Reflection on the book “Why Tongues?”
Reason #4—Praying in Tongues is Praying in Line With God's Perfect Will
Discussion Day 5 by Ayo Olagoke
ROMANS 8:26-27
26 Likewise the Spirit also helps our limitations: for we don’t know what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. 27 And he that searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because he makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.
How speaking in tongues helps our prayer
Speaking in tongues keeps selfishness out of our prayers- prayers prayed out of our senses/mind could be selfish. Our prayers may sometimes be like the old farmer’s prayer who said, "God bless me, my wife, my son John, his life —us four and no more”. The Bible didn’t say we do not know how to pray because we DO know how to pray. We pray to the father in the name of Jesus, but He says we don’t know how to pray like we ought.
Many times, when people have prayed out of their own minds, they have received things that were actually not the will of God and were not best. If God's people insist on having things a certain way, even if it isn't best for them, or is not God's perfect will, He will often permit it. God did not want Israel to have a king, but they kept insisting that they wanted one. So, He permitted them to have one. But it was not His perfect will.
The best person who can pray for us prays- bible says no one knows the thing of another man except the spirit of that man. No one knows my real need except my spirit 1Cor 2:11. The best part of me that can pray is my spirit but how can I get my spirit to pray for me? This is answered in 1Cor 14:14, "For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit is the one praying . . ." Or, as the Amplified translates, "My spirit (by the Holy Spirit within me) prays."
We pray without limitations- there are some prayers that our mind cannot even start to imagine not to talk of pray about but we can pray those prayers in tongues.
#PracticalExample# There is the story of a church in Ibadan that I heard that their landlord asked them to pay the rent of move out. So, they all decided to gather and pray that God will provide money for them to pay. During the prayer, one of them said they should pray in tongues which they started to do. During the prayer in tongues, God opened the ears of one of them and he heard what they were praying for in the tongues was that they were asking God for their own land. About 6 months later, they got a piece of land in the heart of Ibadan, free of charge. Their natural mind could not imagine that they should pray for a land so was praying for the rent but the Holyspirit through their spirit was not limited and was praying for their land.
We can pray for the future- the Holyspirit has no limitation, he sees the past, present and the future. He can pray through our spirit about the future.
#PracticalExample# When I was pregnant with my child, I would spend about 1 hour praying in tongues about the delivery process. During one of those times, the Holyspirit started to stir my heart to pray against brain damage for the baby. I started to pray specifically against brain damage even though the doctor said everything was fine. When we had him, he was said to have a high level of jaundice and there was a chance that the bilirubin could have cross over to the brain and cause a brain damage. However, the Holyspirit has gone ahead and did not allow that to happen.
“The Holy Spirit within you gives the utterance— and you speak it out of your spirit. You do the talking. This isn't something the Holy Ghost does apart from us. Those groanings come from inside us and escape our lips. The Holy Ghost isn't going to do our praying for us. He is sent to dwell in us as a Helper and an Intercessor”