Some people’s experiences with tongues:

Before Jack Hayford or his believing parents spoke in tongues, his sister did at a Youth Camp. Luanne was actually heard to be speaking Chinese although she was more aware of the presence of Christ Himself than even of speaking in tongues. She was seeing many Chinese faces in a crowd and receiving a missionary call to China!

It was an ordinary Saturday morning in 1943 but Kenneth Hagin just felt to keep praying in tongues all through the chores, for about 6 hours.  Unexpectedly that afternoon a lady brought her sister to him for prayer.  The sister had been in a padded cell and was thought to need institutional care for the rest of her life but was allowed out for the afternoon.  Kenneth didn’t really know how to pray at all but he followed the lead of the Holy Spirit and the woman went back to the institution apparently unchanged.  But within the week she was sent home completely well. 19 years later that woman was still well – working, teaching and on fire for God! Kenneth believes that the morning’s tongues were preparing him and building him up ready for the meeting.

J.John has been an evangelist for over 30 years and is a great communicator but he and his wife, Killy, go on 3 walks a week where they just pray in tongues for 45 minutes.  They also pray in tongues travelling to the places where John is to speak. They regularly see people’s lives dramatically changed and believe that praying in tongues is very effective even if we have no idea what we are saying.

Mahesh Chavda calls tongues the Bridal Language: ‘Speaking in tongues is an expression of love and communion producing an intimacy with the lord that is too deep for human words.’  He refers to Psalm 42:7  Deep calls to deep at the noise of your waterfalls; all Your waves and billows have gone over me.   Mahesh also has a personal experience concerning ‘the voice of the Lord’ as referred to in Psalm 29 and Revelation 1:15 as his wife, Bonny, heard and felt the indescribable “voice of God” when 25 weeks pregnant with their 4th child and rushed into theatre with emergency complications. Straight away she felt Jesus come into the room and, at the amazing sound of his voice, she immediately delivered baby Aaron to the astonishment of the surgeon. Aaron was tiny at about 500 grams but is a strong, healthy adult now. Bonny says the “voice of God” was ‘a powerful force, like water, electricity, lightning, flood, fire, love, creation, all in one – just an indescribable power.’

Jack Hayford quotes Jamie Buckingham’s  story of meeting a very sick Korean man in the hospital whilst both of them were waiting for treatment. Jamie prayed for the man in tongues and the man responded by smiling through floods of tears.  The next day Jamie was met by the man’s daughter who spoke English and thanked Jamie for speaking to her father who ‘now knew Jesus and was ready to die’. It seems that Jamie’s tongues were Korean.

When Susan and Jane sing in tongues they frequently get glimpses of what their prayer is about but are grateful not to know horrific details or be thinking about earthly things. For example, during some singing one of them saw 2 quick pictures of people squashed into container cages in 2 different countries, and so, whilst they watched birds soaring free in the sky and just sang high praises in tongues in great love and joy, they believed God was using their words creatively to release freedom in a dire situation somewhere.  Apparently some experiments showed that the thinking parts of the brain are not used if the person is speaking in tongues (hence it’s a great way to follow the advice in Hebrews 4:11 about entering into God’s rest: ‘let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest..’ and this is the only effort or striving we are encouraged to make).

Kelly spends much time worshipping God on her keyboard but on one occasion she was just singing in tongues and found herself in the Spirit conducting multitudes of angels singing praise in harmony. She was quite overawed by this experience.

James was in a dire situation as he had not been given the correct visa or papers to enter a particular country in a dangerous part of the world, but, as he silently prayed in tongues, the officials’ attitudes suddenly completely changed and they believed James and let him through.