Hearing God — MORE Tips for Better Hearing (Part 8)

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Today we will wrap up the Hearing God series with a few more tips for better hearing:

Ask God questions.  I do a lot of my hearing because I ask God questions.  I’ve discovered that there are a lot of things God is willing to tell us, but if we don’t ask, He doesn’t volunteer the information.  “You have not, because you ask not” (James 4:2).  I think He likes questions!

Some of us have been taught that it’s not proper to ask God “why?” about things.  I don’t know where this notion started, but it’s just not correct.  As long as we do not have a rebellious attitude, there is nothing wrong with asking why something happened, or why He said “yes” or “no.”   We should definitely be asking questions such as, “What should I do next?”  “How should I pray about this?”  “What do You see happening in this situation?” etc.

Be conversational with God.  Ask Him questions and listen for the answers.  When you ask, and something comes to mind in response, don’t dismiss it.  You asked - aren’t you expecting an answer?  If you don’t hear what you need to know right away, keep asking until you do. 

Be quiet long enough for Him to speak.  Some of us sound like machine guns, rattling away at God with what we want to say.  We may have a long prayer list that we think we have to recite to Him each day, or perhaps we just have a frantically racing mind.  Slow down, come up for air, and give Him a chance to get a word in edgewise.  Quieting ourselves to give God opportunity to speak is a hard habit to form, if we’ve never done it before.  But it is worth the effort.  When I say quiet yourself, I do not mean empty your mind and think on nothingness.  That is a pagan Eastern religion practice.  Your mind was never meant to be empty.  Quieting yourself just means to slow down, settle your thoughts on Jesus or His Word, and let Somebody Else do the talking for awhile.  Do it in spurts of a few minutes here and there to train yourself.  Ask Him those questions and pause for an answer. 

Keep a listening attitude at all times.  This is another habit that takes effort to form, but it’s important.  Throughout my day, I have my spiritual ears tuned to hear.  Because God speaks in whispers in our inner man, if we don’t keep a listening attitude, we can miss a lot just through not paying attention. 

Don’t reject what He says and then expect Him to keep on speaking to you.  The best way to become out of touch with God is by only listening to what we want to hear and ignoring the rest.  Some people pick and choose what they will receive from the Bible.  Some are selective in what they will let God tell them in the inner voice.  In either case, not listening when God is speaking something we don’t like is the best way I know of to become hard of heart and dull of hearing.

Create an atmosphere around yourself that is conducive to hearing God.  How? Prepare your heart with the Word (the Bible), spend time thinking about Jesus, and worship, worship, worship.  James 4:8 says, “Draw near to God and he will draw near to you….”

Pray in tongues to open up your spirit-man to communion with the Lord.  When we pray in our prayer language, we are communicating spirit-to-Spirit.  I can’t think of a better way to open ourselves up to revelation from the Lord than this.  If you want to hear from God, pray in tongues a lot. 

Within the church setting, God and your pastor are on the same page.  If your pastor has policies in place for how things are to be done within the church body, God will not instruct you to do anything that violates those policies.  Sometimes people think they have a special word from God that gives them license to override the prescribed order of worship, particularly when it comes to moving in the prophetic gifts.  My husband and I are elders in our local church, and occasionally we have to deal with someone who is out of line.  The common excuse is, “But God spoke clearly to me that I was to do this, and I was to do it right now.”  It may have sounded like Him, but God will not violate the pastor’s authority by making exceptions to the policies he has clearly put in place.

This concludes the Hearing God series.  I hope you have found something that will help you grow more confident in hearing Him.  There is nothing quite as wonderful as the joy of communicating with Him deeply, knowing His heart, and moving in oneness with Him.

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Hearing God — Tips for Better Hearing (Part 7)

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Today and tomorrow, I’d like to give you some tips I have personally found helpful in hearing God more accurately and more frequently.

Write it down.  It’s not only good to keep a prayer journal, but it’s vital.  I keep paper and pen handy wherever I go, because God does not confine speaking to just my allotted prayer time.  When I get a chance, I transfer my quickly jotted notes of what He said into my journal.

When we write down what God says to us, we are sending Him the message, “What You say to me is extremely important, Lord.  I want to have it noted exactly right, so that I can remember it correctly, cherish it, and ponder it.” 

