I’ve had the privilege of praying in tongues with many other believers. Because of that privilege, I observed many things related to praying in tongues. One of the many observations I made led me to discover an important praying-in-tongues tip that led to heavenly encounters.
What I am about to share with you is often overlooked. In fact, it is so overlooked that some preachers directly discourage it. Little do they know that they are denying believers a key to deep spiritual encounters.
In the fellowship I was attending, people were freely praying in tongues. At first, I didn’t notice any difference in how different people prayed in tongues. But after a short stay in the fellowship, I quickly noticed an interesting pattern.
My curious observation
Almost 90% of the encounters and visions were experienced by ladies. Being a man, that wasn’t very good news. Are we not all praying in tongues to the same God? Why are ladies getting more visions and encounters than men? I wondered.
The population of ladies in the fellowship was higher than that of men. Someone could easily say the chance of a lady having an encounter or seeing a vision was higher because their population in the fellowship was also higher. While that was true, the percentage of women getting encounters compared to their population was still higher than that of men getting encounters compared to their population.
This rather carnal observation was the beginning of a journey that would lead me to discover an important praying-in-tongues tip.
One time, I casually asked a male friend of mine in the fellowship, “Why is it that almost every encounter and vision comes from a sister?” I wanted to see if someone else had also noticed the glaring disparity between men getting encounters and sisters getting encounters.
“You’ve also noticed it? You are the man of God. Tell us!” My friend replied. “I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking,” I responded.
“I think they are just blessed. Anyway, we will marry them,” my friend replied casually.
I laughed it off on the surface, but deep down, I was restless to know the secret.
Sometime later, the church organized a youth seminar. At the youth seminar, there was a session for us to ask questions. I felt that would be a good opportunity for me to ask the question that had bothered me for a couple of months.
However, I was a little scared to ask the question because it seemed unspiritual. I wasn’t sure if the church leaders would understand my point or why I was asking such a seemingly unspiritual question. But because I was burning with curiosity, I decided to ask the question with a little twist.
“What do people do to get encounters and see visions when they speak in tongues?” I asked.
“They are yielded to God,” I was told.
“How do I yield to God?” I followed up.
“Open your heart,” I was told.
“How do I open my heart?” I asked.
“Aha, this brother is not serious,” the leader laughed off my question.
I was a bit offended, but because we had been taught not to harbor bitterness, I quietly asked God to help me contain my anger. The seminar ended, but the question I had remained unanswered. All I could do was work with the vague answers I had been given.
That is exactly what I did.
The next time we prayed in tongues and the ladies had encounters, I observed them to see how they yielded to God and opened their hearts. I was hoping to see something I could copy from the sisters.
Sure enough, I observed the sisters just before they had encounters and noticed something. Most of them were very expressive in their worship and prayer. Basically, they would lift up their hands, jump up and down, scream, roll on the floor countless times, and so on. It was a legitimate observation, but the thought of copying what I saw sent chills down my spine.
After observing the same trend multiple times in several church services, I was convinced that this was the secret. It was the one thing that ladies did a lot, but men barely ever did. It was perceived as a feminine trait, and honestly, it made some sisters look mad.
Because that was the only finding I came up with, I had no option but to give it a try.
Putting my findings to the test
I picked one Sunday when I would test my finding. On that Sunday, as the praying and worship continued, I lifted up my hands. I wasn’t feeling any urge to do so. I just did it because that was what I had seen those sisters doing.
My eyes were closed, and I did my best not to think about what other people were thinking about me. After about 10 minutes of repeatedly lifting up my hands and being very expressive in my worship and praying in tongues, I started feeling so much joy.
The joy came with a very strong urge to scream and jump. I braced myself and gave in to the strong feelings I was experiencing.
Before I knew it, I was jumping and screaming at the top of my voice like a madman. I was so caught up in the moment that I could barely tell what was going on. All that mattered was expressing the sweet feeling I was experiencing.
It felt like being in a completely new universe with so much freedom.
The experience lasted for a few minutes before I felt unusual fatigue and heaviness. The fatigue and heaviness instantly made me fall to the floor. I was so exhausted that I couldn’t even open my eyes.
Then I began seeing a rather clear image of myself flying upwards towards the stars. Then a clear memory of God telling Abraham that his children would be numerous like the stars came to me. It felt as if I was there when God was speaking to Abraham about the promise.
The vision then faded, and all I could see was darkness.
After the experience, I was so eager for the next fellowship so that I could experience it again. Some of my male friends in the fellowship came to ask me how the experience felt. I was so glad for trying out what I had observed the sisters doing. Good for me, it worked out perfectly.
Having tested the experience, it was easy for me to analyze why it worked and how to replicate it. In the fellowships that followed, I had so many encounters from what I had learned that even the sisters came to ask me what special thing I was doing.
By the grace of God, I had a good answer for them.
In the Bible, there is a story in the book of 2 Samuel, chapter 6, where David danced as the ark of the covenant was being brought to the City of David. His dance was so intense that the linen robe he was wearing came off. In the process, his wife Michal despised him for what she described as being undignified, given that he was a king.
David defended his actions, saying that his dance was before the Lord, who had made him king in the first place. Michal was punished with barrenness all her life for despising David’s dance before the Lord, as verse 23 tells us.
And Michal daughter of Saul had no children to the day of her death.- 2 Samuel 6:23
This story confirms what I discovered from the sisters.
Expressing your deepest emotions
If you want to pray in tongues to deep spiritual levels, you must involve your deepest emotions. For your deepest emotions to come out, you must use every part of your body to express yourself.
The moment you release yourself fully to pray in tongues and worship God, the host of heaven will join you to praise the Lord. In the process, you will be lifted up to the heavenly realms where creation glorifies God day and night.
The number of things you can experience in those realms is beyond description.
In church, the sisters were easily expressing their deepest emotions to God and getting all manner of encounters, while men held back their deepest emotions in the name of being dignified and missed out.
When I decided to do what the sisters were doing, I became undignified, but the joy I felt was too sweet.
In the subsequent fellowships, I became even more expressive in my praying in tongues and worship, and the heavenly experiences drastically increased. I would speak in tongues very loudly, throwing my hands in the air, jumping up and down, screaming, and everything in between.
I looked like a madman, but I would tell myself, “I’m not even a king like David. What do I have to lose?”
Some preachers don’t like that kind of madness, and they discourage it in the name of “God is a God of order.” Other praying-in-tongues believers hold back their emotions and end up struggling with a dry tongue, not knowing that they are the architects of their own misery.
From the experience, I learned that God desires to see us express our deepest emotions to Him. Therefore, always pour your deepest emotions into praying in tongues.
You will appear undignified, but God will reward you with the sweetest joy known to man.
God bless you.