I can recall having a brief conversation with a friend about speaking in tongues. If I remember correctly she told me that her mother told her one wasn't a true believer unless he spoke in tongues. It is an often controversial subject and it can be an uncomfortable experience to be around people speaking in tongues when you don't understand what is going on.
My first experience in a church that spoke in tongues was when my mom sent me to one of her friend's church. I didn't know who her friend was for one thing so the entire experience was awkward. My mom had a knack for sending me to churches that she was invited to- but that's another story! I now attend a church where the congregants speak in tongues so God knew what was up back then even if we didn't. The experience was frightening. I can't lie. I thought I wound up in one of those devil movies that always had a church scene with people chanting. I wondered how I could escape when the people realized that I wasn't one of them and began to turn on me. I guess I am admitting I had a wild imagination as a child. Let's just say I was scared. Of course nothing happened but the experience left me confused.
Fast forward, oh, however many years it was to when my daughter and I decided to join my brother's church. We were taken into a small room where two beautiful, patient souls were waiting for us to start speaking in tongues as evidence that we had received the Holy Spirit. Talk about awkward! We were some babbling fools. I'm surprised I didn't start chanting like Angela Basset did in " What's Love Got to Do With It?" Afterwards, when we left the room and were alone I asked her if she was really speaking in tongues or just making it up. We were both just making it up feeling the pressure to perform. So that was that until I joined my present church.
It was during a Sunday service and to tell you the truth I cannot recall if anyone else was speaking tongues at the time. I certainly wasn't in a small room with someone looking at me waiting for me to speak in tongues (that came later when I joined). I simply began to speak the language. Looking back I can say the experience I had as a child, scary as it was, was the seed being planted. When I finally arrived at a place where I was comfortable (not that my brother's church wasn't comfortable- I really liked it there) but the place where God called me to be planted and watered, he gave the increase by activating the gift of tongues that was always in me.
If you can bare with me by going back to a time when you were around babies. They coo and babble. It may not sound like much to a person who is not that child's parent but in time the parent will know what that cooing and babbling means for that baby. By the baby's sounds the parent will know whether the child is happy or beginning to become upset. Even as I listen to my four month old nephew I have noticed he has the same way of cooing- like the same patterns. I may not understand them but I know the pattern changes when he is about to get upset. Even with my two year old nephew who is mostly beyond the cooing and babbling, yes mostly, I look to his mother to interpret what he is saying. That is how I look at speaking in tongues and explain it to those who are uncomfortable with it. It is a return to a language that your parent, the Father, knows as interpreted via the Holy Spirit. It is your own sounds and patterns that only you and He knows that the devil cannot understand. Just as a child develops and learns to speak, so will you with your heavenly language. You will become more comfortable with something truly personal and between you and God. You will speak it and then listen and words will just come across your mind in your natural language; the Holy Spirit speaking to you. You will get words, sentences, phrases, visions... Like it did for me it will bring you to a new level of relationship with Christ. Your friendship will develop. The Holy Spirit will instruct you and teach you. When you need it He will correct you.
He will do it anyway if you don't. What I am saying is that it's nothing to be afraid of but definitely something to seek knowledge and understanding of. Have you ever gotten mad at someone and just started mumbling about them under your breath? The next time you have the inclination to do so speak in tongues. Like the scripture says edify yourself because if your that upset with someone that person is not about to edify you! You'd be surprised at how quickly an eeyashanamakosha ( or whatever the spirit gives you) will calm your nerves and keep you from going upside someone's head! If we as believers are returning to our first love, Jesus Christ, why not also return to our first and heavenly language?
Suggested reading: Mark 16:17, 1 Cor 14:4-5,18, 26; 1 Cor 12:10,
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