It is not possible for the best of memories to recall accurately all that God has said to us.  And when you have promises from the Lord and they don’t happen immediately, the tendency is to get discouraged, question what you’ve heard, or get the details mixed up.  If you write it down, these problems can be avoided.  When discouragement or confusion shows its face, you have the solid evidence of what you heard in your prayer journal to cheer yourself with and to help build your faith. 

I frequently reread my promises and use their evidence on paper to contend for them in prayer.  Promises must be birthed through pleading them before the throne, and having them written down certainly helps the process. 

Don’t strive or obsess about hearing God.  If you are having difficulty hearing God’s voice, you may be compounding the problem by trying too hard.  This is a very common hindrance.  Tell God often that you long to hear from Him and to accurately discern His voice, but then leave it to Him.  Relax.  It will happen.  Relax!

Don’t overdo second-guessing what you have heard.  Once you have heard something that you think is from God, don’t analyze it to death.  “Did I hear God, or didn’t I hear God?  It sounded like God, but then, it also sounded like it could have been just me.  I never heard Him say anything like that before, so it must just be me.  Oohh, it sounded like God, but what if it isn’t, and I am deceived?” 

Do yourself a favor, and just stop that!  You will kill the flow and get yourself all confused if you keep it up, and it is really unnecessary.  Time will bear out whether what you heard was really God or not.  If it is a major decision you are hearing about, you should get counsel from those you are accountable to anyway, so if you just aren’t sure, ask them before taking the big step. 

Keep in mind that when you first hear something from the Lord, the sense of it being Him might be pretty strong, but that sensation will fade in days to come.  This is normal.  Just because the feeling you had with the word fades does not mean it wasn’t God in the first place.   

Don’t despise the method God chooses to speak through.  Some people have difficulty hearing God because they want it to happen a certain way, and if it doesn’t happen the way they want it to, they reject what they are hearing.  If Sister Susie hears audible voices every morning before breakfast, they only want to hear audible voices, too.  (Never mind that Sister Susie is constantly hearing audible voices, and it might be time for her to have a medical checkup!)

Naaman, the Syrian general, almost missed his healing from leprosy, because Elisha told him to wash in the Jordan River, and he had expected Elisha to say fancy words and wave his hands over him instead (2 Kings 5:11).  Don’t miss your word from God because you have a preconceived notion of how God ought to speak!

More tips next time.

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Hearing God — MORE Beyond the Inner Voice (Part 6)

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We’ve talked so far about hearing from God through the Bible, the inner voice, visions, and dreams.  God can speak in limitless ways.  And no way that He chooses to speak should ever be despised or thought of as an inferior way of hearing from Him.  Based on the comments I have heard from people who have trouble hearing God, at least some of them are hearing, but are rejecting the mode through which God chooses to speak to them. 

Have you ever listened to a Christian song, and suddenly a line just arrested your attention and touched your heart?  Yes, God uses songs to speak a personal word to us.  That’s one of the purposes for having Christian music in the first place. 

Sometimes God speaks to us through someone who has no idea he or she is God’s means of revealing Himself.  Let me give you an example.  Many years ago I went through an illness that was life-threatening.  It was a wait-and-see situation, and I was not doing well with being faith-filled.  A Christian lady that I barely knew told me about her mother, who, thirty-five years before, had been pronounced terminally ill by her doctors.  The lady was rejoicing because her mother was still alive and completely well, in spite of the hopeless prognosis.  She never knew what her little story did for me.  As she spoke, I felt the strong impression of the Lord. I had a deep knowing through her words that I was not going to be a terminal case either.  I was internally overwhelmed, but didn’t say a word to the woman, and a few weeks later she moved away.  It was a divine encounter that God had set up just for me.

God speaks to us through checks in our spirit.  A “check” is in inner hesitancy, a subtle feeling that we should not go ahead with a particular plan of action.  Many of us ignore these warnings or rationalize them away because we cannot find a common sense reason not to proceed, and consequently we end up in trouble time and time again.  God wants us to start paying attention. 

