spiral that was invisible to the world. It was all hidden behind the million dollar smile.
One night, as an act of what one might describe as providence, Sanders met Pastor David Forbes. The minister was a friend of Sanders’ agent at the time, Eugene Parker. During this time Parker, obviously aware of the struggles facing Sanders, wanted the opportunity to minister and counsel Sanders. It came at a charity basketball game in Columbus, Ohio, and Forbes happen to be along during the trip.
“I met him there at the game. We never came out of the locker room. We were there for three hours. I shared Christ with him, shared the gospel with him, and started not only his walk with the Lord, but our friendship together. And it’s been a wonderful friendship for these almost 25 years. If I think about it, we’ve been through just about everything together. We started a Bible study together in Dallas. He started it and we had some players and then their wives, then some coaches with their wives, then some citizens, just regular citizens. And by the time it was over, it was several hundred people in this Bible study called Prime Time Tuesdays, where we poured the word of God in the people,” Forbes told Uncle Neely from Thee Pregame Show.
The meeting with Deion Sanders you couldn’t even pray for
Forbes has been along for the ride and is still amazed to this day that he’s a friend of Sanders while downplaying the impact that he’s had.
“The Lord had a plan for his life. The Lord may have used me instrumentally to get him to come to that place, but I understand more than anything it really is the Lord doing something in him, and the Lord brought us together. It’s a huge, amazing thing that the Cowboy were always my favorite football team from a child and how the Lord arranged for me to pray and have a discipleship relationship with my favorite player on my favorite team. Only the Lord could do that. You can’t even pray for that to happen,” he said.
Now that Sanders has elevated his career from player to broadcaster to a coach at a Power Five program, Forbes can see the purpose behind the path.
“It’s a platform for the Lord Jesus Christ. And it’s a wonderful thing to see. All the time I’ve seen Deion, it has been about helping people, whether it was going to the South Dallas nursing home and just ministering to people that didn’t have any family members to visit them. Whether it’s helping kids, helping single moms, helping families, helping churches, he has always been about helping people.”
