If you can pray in tongues, you should know your life purpose. There is no excuse! Unfortunately, there are believers who pray in tongues but they don’t know their life purpose.
When God gave us the ability to pray in tongues, He expected us to use it to know our life purpose. Knowing your life purpose is a must if you belong to the kingdom of God.
Jesus knew His purpose and He fulfilled it. If you don’t know your life purpose, how will you fulfill it?
It is the custom of the people of the world to walk in blindness but for us who belong to the kingdom of God, we should know our assignment.
There is not a single believer in the Kingdom of God who has no assignment. God never creates a person without a purpose.
From my observation, I have found a few things that make believers who pray in tongues fail to know their life purpose:
1. Being a Beginner at Praying in Tongues
The ability to pray in tongues is sufficient to help anyone know his life purpose but it takes a bit of time. When you are new to praying in tongues, you will struggle to know your life purpose.
Praying in tongues is the tool you use to know your life purpose but of course you have to know how to use it.
Believers who are beginners at praying in tongues often struggle to know how to use praying in tongues to know their life purpose. But with consistent practice, they eventually get to know their life purpose.
One of the key requirements when you want to know your life purpose through praying in tongues is the ability to hear from God.
When you have prayed in tongues and God wants to reveal to you your life purpose, He will have to speak to you. If you know how to listen to God, you will get the message.
God usually speaks in parables. Jesus spoke many times in parables. His disciples protested a number of times but Jesus would not speak plainly.
When God reveals to you your life purpose, it will be in the form of a parable. That parable will need interpretation and faith to believe that the interpretation is accurate.
Beginners in the gift of praying in tongues usually lack in the area of hearing when the Lord speaks and believing when they hear.
But the Holy Spirit knows our weakness. That is why through praying in tongues, He will start by sharpening your spiritual ears and building your faith.
Your spiritual ears will enable you hear when God speaks to you and your faith will enable you walk according to what you hear.
If you are a beginner in the gift of praying in tongues, there is nothing to worry about. Keep praying in tongues and let the Holy Spirit sharpen your ears and build your faith.
2. Praying in Tongues Casually
This is the mother of all hindrances when it comes to knowing your life purpose. Have you ever tried to help someone who doesn’t need help?
It is easier to move a rock than to help someone who doesn’t care. A rock will stay where you put it but someone who doesn’t need help will go back to their original place even if you drag them to a better place.
There are believers who pray in tongues but they have no desire to know their life purpose nor fulfill it. These are believers who are doing fairly well in earthly standards.
The fairly comfortable lifestyle they can afford takes away their desire to know their life purpose. And without the hunger to know their life purpose, they can’t put in the effort to know it.
The Bible tells us of the story of Jacob. We know that God wanted him to take His children to Egypt to start the Egyptian slavery so that God would fulfill the word He spoke to Abraham.
But Jacob was comfortable in Canaan. To make him desperate, God took Joseph, his favorite son, to Egypt and then brought famine to Canaan.
From that point onwards, it was only a matter of time before Canaan would be unbearable for Jacob. God had designed Egypt to be the only place of refuge for him.
When Jacob found a way to stay in Canaan despite the famine (by sending his children to fetch grain from Egypt), God caused Joseph to demand for Benjamin. Benjamin was the son that consoled Jacob after Joseph was sold to Egypt.
When Jacob protested, it became clear to him that he either had to let Benjamin go or he would die of hunger in Canaan.
Eventually, he let Benjamin go and since all he treasured was now in Egypt, it was easy for him to go there as well.
When it comes to finding your life purpose, comfort is your enemy. You may pray in tongues but because you are comfortable, God doesn’t reveal it.
God knows that if He reveals to you your life purpose when you are in comfort, you will have no motivation to work on it. That is why He creates situations that make you desperate.
If you are wise, you can make your own situation desperate and God will reveal to you your life purpose sooner.
If you have been praying in tongues casually to know your life purpose, it is time to put yourself in a desperate situation. Read the story in the book of 2nd Kings 7 of the four desperate lepers and how God used them to end the famine in Israel.
There are other stories of desperation in the Bible like that of Esther who was ready to perish to save the Jews, Shadrack, Meshack and Abednego who refused to bow down to the king’s idol, the widow of Zarephath who cooked her last meal for Elijah and was ready to die etc.
3. Praying in Tongues with wrong Expectations
There are many believers who pray in tongues with wrong expectations. You may pray perfectly in tongues but God refrains from revealing your life purpose because you have wrong expectations.
The challenge with having wrong expectations is that the devil can easily deceive you. The most common case of wrong expectations has to do with expecting a perfect life on this earth.
I can’t count how many times I have had to remind people that they have wrong expectations when praying in tongues.
A woman praying to God to reveal her husband to her and expecting a perfect marriage has wrong expectations. The only perfect marriage is that of a believer and Jesus. The marriages we get into in our earthly lives are only but a shadow.
If a woman does not acknowledge this truth, no matter how hard she prays in tongues for God to reveal her husband, God won’t reveal him.
The same goes for praying in tongues to know your life purpose; knowing your life purpose is not going to make your life sunshine and roses. In fact, your life purpose will come with a lot of suffering.
Basically, your life purpose is how God wants you to suffer for Christ. Look at all Biblical examples of people who walked in their life purposes and show me even one person who smiled all through.
Joseph enjoyed wealth in Egypt but he had to suffer being hated and being sold by his brothers and a number of years being wrongfully imprisoned. Daniel was exalted in Babylon but he was a slave and longed for the day of Israel’s redemption.
Even when God reveals to you your life purpose, you will still have a longing for the return of Christ. Your purpose will enable you realize that no amount of prosperity can overshadow the fact that this world is not your home.
Therefore, set your expectations right when you are praying in tongues and trusting God to reveal to you your life purpose.
Peace!