When I was a child I use to have horrific nightmares. They became so bad that I began to fear going to sleep. One day I felt the urge to simply blabber in what I thought was a foreign tongue. You know, just like any kid making it up. Funny though, I never felt that it was a make believe language. I felt compelled to mouth these non-sense words.
The following evening I went to sleep and slept like a baby.
Several years later I once again began having the nightmares. After a couple of nights I remembered that the last time I spoke that make believe language my nightmares ceased. What the heck I thought. I began once again to let the words tumble from my mouth. I had no idea what I was saying. Once again the nightmares stopped. This was pretty wonderful stuff.
Twenty years later I found myself attending some Pentecostal meetings. People spoke in tongues and I thought they were jabbering non-sense. I read the bible and found tongues mentioned. After many meetings and reading the bible through a couple of times I began to want to speak with tongues. Couldn’t figure out how to do it.
One night I was asking God about tongues and that I wanted to be blessed with the spiritual gift so that I may talk in an unknown tongue. At that moment God dropped into my consciousness that I had spoken in tongues twice when I was a child. I was surprised. I thought, “is that all there is to it, open your mouth and start speaking jibberish?” God said, “no”. He said to start speaking as I did as a child and the Spirit will impress my mind so that the words would be real. I did it by faith. No great shaking revelations but I found that my spirit was more open to his Spirit when I did this.
I have been speaking in tongues like this for 20+ years now. A few times I spoke tongues and basked in the power of the Spirit. Most times it is simply my spirit chatting away to God, and sometimes would result in watching a spiritual door open. I often begin prayer by speaking in tongues in this fashion. I do it whenever I want.
It is comforting. It is helpful. It is…
🙂