Comedian and Hollywood actor Russell Brand said Monday coincidences are “created by prayer” as a kind of “sacred synergy.”
Brand, who was baptized as a Christian last spring, said in a video posted on X (former Twitter) that he has been reading and drawing spiritual benefit from Nicky Gumbel’s Bible in One Year.
The 49-year-old British actor also reflected on “coincidences” and their relationship with Christian prayer.
He shared a personal example of praying on Sunday for Christ to knock on the door of his heart and to allow him to open it to Him.
“So, I was thinking about this idea of our Lord Jesus knocking on the door of my heart,” Brand said, “because I was starting to feel like although I’m Christian, there is of course… more territory within me to be yielded to him.”
The actor proceeded to recount that the next day, Monday, the 7th anniversary of his marriage to Laura Gallacher, his wife gave him “this gift.”
He showed the camera a small triptych and opened it to reveal a crucifix, saying “as I opened the doors, I saw that coincidences happen more when I pray.”
“What a great anniversary present from a great wife,” he added.
“I need spirituality,” Brand has explained previously as motivation behind his conversion to Christianity. “I need God, or I cannot cope in this world.”
The Forgetting Sarah Marshall star has suggested many people are turning back to Christianity as the empty value system of modernity crumbles and leaves them wanting more.
“I know a lot of people are sort of cynical about the increasing interest in Christianity and the return to God, but to me, it’s obvious,” he said.
“As meaning deteriorates in the modern world, as our value systems and institutions crumble, all of us become increasingly aware that there is this eerily familiar awakening and beckoning figure that we’ve all known all of our lives within us and around us. And for me, it’s very exciting,” he declared.
Last December, Brand told his followers he was reading the Bible and The Problem of Pain, a 1940 book by C.S. Lewis that explores the meaning of suffering in human life.
In January, he said he was reading Pastor Rick Warren’s The Purpose-Driven Life and that he desired a “personal relationship with God.”