When we pray in tongues, God often reveals things to us either in our thoughts or through what we pray in English between praying in tongues.  This is interpretation of tongues, as mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12:10, and it works in our private prayer language just as effectively as it does when tongues are used to give a message to the corporate body.  I’ve addressed this in detail in another post, The Power of Your Prayer Language (Part 6).

God speaks to us through our pastor.  I have been saddened by the number of times I have encountered people who have difficulty hearing God, who are out from under their pastor’s covering.  God has a prescribed plan for how authority works in His kingdom.  Part of that plan is that each of us are accountable to those who are governmentally positioned over us.  This means each of us should be plugged into a local body of believers and be submitted to the pastor of that body.

God speaks to us through our pastor’s sermons, through his personal counsel, and through his correction.  When we ignore or refuse to hear what our pastor is telling us, we are out from under the God-ordained covering which has been provided for our safety.  We open ourselves up to deception.  When we harden our hearts toward hearing our pastor speak into our lives, we are also hardening our hearts toward an avenue of hearing God speak to us.  If you won’t hear your pastor, don’t expect to hear God correctly in other ways, either.  You are out of order, and God won’t honor it. 

As we become more sensitive to the Lord in all the other ways through which we can hear Him, we should also find an increase in God-inspired thoughts that hardly seem to be a break from our regular train of thinking.  We begin to recognize that even in our general thought flow, God is speaking to us.  It may come as creative ideas for business, the arts, or ministry.  It may be an increase in understanding, wisdom, or discernment.  God’s inspiration upon the general flow of our thoughts is what is meant by having “the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16), “the renewed mind” (Romans 12:2), and the “sanctified mind.” 

In the next couple of posts we will talk about practical ways to improve our hearing experience.

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Next: Hearing God — Tips for Better Hearing (Part 7)

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Hearing God — Beyond the Inner Voice (Part 5)

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Today we’ll look at some further ways that we can hear from God. The topics covered here are by no means exhaustive.  God can speak, in any given situation, through any means at all that He chooses. 

Visions - Some people are primarily hearers, while some are more given to seeing in the spirit.  Those who are more visual in how they process information are more likely to have visions than those of us who are word-oriented.  Visions come in a variety of forms, and if you have not ever been taught about them, it’s quite possible that you have been experiencing them without realizing what was going on.

Some people have open-eyed visions, where a scene is played out before their eyes, as though they are at the scene as an onlooker.  Open-eyed visions are not as common, however, as visions that we see in our spirit-man.  Have you ever had a strong picture in your mind, that really arrested your attention - perhaps a picture of Jesus looking at you or doing something that had relevance to your situation?  That is a vision.  It can be panoramic (as in a movie, where the action continually changes) or a pictorial snapshot (such as someone’s face or an object coming distinctly to mind). 

A vision might be very practical and literal, or it could be symbolic, requiring an interpretation.  When experiencing a symbolic vision, you might have immediate understanding of its meaning, or you might have to ask God to tell you what certain parts represent, and then listen for His answer. 

Pictorial snapshots of people’s faces usually mean we are supposed to pray for them right then.  I have sometimes asked God to show me where a misplaced item is, and have received a snapshot vision of the lost article’s location in response. 

Just as with the inner voice, we need to discern whether a “vision” is from God or is an imaginative thought of our own.  I have known people who thought they were having “visions” about other people that were of a negative nature.  They were not visions; they were imaginations brought on by their own criticalness.  I have known people who truly have been caught up in a vision of heaven, but I have also known those who were seeing what they wanted to.  It did not have the ring of authenticity when they related it. 

Dreams - Dreams can be just the outworkings of our own emotions and what has been preoccupying our thoughts.  Nightmares may be demonic harassment.  But many dreams are actually night visions from the Lord.  Like other visions, they can be literal or symbolic.  They probably lean more toward the symbolic side.

I love hearing from God in dreams.  It’s hard to manipulate a dream.  You can’t add in your own imaginations like you could with a vision, so there’s less room for error.  In my own experience, every detail counts in a dream.  I write down as much as I can remember when I first wake up, and then sit before the Lord and ask questions about the details.  He usually gives me insight on even the most minute parts.  As I ponder the dreams before Him, more of the details return to mind, and before long, a pretty profound message has developed.

Some dreams are not immediately understood, but in months to come God makes clear what He wants to tell us.  It’s a good idea to keep a dream journal and periodically reread your dreams, letting God give you new insights and interpret for you things you did not understand at the time of the dream.

