When your mind is all over the place - pray in tongues!

When your mind is all over the place - pray in tongues!

There are some who say that praying in tongues is not for today, or is even dangerous. I disagree, in fact I would say praying in tongues is something we should do more of these days. I will say a little about the “dangers” later, but want to focus on the practical.

There are two types of praying in tongues in the Bible. First, there is the instance we see in Acts 2, where the disciples prayed in various natural languages, but ones that they did not know. The Spirit enabled them to speak in a foreign language, and people who understood that language understood what they were saying and were amazed (Acts 2:5-12). That does still happen sometimes today, it happened to a friend I knew at university, but this is not what I want to talk about.

The second type, and the type that is most relevant on a day-to-day basis is talked about in 1 Corinthians 14. So what can we learn and how can we put this into practice? It is a gift from God, it is a language that we do not know, and may not be a human language. The most important point is 1 Cor 14:14

For if I pray in a tongue , my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful.

We find this gift hard to come to terms with because it makes no sense to us, but that is the point! There are times when I don’t know what to pray, or my mind is all over the place. In those times it is good to pray in tongues, to pray in the Spirit. My mind might be shot to pieces, but I can still pray in the spirit.  And this will edify me! That is the point (1 Cor 14:4). Now if you know me at all, you will know that I greatly value the mind. I love to take an intellectual/analytical approach to things, but I do not make an idol out of that, and there are times when I know my mind is not being helpful or functioning effectively. So, along with Paul, “I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my understanding” (1 Cor 14:15)

Appreciating that 14:14 is crucial is important. I cannot pray in English in my mind, but I cannot pray in tongues in my mind. I have to move my tongue! I can do it quietly, but it I cannot pray in tongues with my mind.  I also find that after praying in tongues I will then pray in English, but in a more sensible, faithful way than I was doing beforehand.

In short, praying in tongues is a very useful gift and one we should make use of.

Now, let’s finish by looking briefly at some objections. First, a key point that Paul is making in 1 Cor 14 is that praying in tongues in a public meeting, unless there is the gift of interpretation, really is a waste of time and a rather silly thing to do. This is something that we sometimes do in charismatic churches, and I have never understood why. Praying in tongues edifies the individual, but it is not “magic”.

Those who are wary about tongues, or think it was only for the early church, may worry about its misuse, but there is really no need to. We might worry that we are praying rubbish. Well, sometime we might be! But we have all prayed a reasonable amount of rubbish in English! But here is the really important point. I have said I believe praying in tongues helps me. How am I to judge myself? How should you judge me? There are two ways. The first is the quality of my life. How well does my life match up to Biblical standards? The second is this. Teaching and preaching is one of the main things I do, and the question to ask is. How well does my teaching and preaching align with the Bible? How well does it help other people know and understand the Bible?  These are objective standards. Sometimes people worry about things that they don’t need to worry about. 

So in these strange days and times, spend more time doing that strange thing, praying in tongues.