Stickin’ my neck way out on this, but here goes. I’ve learned and experienced some things about praying in tongues that I think could be a very practical help to Christians desiring a more personal prayer time with God. I’m a little hesitant, ‘cuz I’ve never heard anyone else teach this. I’m not calling this some great revelation from God, so I welcome feedback.
I’ll start with a personal experience that set the course for where I’ve come now. It’s when I received the baptism of the Holy Ghost, speaking in tongues. I was all alone, in my car, driving down the interstate… planning on having hands laid on me at this charismatic Lutheran campus group meeting in a dorm dayroom. I was driving… thinking… expecting… and I heard the Lord speak to my heart, that He was just as faithful and powerful, right there… right then… as anywhere, or any time. I received it… let it sink in just a little bit… took a very long deep breath, like I was inhaling the Spirit of God… and let it out… just ROLLING OUT in tongues!!
I was way early for the meeting, so I just drove around the interstate loop for probably close to an hour, just belting out that new language, non-stop, and loud! I honestly didn’t know how, if, or when, I was going to shift back into English! When I knocked on the door of the dorm room, I didn’t know WHAT would come out of my mouth! (It was English. Whew.)
That was an awesome experience, and I was changed forever! Yet just a few weeks later, after hearing some ‘wise words of caution’ (AKA doubt) from some very sincere, well-meaning Christians… against supernatural things of the Spirit, I started to question whether what I had experienced was really of the Lord. So I backed off for a little bit.
The smartest thing you can ever do when you’re not sure something is of the Lord, is ask HIM! And listen! That’s what I did. I thought that if I got my answer, or my assurance, from any man; then some other man could take it away just as easily.
So I pleaded with the Lord to show me if what I got was from Him, or if it was just my own self, or worse. He heard. He answered. The next time I went to pray in tongues, it was a totally different language! Oh, you don’t know how much that did for me! I knew, I knew, I KNEW that it was the Spirit of the almighty God moving in me!
So, I know what it’s like to question even my own experiences. “Did that really happen?” “Was that the Lord?” “Was that just your imagination?” If that’s where you’re at now… hey, you’ve got lots of good company. (Think of John the Baptist.) But God doesn’t want you (or your good company) to be stuck there. If you’re feeling a bit like John, then I’m here to be like one of those messengers going back to John, to encourage you with what I’ve seen and heard!
Now, to praying and speaking in tongues. I believe that every gift of the Spirit can be developed beyond the level of when the gift was given. The gifts can be stirred up, or neglected.
“Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery.” [1 Timothy 4:14]
“Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands.” [2 Timothy 1:6]
The Giver is always to be honored above the gift, as the Creator is to be honored over the creation. Yet every gift is to be honored, because of who gave it. But there are ‘good’ gifts, and there are ‘perfect’ gifts… all from the Father of lights.
“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” [James 1:17]
Every single gift from God is good! And we should treasure every one! But we can take whatever gifts or ‘talents’ God has given us, and go invest, trade, grow, profit… turn the two into four, the five into ten. (See Matthew 25:14-30)
1 Corinthians 12:28 says, “And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues.”
It’s pretty easy to see that a gift of teaching can be developed… not originated from scratch by man’s own will… but developed by use and knowledge. Same with miracles, word of knowledge, word of wisdom, healings, helps… even governments. It only makes sense then that we can also develop that one simple personal gift that we all should be using more than any other… praying in tongues.
One familiar scripture about praying in tongues is this: “Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. 27 And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.“ [Romans 8:26-27 KJV]
There are a lot of mysteries in there for me, but one thing I see is that there is a ‘mind of the Spirit’ behind the words, or the groaning. Praying the words uttered by the Spirit of God is great; but I believe we can pray the words WITH the mind of the Spirit. Just like we yield our tongue and pray by the Spirit; so we can yield our minds, and THINK and FEEL the mind of the Spirit as we pray.
I can say from experience, that this takes praying in the Holy Ghost to a whole ‘nother level. When you FEEL the mind of the Spirit, your praying involves not your tongue and your lips only, but your emotions… your guts… sometimes even your whole body! As the mind of the Spirit moves and changes, your praying, and everything inside you, moves and shifts with the Spirit.
“Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” [Romans 10:17] When your praying is preceded by, or accompanied by, hearing the voice of the Lord; you can believe for great things! When you take the time to get quiet before the Lord, and HEAR the mind of the Spirit before you pray, even your praying in tongues can take on a greater power. But take it even a step farther, and link your whole mind and body and spirit to the Spirit of God, and just FLOW with Him! You’ll find yourself praying huge, mind-boggling, world-changing prayers… even if you don’t know a single word you’ve spoken!
As you’re praying IN the Holy Ghost, your prayers can change from intercession and supplication, to praise and thanksgiving; or to prophecy; or speaking bold commands in the spiritual realm… all in tongues. Or it could shift to your understanding… in English.
Prayer, by its simplest definition, is ‘asking’. But the biggest key to powerful, effective prayer, is LISTENING. That applies when we pray with the understanding, AND when we pray in the Spirit.
In Joshua 10:6-14, we read of Joshua commanding the sun and the moon to stand still in the heaven, and it says in verse 14, that “the Lord hearkened to the voice of a man!” God listened to a man! But Joshua got the boldness… the crazy audacity… to command such a thing, because he FIRST heard the ‘mind of the Spirit’! Joshua heard God say that He had ‘delivered them into his hand’, and Joshua was seeing that he needed a little more daylight to do what God wanted done! So Joshua comes up with a smple solution… have the sun stand still!
How much easier it is to pray HUGE prayers, when you know the mind of the Spirit, and you’re praying. IN. the Holy Ghost!
On a practical level now… if your unknown tongue is just a couple syllables, thank God for it! Every gift from Him is GOOD! Then my personal suggestion for you would be, that when you get by yourself to pray in tongues… just wait and be still for a while… and listen for the mind of the Spirit. Then, when you can feel a sense of His mind, start praying in your simple limited tongue, with the ‘emotion’ of His mind. You get your spirit flowing with His Spirit, and your tongue will catch up! And pretty soon your whole body will catch up! Next thing you know, you might get ‘caught up’ into the glory of God!
Just be FREE! Go wherever the Spirit takes you! If God is weeping… weep with Him. If He’s angry… pray angry! If He’s excited… turn loose the excitement! If He uses you to speak destruction and judgment to the forces of darkness… speak it with authority!
I once preached a half-hour message in tongues to a group of people somewhere in the world. I was in my bedroom. I don’t know where they were, but I know I had an audience. God is doing AWESOME things! Get ready! If you experience something, and you wonder if it was really God… Ask Him. He wants you to KNOW! But don’t expect people to understand.
Back to the practical. It’s important to get alone… where there are no distractions, and you’re not bothering anyone else, and you have no deadlines. If you need to send the kids out to a sleepover, do it. If the only time you have is late at night, do it. If you fall asleep, don’t let it bother you. (I’ve done a lot of sleeping on my knees.) Do what you can, when you can, but just do WHATEVER you gotta do!
The real Christian life is a RELATIONSHIP with the Lord! Relationships DEVELOP… with talking, and listening, and doing stuff TOGETHER! Even our prayer time should always be doing stuff TOGETHER with the Lord!
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