For more in-depth information on visions, dreams, and other prophetic manifestations, I recommend James Goll’s book, The Seer.  Mr. Goll is balanced, biblical, and highly respected for his ability to hear accurately from the Lord.

Next time: a few more ways we can hear from the Lord.

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Next: Hearing God — MORE Beyond the Inner Voice (Part 6)

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Hearing God — Discerning the Inner Voice (Part 4)

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In Part 1, I mentioned that John 10 assures us we can know the shepherd’s voice.  We can have faith that He will speak to us and that He will help us to know His voice.  I also said, in Part 2, that reading the Bible consistently helps us to hear God accurately.  How does this work? 

When we absorb the Word as given to us in the Bible, we get a feel for how God thinks and how He speaks.  We grow in wisdom through reading it.  Scripture is also the standard against which we measure all revelation.  If something we hear in our inner man does not line up with what the Bible says, it is not God - no matter how much we might think it sounds like Him. 

Hearing God accurately and discerning (sorting out) what is from God and what is not is a maturing process.  It doesn’t happen overnight.  We all make some mistakes along the way.  Our own emotions, ambitions, impure motives, and incorrect interpretations of what is going on around us can sometimes deceive us.  Sometimes the enemy of our souls cleverly attempts to inject thoughts that sound somewhat like God’s voice.  How can we tell the difference?  Many times the differences are subtle, but they are there.

Here are some questions we can ask ourselves to help in the discerning process: 

1.)  How does what I heard make me feel?  If an inner word strikes fear or condemnation into us, it is not from God.  When God speaks correction, He never reviles us.  He does not wound us by telling us how inferior we are.  His voice may be firm in telling us we need to change, but it is always loving and encouraging.  Fear is not of God.  Even when He speaks about a difficulty ahead of us, He gives a peace with it.  He lets us know He will be there for us through all circumstances. 

2.)  Does it line up with God’s Word?  Sometimes our natural man wants to do things that we know are not according to what the Bible says.  We seem to have a knack for rationalizing that because of our unique circumstances, God is making an exception in our situation.  It doesn’t work that way.  God will not make exceptions to what He has already said in the Bible. 

3.)  Am I trying hard to make myself believe I am hearing God?  If we have to spend a lot of time convincing ourselves that it really must have been God speaking to us, it probably isn’t Him.  We shouldn’t have to work it up inside of ourselves.  If we’re honest with ourselves, there is a lack of peace inside that we are trying to overcome, because our flesh wants its own way. 

4.)  Is what I am hearing feeding selfish motives?  We have to be careful with this one, because God does want to bless us by giving us the desires of our heart.  He is the one that plants many of those desires in us.  So, to want good things in our lives is not always selfishness.  It could be God’s purposeful destiny for us.  But why do we want something?  Is it ultimately for His glory, or for our glory?  Sometimes it takes a little time to sort out whether our motives are pure or not.  If it needs time to be discerned, give it time.  God will continue to speak, if the word came from Him in the first place. 

5.)  Does the inner voice sound demanding or insistent?  At times God will speak urgently, for our own safety or if we need to pray for someone who is in trouble and needs immediate intercession.  But if it is concerning a decision that must be made, and the voice is pushing us, it is generally not God.  He gives us ample time to be sure we are hearing Him rightly.  The enemy of our souls likes to push us into making impulsive choices that we will later regret. 

6.)  Am I afraid to ask the counsel of other godly people about what I am hearing?  This ought to be a red flag every time!  If we are truly hearing God, we should not be afraid to check it out with wise advisers.  The devil will try to convince us that we are misunderstood, that we have a revelation so special no one else around us would understand, etc.   Poppycock! 

When God is speaking to us, His word will bring with it faith and peace, a desire for His glory, a mighty awe of Him and His plans, and humility in ourselves.  It will be encouraging, and will lead us into a higher level of dependence upon Him.  It will have His purposes at its core. 

Next time we will talk about some more ways that God speaks to us.

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Next: Hearing God — Beyond the Inner Voice (Part 5)

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Hearing God — The Inner Voice (Part 3)

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What do people mean when they say we hear God in the “still small voice”?  Does God talk to us in our mind or in our spirit?  What does it sound like?

