speaking in tongues

paul tells us to eagerly desire spiritual gifts.

in the past 6 or 7 months two people had told me i had the gift of speaking in tongues. they had tried to encourage me in speaking in tongues but it just wasn't there and i felt silly trying to make up words. i know what my other spiritual gifts are and speaking in tongues had not been one of them. last week i was reading 'drawing near' and it was talking about speaking in tongues and it said to just open your mouth and let it happen. so i did and it did. it was total gibberish. i have heard many people speak in tongues but i'd never heard anything like what was coming out of my mouth.

this weekend at the alpha weekend away i wanted to ask someone about it. there were a few pastors i knew and many others i knew but i went to someone else. i asked an elder from northview about it. i wasn't sure how to talk about it because it sounded like gibberish to me i thought he would think i was a kook or something.

he said we should pray about it. he started praying and all of a sudden he's speaking the same gibberish that i was. tears were just pouring down my face and when we both stopped speaking at the same time he told me to keep going. when i opened my eyes i saw his eyes filled with tears.

he said he had started speaking in tongues about 6 months ago but he thought he must be making it up himself because it was such gibberish. he had never heard anyone else speak it before. he was happy to hear me speak it because it was confirmation to him that it was a heavenly language and not something he had made up. neither of us have the gift of interpretation so we have no idea what we said.

that the Holy Spirit led me to talk to this particular man whom i had never spoken to before was also confirmation for me.

1 Cor 22: Tongues, then, are a sign, not for believers but for unbelievers... Someone who came up for prayer was surprised to hear someone else speaking in tongues and said it helped them to believe.