Praying in the Holy Ghost I remember it like it was yesterday. I was in a church on a Wednesday evening when we had a guest preacher and his wife. What was funny about this preacher is that they called him a prophet. Now, I come from a Baptist background and did not believe that prophets still existed. I was also taught that women were not to teach men and that tongues was of the devil. Lo and behold, at this service, all three of these things took place (the perfect storm…). As the minister got up to preach, he said “I don’t believe I’m supposed to preach, I think my wife is”. So with that, my butt clinched, my hands gripped the chair not knowing whether to get up and leave the service, making a fool of myself in the process, or just grin and bear it. Now being that I was seated in the center of the church and in the 2nd row, I chose to sit and listen with closed ears. Looking back, I realized that she (the preacher’s wife) had the advantage over me the entire time because she began to preach on exactly what I needed to hear. Imagine that. She began to tell the story of how she had no direction in her life from the Lord. The way she would find that direction, was by locking herself in a room for 3 days, and to pray in tongues. It just so happened that at the time, I was seeking God daily for His direction and clarity in my life. So my comment to the Lord was simple after her message, “I don’t know whether tongues are real or not. But if it is, and it is what I need to do in order to get direction from You, I’m willing to do anything.” A couple of day later I found myself sitting in an abandoned gas station parking lot, with praise and worship music blaring on my car stereo. As tears began to flow down my cheeks in worship to Him, I said “Lord if you will show me how to pray in tongues, then I will do it.” Now to be certain, there was no magic, no pixie dust that filled the car that afternoon. There was no “out of body” experience, no vision given to me by God. But, what did happen is that while I was in worship, God had placed in my spirit 3 syllables that together made no sense to me at all. Being that I was desperate for an answer from the Lord, I determined I was going to say those 3 syllables with all the faith that I could muster, which wasn’t much at the time. While those 3 words fell from my lips time and time and time and time and time again, and tears kept falling down my face as I listened to worship music in the car, I felt as dumb as a box of rocks for believing that those 3 syllables had any spiritual significance whatsoever. So more than likely, if tongues are something that’s new to you, you too will have the exact same ignorant moment with the Lord in your learning process of speaking in tongues. Don’t worry about it, we all have that moment. Why? Because when you are saying something that your mind does not understand, your mind begins to question if there is any validity to anything that you’re doing. That is perfectly normal and perfectly acceptable according to the Word. “The mind is at war with the Spirit” (Romans 8). So accepting this simple belief, that what I was doing was of the Lord. I determined that I was going to take that women’s spiritual challenge to get alone with the Lord for a period of 3 days and pray in tongues. You cannot imagine how boring it is to say the same 3, 4, 5, 10 syllables that you been given in this new language of tongues, over and over and over again. For 3 days! Did I feel stupid? You had better believe it. But I had reached a point of desperation, where stupidity was 100% acceptable in my life. Because all that I was trying, wasn’t working. Wouldn’t you know it, in the middle of the 3rd day; I received a phone call giving me the answer to my very complex situation. Looking back on that situation and the miracles that transpired over the next 2 weeks, I knew it had been the result of my “stupidity” in that room for 2 ½ days. The stupidity laid in the eyes of man, but the answer in the eyes of God. Praying in tongues is something that will not make any sense to you naturally, neither is it supposed to, because praying in tongues is completely of God. There should be some small explanation before we talk about how all you can receive the gift of praying in tongues. You should be fully aware that the Holy Spirit is not going to grab your tongue and make you say something you don’t understand. It doesn’t happen that way! Tongues is accessed like everything else in the Bible… By faith. For example, has God ever told you to do something that made no sense to your flesh at all? Speaking in tongues will make no sense to you at all, but it will get God results! I’m assuming that if you are reading this, you want to learn how to speak in tongues, so here it goes… My suggestion, when trying to educate people on how to speak in tongues, is that they get alone with the Father in worship. Make sure there is nobody around because you are going to feel really stupid, and that stupidity won’t come out of you if there are people around to mock you. So get alone with Him and put on a solid worship CD. I would recommend “Live Worship" by Terry MacAlmon. But whatever CD you choose to put in, do it in private. When you have reached that point of worship where your spirit is connecting with the Father, He will give you a word, or a syllable, or a statement that makes no sense to you at all. This is where the faith comes in. You need to be willing to say those nonsensical syllables or words back to the Father with faith. He will always give you something to say, and if it is tongues, your brain is going to think you have lost your marbles. But that is what is supposed to happen because your brain is at war with God. So if you feel stupid your first few times, you are doing it right. Just know that the phrase or words that God gives you in your spirit are words coming from Him. “Well how do I know if what I am speaking is of God?” By Faith! You received salvation by faith, you receive forgiveness by faith, healing comes by faith abundance comes by faith, and praying the Holy Ghost comes by faith as well. All things in the Scripture are accessed by faith, and that system will never change. So get prepared to be, and feel stupid. Find your prayer closet where you can be alone with God and worship with all that is in you, commit in faith those words or syllables that He gives you. You will soon join the masses that pray in an unknown tongue, and by unknown I mean only known by the Father. This will be the sign that follows you… Result! So every time you reach a problem in your life, and an uncertain outcome is before you, lock yourself alone and begin to pray the will of the Father through the Holy Ghost. There’s nothing magical about this; it’s simply His Truth, praying to His Truth or His Spirit praying God’s perfect will over your life. After you have been praying in tongues for months, or years, you may want to know interpretation. That’s okay, find out what the Holy Spirit is saying, the Bible gives you complete access to interpretation, received by faith the interpretation that is placed in your Spirit. Now go lock yourself away, enter into his presence, and pray in the Holy Ghost.