The “still small voice” term comes from the King James Version of 1 Kings 19: 9-13, the story of Elijah in the cave. Elijah was discouraged, and God showed up to speak with him.  Verse 12 says, “and after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.”  Other translations render it, “the sound of a soft breath,” “a soft, gentle voice,” “the sound of a low whisper,” “a gentle and quiet whisper.”  It is quite possible that what Elijah heard was an audible voice.  People sometimes hear God speak in an audible voice today (meaning they hear it with their natural ear), but what people generally mean when they refer to hearing God in the still small voice is hearing in their inner being, not out loud. 

It would be a whole lot easier for all of us if God just spoke to us through our natural hearing all of the time.  But God is after intimacy with His people.  Lovers share their most endearing moments together in whispers.  When we first start our life with the Lord, He usually makes sure the inner voice is fairly firm and insistent.  He wants to help us gradually become confident in recognizing His voice.  But the closer we get in our relationship with Him, the more likely it will be that He will speak in a whisper.

Does the inner voice come from the spirit or the mind?  Sometimes we sense His voice in our spirit, but it can also appear to be in our minds.  I experience both, but the primary way I hear is in my mind.  For me, it is as though God is speaking thoughts, usually phrases or short sentences, in my head.  These are usually in the first person: “I love you.  I will help you.  Trust in Me.”  They can be in the third person: “God will not let you down.  God’s promises are faithful.” 

Some people hear in full paragraphs in their minds.  That has happened to me, but it is not my usual means of receiving.  Everyone is different, and God tends to speak to us in the style that we do best with. 

It doesn’t have to be thoughts.  In fact, some people never hear God speak a thought in their minds.  They hear the inner voice primarily as an impression.  An impression is a deep inner knowing that feels like it is coming from within the spirit-man.  It does not come as specific words, yet you know exactly what God wants you to know.  I generally have this happen as an urging to do something, such as when God is directing me to talk with a stranger about Jesus.  Here is an example: 

I had gone to a rummage sale during the week, and I had been momentarily struck by the despairing look in the eyes of the woman who was holding the sale.  I paid no further attention, but a few days later, while my mind was fastened on something entirely different, God interrupted with a deep knowing inside that I was to return to that lady’s house on the following Tuesday and tell her that Jesus loved her.  I had never done such a thing in my life, and I was a very shy person at that time!  But I knew it was the Lord and that I must be obedient. 

When I knocked on her door, a young man answered, and I asked if this was the house where the rummage sale had been.  It was.  I asked if I could speak to the lady of the house.  He told me she was not home.  At this point I was wondering if I had heard God amiss, but I really didn’t think so.  I explained to the young man that God had specifically spoken to me to come back and tell her that Jesus loved her and that He wanted her to know that.  His eyes got pretty wide, and he volunteered that his mother was in the hospital, recovering from surgery.  I asked him, “Would you please tell her Jesus sent me to say He loves her?”  He nodded slowly.  There’s not a doubt in my mind that the message got delivered.  It was just too odd for a stranger to show up on the doorstep with a message like that.  I’m sure he didn’t forget!

All of us experience hearing God speak through the inner voice, but sometimes we don’t recognize what it is.  Have you ever felt the conviction of God about some sin you have committed?  That was the Holy Spirit speaking to you in the inner voice.  It wasn’t so hard to hear, was it?  Hearing Him in this way for things other than conviction of sin isn’t hard, either. 

Next time, we will talk about how to discern whether an inner voice is really from God or not.

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Next: Hearing God — Discerning the Inner Voice (Part 4)

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Hearing God — Through the Word (Part 2)

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If you are a born-again believer in Jesus Christ, you have probably already been hearing from God, whether you have recognized His voice or not.  He speaks to us in many ways.  The key is in becoming sensitive to Him, so that we notice when He is speaking. 

The absolutely best way to hear God is through His Word.  Simple, but true.  We hear from Him in a general way as we read, and much wisdom can be acquired just through being faithful to read the Bible daily.  I am a firm believer in reading all the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation - including the genealogies.  If you just visit the parts you like the best, you are going to miss things that God wants you to know.  I personally like to read in the Old and the New Testaments simultaneously.  I also encourage myself daily in either Psalms or Proverbs.  As we go through the Bible continuously, we absorb the things we need in order to relate properly to both God and our fellow man.  Reading the Bible cleanses our minds, especially if we meditate on (think on, or ponder) what we have taken in.  Now you are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you (John 15:3). 

