Several things fascinate me about praying in tongues. One of them is the impact of praying in tongues continuously for a long time.
Several months ago, I embarked on a project to pray in tongues. Little did I know I would learn one of the most important praying in tongues lessons I know today.
Before I get into the project and what I learned, let me give you a very important background story.
January 2024 was a tough month for me. I had just moved into a new house in a completely new location.
The place was far away from my friends and family. This led me to spend most of my days locked up in my room with no one to talk to except the Holy Spirit.
While still in the process of adjusting to the new environment, something made my
situation very difficult. I had taken a loan to aid me to move into the new house and I was barely affording basic needs. I cut down my food budget and staying in the room helped me minimize unnecessary expenses.
Because I was spending a lot of time in my room, I had a good opportunity to pray in tongues as much as I wanted.
However, I wasn’t praying in tongues much. But that quickly changed in February. You see, after struggling through January, February wasn’t showing any signs of improvement.
I knew that if the situation was going to change, I needed to do something drastic.
Being a firm believer in the power of praying in tongues, I decided to pray in tongues until my situation changes.
“Praying in tongues doesn’t cost me anything and I have all the time in the world to do
it” I said to myself.
However, I didn’t start praying in tongues immediately. I took two weeks to plan how I would execute the mother of all praying in tongues sessions.
Part of the preparation was to let myself slip into a very dire situation. I knew that the urge to pray in tongues would increase naturally the more dire the situation became.
Sure enough, in the following two weeks, my situation worsened. I felt more lonely, became more broke and any chances of recovery vanished.
It felt like the fourth day of Lazarus in the grave. But then, the fourth day of Lazarus in the grave is when Jesus shows up.
This is how I planned my praying in tongues project; first, I had waited until I was properly stuck with no other option except to pray in tongues.
This gave me the much-needed push to pray. Secondly, I decided to add fasting into the mix. There were two main reasons for it…
One, I wanted to add as much spiritual power to my tongues as possible. Two, it was an extreme measure to save the money I was spending on food.
The third thing I did was to block all forms of communication with my family and friends. I didn’t want any distractions of any kind. This was going to be a serious affair between me and God.
The fourth thing I did was to schedule all my praying in tongues sessions to be at night. This would further ensure that I don’t get any distractions while praying in tongues.
The last thing I did was to set my expectations for the praying in tongues project. I wrote down a few things I wanted God to address but left room for anything else God wanted to do.
I set the expectations just in case I got discouraged along the way and I needed something to motivate me to keep going. This turned out to be very helpful.
Something very important I need to mention is how I decided on the length of the fast. Initially, I wanted to do an indefinite fast where I just pray and fast until when I can’t pray and fast anymore.
But after considering a number of issues, I decided to set the days of fasting and praying in tongues to be five.
The main reason was because I was living alone and I wanted to still have some energy at the end of the fast.
The longest fast prior to this fast I had ever done was 7 days taking fluids only and it drained me really bad.
The other important thing I had to decide was the number of hours I would spend praying in tongues. I settled with 8 hours of praying in tongues daily primarily because people typically work 8 hours a day.
I was like “If people work 8 hours a day, why can’t I pray in tongues 8 hours a day?”
With all the preparations set, I began my praying in tongues project. On the first day of the fast, I was excited for the challenge. I was eager to see if I would manage to pray in tongues for 8 hours.
Until then, I had not decided how I would subdivide the 8 hours of praying in tongues. I had no idea how difficult it would be and I didn’t want to fix myself on a schedule I couldn’t sustain.
I began praying in tongues and quickly began feeling very uncomfortable. Partly it was because I had not been praying in tongues that much and adjusting was difficult.
I only prayed in tongues for two hours then stopped. The challenge turned out to be tougher than I expected. Every inch of my body was screaming for me to give up.
“Two hours of praying in tongues is enough” My flesh screamed at me. I honestly wanted to quit praying 8 hours and only do 2 hours but I said to myself, “What will you be doing with all the time you have?”
