When faced with a challenge, “Today” co-anchor Savannah Guthrie often will take a moment to say a prayer.

It can happen in a makeup chair before she takes her seat at NBC’S Rockefeller Center studio, during a ride to the airport or just before she heads into an interview with a major newsmaker. Once, she prayed with co-anchor Hoda Kotb before they went on the air to tell viewers that their longtime colleague Matt Lauer had been fired.

Based on the turbulent decade she’s spent on NBC’S morning franchise, even a nonbeliever would understand why Guthrie, 49, seeks support from a higher power.

Over her 10 years at “Today,” Guthrie has mastered the balancing act of delivering serious breaking stories and smiling through the softer entertainment segments that are part of morning TV, the profit engine of network news divisions.

But the attorney-turned-journalist also had to navigate several crises at the network and will have to lead the program into a future where a generation of viewers don’t have the same morning TV habit as their parents.

In a recent Zoom call from her dressing room, Guthrie said she was grateful for having made it this far after being thrust into the spotlight to replace Ann Curry in 2012, a year after joining the program as a co-host for its 9 a.m. hour. Curry’s unceremonious departure angered some “Today” fans who believed she was treated poorly by Lauer.

Five years later, Guthrie had to walk through the fire again. In November 2017, she told viewers that Lauer — the longest-tenured host in the show’s long history — was banished over sexual harassment allegations. Alongside new co-anchor Hoda Kotb, she held the fractured TV family together.

Instead of seeing ratings collapse after Lauer’s departure, the program’s first all-female hosting team held the audience. The historic pairing also helped mitigate a rash of stories about sexual harassment allegations within the network’s news division.

Perseverance has served Guthrie well in the last decade. Viewers will see more of her in the coming months as she will be a guest host of “Jeopardy!” for two weeks starting Monday. She also will handle NBC’S coverage of the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics in Tokyo.

Last month, she conducted three newsmaking interviews in three cities over 36 hours: Brian Houston, founder of the scandal-plagued Hillsong Church; Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, after she was ousted from her Republican leadership role in Congress; and Ellen Degeneres, following her decision to end her daytime talk show amid allegations that she ignored a toxic work environment.

Guthrie, who has spoken more openly about her Christian faith in recent years, said such a whirlwind day and a half is where prayer can come in handy.

“The No. 1 thing I always pray for is to make sure that I come to an interview with sincerity and good faith, having done my homework,” she said. “I think that’s the best I can give to that person who agreed to be interviewed and may be in a difficult time.”