There is a second way that we hear from God in His Word.  Have you ever noticed that a certain verse seemed to have a deeper meaning to you at a particular time in your life?  Sometimes we say that the verse suddenly “leaped off the page” at us.  This is the Holy Spirit enlightening a part of Scripture to us as a personal word.  The verse speaks directly to our current need and brings comfort, guidance, or conviction. 

Hearing both generally and personally from the Scriptures is one of the most reliable ways to receive revelation from God.  This was the primary way that Rees Howells, the famous Welsh intercessor during the World Wars, heard from the Lord.  God gave him specific direction about how to pray and even revealed future events to him by enlightening a particular passage in the Bible and then giving him understanding of how it applied to current circumstances. 

Still another way that the Holy Spirit speaks to us through the Bible is by reminding us of a particular verse we have read in the past.  He plants the remembrance of it in our thoughts at any given moment, so that we can apply it to whatever situation we are in. 

Getting a solid foundation in ourselves by reading the Bible regularly is necessary if we are going to hear God accurately.  It will help us to discern whether the revelation we receive through other means is really of the Lord or not.  We will discuss what those other avenues are in coming posts.

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Next: Hearing God — The Inner Voice (Part 3)

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Hearing God — Introduction (Part 1)

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So many people today are hungry to hear God speak to them, and yet, if the mail I get is any indication, there are many Christians out there who are feeling very frustrated and unsatisfied about personally hearing from Him.  It’s not as hard as we sometimes make it.  In the hope that someone might be helped with a few simple explanations, I’d like to share with you what I know about hearing the Lord speak.

Every Christian is entitled to hear the Lord speak to him or her personally.  The Bible tells us that “God is no respecter of persons” (Acts 10:34).  God loves everyone the same, and does not have an elite group of favorites that He talks to, while leaving everyone else out.  Jesus taught about our privilege of hearing God speak to us: 

[Referring to Himself as the shepherd of the sheep] … the sheep hear his voice: and he calls his own sheep by name, and leads them out.  And when he puts forth his own sheep, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice.  And they will not follow a stranger, but will flee from him; for they do not know the voice of strangers. … All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them. … My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. – John 10: 3-5, 8,  27

[Speaking of the Holy Spirit]  However, when he, the Spirit of truth, has come, he will guide you into all truth: for he will not speak of himself, but whatever he hears, that will he speak: and he will show you things to come.   He shall glorify me — for he shall receive my things, and shall show them unto you.  All things that the Father has are mine; therefore I said that he shall take of my things, and shall show them unto you. - John 16:13-15 

God has promised that He will speak to us.  We must start with believing His promise.  If we do not believe that He will speak to us, our doubt will hinder us from hearing Him.  It is a matter of faith that He will do what He has said.  God loves faith, and will always reward it!  Hebrews 11:6 says, “But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he who comes to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.” 

On the following two pages of my Character Building for Families web site, you will find many more Scripture verses that assure us of God’s desire to speak with us: 

http://www.characterbuildingforfamilies.com/Godswill.html

http://www.characterbuildingforfamilies.com/Guides.html

In the days ahead, I will explain the ins and outs of the many ways that God speaks to us and how to tap into hearing from Him.

Next: Hearing God Through the Word (Part 2)

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The Power of Your Prayer Language (Part 7)

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We’ve talked about why the gift of tongues, as used in our private prayer language, is so vital to living a powerful Christian life.  It produces health in our bodies, thoughts, and emotions.  It is one of the weapons of our spiritual warfare, is the seventh piece of the armor mentioned in Ephesians 6, and enables us to pray perfect prayers according to God’s will.  It produces a communion between God and us that causes us to walk in greater faith, wisdom, understanding, and discernment.  And, combined with the interpretation of tongues, it helps us to hear God’s voice.

The question we might ask at this point is, “Why would I not want to pray in tongues?”

