Is Speaking in Tongues Biblical

I was in church for my whole life until I went to this other church, I think it was in 2008 or 2009.

And the first day I got to the church I was like, “this is awesome” because the church service was being led by the young adults.

They did it in a way that was, it was just incredible. 

I was in shock at how awesome it was. 

And so I joined the church immediately. I started hanging out with them, and one day while I’m hanging out with them, they were like, “all right, everybody prays in your heaven language” 

They’re all praying in tongues.

And I’m like, “what is going on?”

I don’t pray in tongues and I’m just holding their hands like, “I thought these people were cool. Why are they all acting so weird here?”

It was just so foreign to me. 

And I remember one Sunday I went up to go and actually met the pastor and somebody actually took me to go and meet somebody else to go and receive the Holy Spirit to pray in tongues.

And I was just like, no, I don’t wanna do that. 

No, I do not. 

And so I went up to the lady and she was praying with me, but I just felt I wasn’t getting it. 

It was like months later I’m in church and they have everybody stand up and the pastors say, “okay, everybody praying your heaven language”

And I’m standing there and everybody is praying in tongues except me.

It felt like except me. 

And I don’t even know what to do right now. 

So I just said, well, let me just try. 

I’m just standing there and I’m just trying, nobody’s saying anything, but some, a little bit starts to happen.

Then over time, the next couple of months or whatever, it becomes a thing for me. 

I didn’t really realize what had happened until I started having these supernatural experiences. 

Now, prior to that, I wasn’t having any kind of supernatural experiences, but then I started hearing things that I normally could not hear.

I started saying things to people that there was no way people would know that I would know a thing in order to say it. 

One time I was in church and I saw demons and I was just, I didn’t lose control in a way that I was scared. 

I lost control in a way I was having an out-of-body experience.

If that makes sense.

All of this started to happen after I started learning how to pray in tongues.

I started to realize that, “Oh, I think this is a thing. I think that this is really real” 

And there were times when the pastor would teach about praying and tongues.

He would teach about acts and talk and teach about people being filled with the Holy Spirit. 

And so, I had the thought like, “well, if this is real, how come nobody, no other church I’ve ever gone to, how come they don’t talk about this?”

I’ve been at this church and this church and this church.

How come nobody is talking about it? 

I don’t understand why nobody is talking about this. 

And my answer was that I don’t know. 

But now what I realize is that it’s not that everybody can’t do it, it’s not like every church can’t. Like people learn how to pray in their heaven language and get filled with the Holy Spirit.

What I’m learning is that some people, some leaders over churches don’t have had that encounter yet, so they haven’t experienced getting filled with the Holy Spirit so they can’t speak in tongues. 

And then the power of what happens as a result of that happening to them and then teaching it to their congregation.

And so I just started realizing, all this is a choice.

We’ve got the Bible and the Bible says, here are all these things that you can lay hands on dead people, and they’ll raise up, that people that can’t walk will be able to, to walk again, that people that can’t see will be able to see again.

So all of that is in the Bible. 

And what I’m learning is that some people believe the whole thing and go after the whole thing. 

And then some people say, well, “we’re just gonna focus on this” 

But everybody has access to that big old Bible.

We all have access to it, but just some people are choosing to just focus on this.

And so if you have been in experiences where you’ve only focused on this amount, then this is why you’re only getting that and why you’re not getting that whole experience with God. 

But if you want to have it, you can have it.

I remember before I ever got any of this stuff, I don’t know if I believe in angels.

I don’t know if I believe in Jesus. 

I’ve been in church my whole life and I believe in God. I would always say in Jesus’ name, but I struggled with Jesus. 

Like how is Jesus born of a virgin and like God for our sins? 

Like what, how does that, what is going on? 

And I started being very curious and being if this is real, then show me. Jesus, show me.

I remember one night I had moved this girl into my house because she had lost her mom, and she came to my door and was like, “here, I got something for you” 

And she handed me a book about angels and I was like, “What?” 

And she goes, “God told me to give this to you”

And I was like, “Oh my God” 

And so I read this book, it’s like Chicken Soup of the Soul Angels or something like that.

It’s really good. 

And I read this book and I was just in shock hearing all the stories of people encountering angels. 

Then another lady at church handed me a book about angels and I was just in shock.

I think it was like a year or so later, Chelsea came to my room and said, “here, God told me to give you this” 

And she has given me the movie, the Passion of Christ. 

I had never seen the Passion of Christ. 

I wanted to see it, but I was so afraid to watch it because I had heard about people and their experiences just crying and all that from the passion of Christ.

So then one day I just sat up in my room and watched the Passion of Christ. 

And that was very hard to watch for sure. 

But it was very, very good. 

And I started to just realize that, all of my curiosity, God was meeting me in my curiosity and He was using other people, to teach me things, to lead me to things, to educate me so I could be open.

And I remember when I was at this church and I was so depressed after going to divorce, I was so sad. 

And they just kept, like, they would come up to me all the time and just hug me and love on me and kiss on me. 

And I was like a rock and I just would not break.

And then eventually I kind of started to break, and then they just kept praying over me that I would just be filled with joy. 

Now, the crazy thing that they didn’t know was that I had this little black, I call this my little black book of questions.

And in this little black book, I had written right after my divorce, “God, can you please give me joy because I don’t have any”

I wrote that and then years, a couple of years later, everybody’s praying for me for joy and they just keep praying for me. 

And fast forward, it’s been how long I’ve been a divorce, couldn’t tell you for a long time.

And the number one thing people say to me is “Keenya, you are just so joyful.” 

Somebody came up to me on Sunday and she said, “as soon as you come into the room, everything changes”

And I was just like, “I don’t see that” 

And she was like, “you don’t understand. Every time I see you, I feel so happy. And she said it, everywhere you go you are giving people that joy” 

I’m always in awe because I still have the little black book that says, God, please give me joy coz I don’t have any. 

And realizing that, hey, if you stay curious and you’re asking God to like help me in these. He’s gonna do all that.

But all of that happened once I got, you know, filled with the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues. 

So the short version of this is speaking in tongues is Biblical!

Absolutely!

You can go back to those scriptures that I gave you and you get to just have a conversation with God directly.

Instead of just relying on only the Bible and relying only on what the pastor is teaching, talk to God directly, and ask Jesus if speaking in tongues is Biblical. 

If it is, can you please encounter me? Talk directly to me.

Give me an experience and then you be open to it. 

I guarantee you, you’re gonna be invited to somebody’s church and somebody’s gonna be laying hands, praying. 

People are gonna be speaking in tongues and you’re gonna be like, and don’t be closed off to it.

Be open to it. 

If you really are like, I want all the Bible things to be open to it.

I have done so much stuff in the last five years that I thought was just crazy, and now I’m just, this is everything.

This is life.

One of the things that are happening in my life right now is I have fibroids in my belly, so I’m technically needing to have surgery.

But every single time they say, does anybody need prayer for anything?

I raised my hand, to believe in God for miracles, for them to disappear.

And so last night they asked, does anybody need prayer for anything? 

And I just raised my hand, and the lady came out to me, and she was just like, what’s going on?

I told her about my stomach. I said, my stomach sits out here, but that’s not really my stomach.

These are like gross that are on my uterus. 

She was just like, oh my God. 

And so she starts praying over my belly then she starts singing over my belly. 

Then she was just going at my belly and I’m just standing here like, you go right ahead, lady.

Because just weeks prior, we knew about a lady who had stage four cancer, and her son was praying for her, had a church, praying for her.