Tyler Perry Puts His Faith in God

You and I have very similar backgrounds. You know, I talk to people about faith, and you put God first all the time. Why is prayer important to you? Are you kidding me, man? And I talk about this in the book. My mother and grandmother would talk to me about prayer all the time. And just, they taught me about God and faith and Jesus Christ. And had I not had them in my life, I don't know where I would be. Because what I found is that if your kids are going through something, they're gonna turn to something to get through it. And if you don't teach them about faith, then what else, they have other alternatives that they'll go to that aren't great alternatives. So I was glad that they gave that to me. But what they taught me, I'll tell you this quick story, and this is in a book. I heard my uncle preaching one time, and he said that if you pray and ask God to give you a blessing, he'll give it to you. And I went home, and I thought the people inside of the floor-mounted color television were real people. So I prayed as a little boy that God would give me the little people in the television to come out and I could take care of them. And I thought that this was an impossible prayer. One day, I come home from school, and the lady across the street, she had moved away, and she had two parakeets, and she had left to ask my mother if I could have them, and they spoke. So I thought God had answered my prayer as a little boy. So from that moment on, I just believed everything I asked God for, he was gonna do. Yeah. It's in the book. Now, this book, Hire is Waiting, it has four parts in it. Planting the seeds, nourishing the roots, branching out, and harvesting the fruit. Why did you do it that way? You know, I did this analogy of a tree as Madea one time on stage. And some kind of way it went viral online. And now it's 75 million views of Madea talking about trees, the trees in your life, and how people come in your life, some are like leaves on a tree, they just sit there for a season. Some are like the branches, you can step out on them, but they can't handle too much weight. But if you find some people in your life like the roots, then you've got some really good people in your life. So I go into more detail there, but this analogy of trees has always been around my life. So I wanted to definitely talk about that in those parts. Which one of the sections was the most challenging for you to write? Oh, anytime I have to talk about my mother, man. She died in 2009. So anytime I have to talk about her, that's really, really hard to get through. It's even hard for me to read sometimes, looking back on it. Yeah. Because she gave me everything. Yeah. And you finna ask another question, we're not gonna do that. Go on to another question, Steve. No, I'm gonna pass, because you know, I get, my mother, man, it's hard for me to really, you know, I just was able, last Thanksgiving, my daughter gave me a picture of her. It was the first time I was able to look at my mama without crying. I get it. And my mama been gone 20 years. I get it. I'm 60. I still cry about her, you know. At 60, man, because she was just like, like the greatest person I ever met. I didn't know you could be no greater than my mama, and to this day, nobody yet to prove me wrong, so. All right, thanks Tyler. Listen, you all need to pick up a copy of his new book, Hire is Waiting. It's available now. We'll be right back, folks. Hey, you made it to the end of this video. I got a lot more that you're gonna enjoy, so just click to watch the next one. And make sure you subscribe to always know what's happening.