Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Praying in Tongues


Dreams from the LORD 2007-2010
22 February 2008

A little over a week ago, I was walking out of Kooskia, Idaho when this lady picked me up. Her name was Fran and she lived in the Kooskia neighborhood. We started talking and she told me that she had been trying to quit cigarettes for quite some time. I asked her if she would like for me to pray with her. She agreed and pulled over by the river and let her dog run around for a while. I put my hand on Fran’s shoulder and began to pray in the Holy Ghost (praying in tongues).

I prayed for a short while and then Fran looked at me and told me that she could pick out some of the words that I was saying. (Since around April of 1989, I have been praying in a French tongue. Before that, I spoke in another tongue.) She told me that it sounded like the French spoken in the Caribbean or in Asia (probably the former French Indonesia). Fran recognized the words: “Father”, “heaven”, “church”, “mother”, “feeding” and maybe a couple of other words. She said that she had studied French for nine years. I told her that I had studied German for two years in high school and one year in college—and that I had never studied French in my life.

I remember I was hitchhiking in Montana a few years ago, and this one guy picked me up and he asked me to pray in the Holy Ghost. He said that he was a French major in college and that he had spent several years in France. He told me that the tongue that I prayed in sounded like the French spoken in the Middle Ages.

Two or three years ago, I was staying in Pomeroy, Washington with a family and I laid my hands on the husband and the son and prayed in the Holy Ghost. The wife had studied French and she said that she heard me say, “it is so, it is so” and, I think, “praise.”

Back in the fall of 1989, I was taking a linguistics class at Iowa State University and there was this young lady from Kuwait in that same class. I asked her what languages she knew and she told me that she new Arabic, English and French. So I told her that I was a Pentecostal Christian (she was probably a Muslim) and that I prayed in tongues. She asked me to pray, and after I had prayed just for a short while, she got this surprised, flabbergasted look on her face.

She looked at me in great wonder and asked, “You don’t know what you are saying?”

I answered, “No.”

She asked again, “You REALLY don’t know what you are saying?”

“No. I really don’t. I have never studied French.”

She kept staring at me in wonder and astonishment.

So I asked her, “Do you know what I am saying?”

With a beautiful smile, she answered, “You are singing to your Father up in the sky.”

We were all (there were several girls and myself) sitting on the floor outside the classroom door waiting for the class to begin. A couple of the girls asked me some questions about praying in tongues. The young lady from Kuwait kept staring at me.

A week or so later, the young lady from Kuwait told me that she went back to her apartment and told her younger sister about my praying in tongues. Her sister was more surprised than she was. I remember telling her to read about tongues in Acts 2: 4 and she told me that she had heard about praying in tongues before she had met me. Maybe the Lord used her to minister to her sister and she didn’t even know it. It seemed like her sister was more interested in tongues than she was. Sometimes that is how the Lord works. The Lord’s thoughts are higher than our thoughts; He can see much farther than we can. The Lord works in mysterious ways.

Acts 2: 1-11: “And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven. Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language. And they were all amazed and marveled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galileans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born? Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygian, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.”

The gift of tongues--is it for everyone?

6 comments:

  1. I remember the night I began praying in tongues (September 1988): I was in bed praising the Lord and this language came out of my mouth. Whoa, Nelly! I thought; it was definitely something new; it was edifying and built up my spirit man and gave me more boldness and power in my life and when I preached with words.

    But I no longer pray in that language, as of April of 1989. I was living in this Christian household in Ames, Iowa and the guys in that house went to a church that didn't like praying in tongues or the power of the Holy Ghost. So the leaders of that church (Great Commission Church) kicked me out of that house, which was great because I didn't have any Christian fellowship there anyway. They didn't like me preaching about the Holy Ghost (tongues) and they didn't like it when I told them that I had been delivered of demons (Isn't that horrible! Jesus cast demons out of people while he was walking the earth and He delivered me of demons--Jesus sure has a lot of nerve).

    So I moved in a house up the street. I was really wounded in my spirit, but that night while I was lying on my mattress, the Holy Ghost fell on me so strong and thick you could cut it with a knife--and the Lord healed me of that rejection/wounded spirit.

    At that time, I was working at a lumber yard in Ames and every Thursday I would either have the whole day off or half a day off because we worked on Saturdays and Sundays. That next Thursday, I got off at noon and took the bus back to my house. I walked into my bedroom and knelt down at my desk and this new language came out of my mouth--it sounded like French.

    So for some reason, the Lord gave me a new tongue--and from that time on I could no longer pray in that former tongue. Maybe it was because I obeyed the Lord and preached about the Baptism in the Holy Ghost and that I told people that the Lord had delivered me from a lot of demons. I have never studied French in my life.

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  2. Wow! I got chills reading this, and had to forward it to my family. I've always felt odd, praying in tongues. (Cause to me and others, it sounds like gibberish.) I'd like to pray in tongues like you do...

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  3. Dunamis: The first time I heard someone pray in tongues was when I was a 17-year-old atheist. I talked to this Catholic priest in West Bend, Iowa and he prayed over me. He prayed in a language I had never heard of before and it made me somewhat nervous.

    I had a bad elbow and he prayed over my elbow and the elbow was healed for three days. But because of my unbelief, it reverted back to its former state. It wasn't until years later after I asked Christ into my life and got some demons kicked out of my system that my elbow was healed.

    Before Father Greving prayed over me, we talked a lot about my faith (or lack thereof) and other things. I remember him telling me, "It's all in the Blood [of Jesus], Tim; it's all in the Blood." No other Catholic priest I have met had ever talked about the Blood. It wasn't till years later, after I had become a Christian, that this Pentecostal pastor explained to me the absolute importance of the Blood of Jesus--it is faith in the Blood that cleanses us from sin. All of the blood sacrifices from Adam till Jesus conditioned the true believers that a blood sacrifice was required to appease God's wrath against sin. Our selfish, puny works will NEVER cleanse us from sin.

    And also, the great work at Calvary can heal us of our diseases, if we put our faith in the Precious Blood of Jesus. We pray in faith, not by sight.

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  4. This post is beautiful!! The expression on her face must have been priceless; how wonderful

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  5. I love how the Lord works. I was always curious about what I was saying when I prayed in that French-sounding language. After I spoke in that language to those girls in my class, not only did that young lady from Kuwait tell me some of what I was saying, but the other girls asked questions about my Christian faith and praying in tongues.

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