You see, I had set myself to pray for 8 hours in the preparations. I had no friends to talk to, it was at night and I had slept during the day so I couldn’t sleep again.
“What will I do the whole night if I don’t pray?” I asked myself.
Eventually, after a short water break, I resumed praying in tongues. I prayed and prayed until no words could describe how I was feeling. The one thing that pushed me to keep praying was the great dissatisfaction I was feeling in my life at the time.
I had convinced myself that praying in tongues was the only way I could get rid of the dissatisfaction and I was not going to stop until I got rid of the dissatisfaction.
Without the anger I had towards my state at that time, I would never have continued to
pray in tongues that night.
At some point, the tongues I was speaking would feel very dry. In those circumstances, I would feel a wave of discouragement and doubt sweep over me and were it not for God’s grace, I would have quit praying and gone straight to bed. It was extremely difficult in all aspects; physically, emotionally, spiritually, name it.
Eventually, I completed 6 hours of praying in tongues on top of the 2 hours I had done earlier and that marked 8 hours of my first day.
Day 2 wasn’t any easier but having overcome day 1, there was no way I would give up on day 2.
The new challenge I experienced on day 2 on top of what I experienced on day 1 was hunger.
At some point, I would feel very hungry and it would make praying in tongues very uncomfortable.
The fast only allowed me to take water but I decided not to take any water until at least 4 hours into the prayer.
I did the first 4 hours of continuous praying in tongues, took some water then completed the remaining 4 hours.
Day 2 of prayer taught me that praying is indeed very difficult.
On Day 3, I had adjusted to the difficulty and praying didn’t feel as discouraging as on Day 1 and 2. It was also on day 3 that I felt a bit of being connected to God.
The first two days felt completely dry and very discouraging.
Day 4 and 5 were routine and by then, I had fully adjusted to the challenge. The main challenge of day 4 and 5 was believing that the sacrifice I had made would pay off.
It was very difficult to believe that the 8 hours of praying in tongues daily were going to change my life.
It may sound ironical but it is one of the most difficult things to deal with especially if you don’t get much feedback from God.
When I completed the 8 hours of praying in tongues on day 5, I was both excited and a little concerned.
I was excited because I had completed the praying in tongues challenge but I was concerned because there was barely any change in my situation.
However, having done many fasts before, I knew it takes a while to notice the impact of the prayers and the fasting.
Despite knowing that, I had a difficult time dealing with the thought of “all the prayers could have been in vain”.
The first real impact of the prayers manifested two weeks later; I got a sum of money that was higher than usual and managed to stock up my house, which had been empty since I moved in.
The second big breakthrough followed two weeks later when I found someone to help me with some work in the ministry.
Ministry work was becoming too much but I couldn’t find someone suitable to help me because I didn’t have enough money to pay a salary.
I found someone who volunteered to work and it turned out the person had actually trained to do exactly what I wanted. It was a miracle!
The third big breakthrough happened a week later; for the longest time, I had depended on my dad for finances.
I had desired to be financially independent but I had failed in all previous attempts. However, after the fast, I managed to sufficiently take care of my own finances without depending on my dad and that was a big miracle for me.
The fourth big breakthrough happened exactly a month after the fast; for a while, I had been living in a chaotic place and desired to move to a more peaceful place.
A month after the fast, God made a way and I was able to move to a better place that I dearly loved.
The fifth breakthrough happened a week after moving to a better place; for the longest time I had felt lonely and desired companionship.
I proposed to a lady the Lord had led me to and she accepted. Four months later, we got married.
Five days of praying in tongues resulted in five big breakthroughs. I am eternally grateful that I took that fast despite the difficulty involved.
The biggest lesson I learned from the fast is that when praying in tongues is the only option you are left with to salvage yourself and you spend all your time praying in tongues, God will come through for you.
God bless you!