Have you ever felt like there’s an invisible barrier blocking you from the presence of God while praying in tongues? This is a common occurrence among believers including myself. The good news however is, there is a solution to this.
I found a method that helped me get past this feeling of emptiness during prayer which I will be sharing with you. Before I dive into the solution, let me give you a quick backstory.
When I first started praying in tongues, I was told that the Holy Spirit would guide me. After a while, I began to struggle and it felt like I was speaking without that guidance. The dryness got so bad that I would stop praying after a few minutes.
Seeking advice, I reached out to a friend who had received the gift of speaking in tongues around the same time as me.
I was curious to know if I was the only one experiencing dryness when praying in tongues, or if my friend was also going through the same. My friend admitted to feeling the same dryness and had assumed that he was not filled with the Holy Spirit.
He mentioned his intention to seek further prayers in order to be properly filled with the Holy Spirit. Unfortunately, my friend never followed through with his plan and soon disappeared from the fellowship.
His decision to give up praying in tongues due to the dryness greatly concerned me. I did not want to go down the same path as my friend, so I decided to approach my church leaders for prayers. Similar to my friend, I had doubts and questioned whether I was truly filled with the Holy Spirit, as I believed that if I were, I would not experience dryness while praying in tongues.
After the prayers something interesting occurred. When I participated in the fellowship prayers, my tongues no longer felt dry; but when I prayed in tongues on my own, they felt very dry.
This went on for a while, causing me frustration as I couldn’t understand why it was happening. One of the leaders in the fellowship suggested that it might have been the result of unrepented sin. This explanation did not make sense to me but I still went along with it.
I began to repent each time before praying in tongues. In spite of this, the situation worsened and I started to entertain the thought that maybe praying in tongues wasn’t as fulfilling as some people claimed; or perhaps the way I was feeling during those solo prayer sessions was actually how praying in tongues should naturally feel.
How mistaken I was! Looking back today, I am grateful that I didn’t believe those lies during that frustrating period.
Eventually, I made the decision to do the one thing that I had been forbidden since childhood; to express my anger to God.
It was time for me to convey my true emotions to God. In my anger, I questioned God why I always felt so empty when praying in tongues yet I had a sincere desire to commune with Him through the gift.
To my surprise, as I directed my anger towards God, all of my anger suddenly vanished. Then, a peaceful aura enveloped me, and it felt incredibly soothing. In that tranquility, I found myself praying in tongues, and those tongues were the sweetest I had ever spoken.
The unexpected shift made me feel remorseful for being angry at God just moments before. Even though I had questioned God in anger, He responded to me with the most serene peace I had ever experienced.
At this moment, God revealed to me that the dryness I had been feeling often occurs when we are not truthful in our prayers to God. In my case, I was angry at God but chose to hide this fact for quite a long time. By doing so, I was dishonest before God.
Because of this, I couldn’t enjoy His presence fully, thus the strained prayers. However, when I poured out my true feelings, even the unpleasant ones, God answered by allowing me to experience His sweet presence.
Therefore, whenever you feel dryness in your tongues, pour out your true feelings to God, and the dryness will vanish instantly.