SPEAKING INTIMACIES

1 Cor.14:2 – If you praise him in the private language of tongues, God understands you but no one else does, for you are sharing intimacies just between you and him.

Praying in tongues has been a part of my life for the last fifty years. I can’t imagine prayer or the Christian life without the involvement of the heavenly language. I know many don’t see the value of praying in tongues but the apostle Paul did. He said he wished everyone prayed in tongues and he also said he prayed in tongues more than anyone else. The basic ingredient of our prayer language is intimacy, the purpose is to strengthen our relationship with the Lord. Here is an interesting testimony from Corey Russel’s book called ‘The Glory Within’.

“Once during a prayer meeting, a friend of mine was praying in the spirit on the microphone. That day a Native American chief happened to be visiting the prayer room. After the meeting, he approached a leader and asked about the woman praying on the microphone. He said she was speaking in his native tongue when she prayed, although it was a dialect no longer spoken. When asked to translate what she was saying, the chief shared that she had prayed again and again, “Jesus, hold me like a mother holds her child”. I love this story because it reveals the deep intimacy that was flowing from the Holy Spirit through my friend as she prayed in the Spirit. This story illustrates the fundamental purpose of our prayer language.…..The chief heard my friend praying, “Jesus, hold me like a mother holds her child”—how tender and profound.”

I have had a similar experience while praying in the Spirit. Once I was praying in tongues while on the platform at church not aware that several pastors from Bulgaria were in the service that night. Unbeknown to me I began to pray using several Bulgarian phrases in my prayers. The Bulgarians realized I knew absolutely no Bulgarian and that this prayer was simply a sign to them of God’s love drawing them into a new relationship with the Holy Spirit. Just to be clear, this was not preaching the gospel in Bulgarian but actually magnifying the Lord with the heavenly language. Too often the prayer language has been pushed aside by well meaning people who just have no idea about the power of God and His willingness to work through us. Maybe its time to be still and allow the Holy Spirit to work in us and through us to reach this next generation with the power of God.