Former NFL and baseball player Deion Sanders prayed in tongues as he was pushed to his limits with Christian adventurer Bear Grylls in the final episode of Running Wild which aired on NBC last night.

Sanders, 47, won the Super Bowl with the San Francisco 49ers and the Dallas Cowboys, but facing a steep ascent up a mesa in Utah on his first ever camping trip, the NFL star reached the end of himself.

"I'm not ready. I have to be ready inside," Sanders said, daunted by the prospect of the climb, and began praying in tongues, Guardian Liberty Voice reports.

"Lord, you didn't bring me all the way out here to end this," Sanders said. He continued, praying in tongues as he went.

On reaching the top, he added: "It's the most horrifying thing going up a mountain like that. You can't look down, you can't look up. You have to just look straight ahead. Sometimes in life, you have to move laterally to get ahead. I never really thought about it like that."

Sanders said on the show that he came to faith at a particularly low point in his life, while he was going through a divorce with his first wife.

Even though his career was going well, Sanders admitted to having suicidal thoughts, even driving his car over a cliff.

On his website, Sanders writes about this time, saying: "For me, my hope is rooted in my relationship with the Lord. I found hope in Him when I couldn't find hope in PMS – Power, Money & Sex.

"The enemy had tricked me into believing that I would be much better off dead. I had all of the things that society said should make you happy, but you can't be happy if you don't have hope."

Having become a Christian, Sanders went on to fight for custody of his children. "I wanted to be the perfect father," he told Bear. "I know all of their clothes sizes, their shoes sizes. I know how to braid my daughter's hair. If it's all about you, then you've lost."

"He's a man of focus, a family man, a man of faith. For that, he's definitely earned my respect," Grylls said.