I would like to encourage those of my readers who have not yet received their prayer language to press God for it until you do receive it.  It is not that He is unwilling to give it to us; it is that some of us have a harder time than others in pressing past our own issues to get to the point of yielding.  Hebrews 11:6 tells us, “… He [God] is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him,”  and Psalm 84:11 promises, “… No good thing will he withhold from those who walk uprightly.”  As the saying goes, anything worth having is worth fighting for.  Great men of God, such as John G. Lake and Smith Wigglesworth, have struggled to receive their prayer language, yet they refused to give up until they received the promise, and they were not disappointed.

For those of you who already have your prayer language, may I encourage you to use it abundantly?  You can train yourself into the habit of praying in tongues (in a whisper, if you like) while you work around the house, drive your car, and do other everyday tasks.  After awhile, it becomes so natural to pray in your prayer language, that you do not consciously make a decision to do it, and you may have been praying for some time before you become aware of it.  It enables us to be in constant communion with the Lord throughout our day.  It’s one of the ways to bring ourselves closer to Paul’s command to “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17).

Paul commented, “I thank my God, I speak with tongues more than you all” (1 Corinthians 14:18).  If the prayer language was important to Paul, it should be treasured and nurtured by us, too.

Previous: The Power of Your Prayer Language (Part 6)

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The Power of Your Prayer Language (Part 6)

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There is a cry inside most of us to hear God speak to us.  He wants to fulfill this longing.  One of the names by which He reveals Himself is “He Who Speaks” (Isaiah 52:6).  But a lot of people still struggle with learning to hear and know God’s voice.  One of the best ways to hear accurately from God is by praying in tongues and then receiving the interpretation.  I discovered this technique a few years ago, and it has truly enhanced my ability to hear God and to know how to pray.  Here’s how it works for me:

I pray a lot in tongues.  When I pray, I often switch back and forth between my prayer language and English.  I have learned to pay close attention to what I pray in English in between praying in tongues, because often it is something I would not know to pray in my natural mind.  It is actually an interpretation of what I have already been covering in my prayer language; it is fresh revelation from the Spirit Himself.  Interpretation may come as a phrase we pray out loud, a Scripture verse, a thought on how to pray, a word of knowledge, or even a picture or vision.

For instance, once while praying for a pastor-friend in tongues, I clearly heard the thought in my mind, “praying for the unexpected.”  I did not understand what it was about, but I continued to pray along the lines of preparing him for something unexpected.  About three weeks down the road, he experienced some very unpleasant circumstances that he had not foreseen.  But the way was prepared before him in intercessory prayer so that he could handle the event when it happened.

Another time I was praying for a loved one who was going through difficulties, and I was very concerned about receiving a good outcome for him.  The words, “God who performs all things for him” flowed out in English in the middle of my prayer language.  It was the Holy Spirit’s reminder of a Scripture verse, Psalm 57:2 - “I will cry unto God most high; unto God who performs all things for me.”  The Holy Spirit was using my prayer language to pray that God would take care of his need, and by interpreting the prayer for me, He was also assuring me that everything was going to be all right.

At still another time I was praying for my pastor for his upcoming sermon.  After praying in tongues for a bit, I was startled to hear myself speak in English, “God, help him with his sermon on brokenness.”  He had not informed me what his sermon was to be about, but it turned out to be exactly that.  God was interpreting my prayer language and giving me a word of knowledge.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14:13-15, “… let him who speaks in an unknown tongue pray that he may interpret.  For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful.  What then?  I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also….”  Those of us who are Pentecostal or Charismatic understand that when a message is given publicly in tongues, an interpretation should be given.  However, few of us were ever taught that this is a normal part of using our prayer language privately as well.

If you have trouble hearing the voice of God, try asking Him to interpret for you what you are saying in your prayer language.  In addition, because we are communing with God on a spirit-to-Spirit level when we pray in tongues, it opens us up to revelation of other sorts.  You will find that you are more prone to having godly, creative ideas flow in your thoughts when you have been praying in tongues.  You may receive visions.  Your understanding and wisdom will increase.

I’ll have a few more thoughts on the power of our prayer language in the next post, and then we’ll be done.

Previous: The Power of Your Prayer Language (Part 5)
Next: The Power of Your Prayer Lanugage (Part 7)

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