When we pray in tongues but still pray amiss.
Just yesterday, I stumbled upon a statement in one of my favorite author’s substack feed that sparked my interest, probably because it was an experience I knew only too well. It ran along the lines: Most times at night, when I am too tired and lazy to pray, I pray in tongues so that I wouldn’t have to dream up new words.
Then in a strange and unsettling way, it hurt me to think that prayer could in fact be that passionless, mechanical, and merely routine. It’s true enough that often, the discipline of prayer requires that we go down on our knees even if it’s the last thing we would really want to do. Our constitution of mind and body often makes communion with God in prayer a difficult and not-so-pleasant undertaking. In most of his correspondences with friends and his mentees, especially recent converts to Christianity, C. S. Lewis was keen to exhort, insisting that our emotions and feelings are not really prerequisite to our worship of God, and are indeed not to be relied upon:
[…] even genuinely religious emotion is only a servant. No soul is saved by having it or damned by lacking it. The love we are commanded to have for God and our neighbour is a state of the will, not of the affections (though if they ever also play their part so much the better).
We really cannot judge God’s presence according to how we feel; at times when we have felt him to be so distant, only later have we realized he had in fact been closest. In sum, we ought to pray whether we feel like it or not. And yet the kind of praying in tongues I have often indulged, and see many Christians from charismatic circles indulging, clearly has very little to do with this charge to obedience. It is feelingless yes, but it is wrong. When we turn to tongues because of mental and spiritual sloth— so that we would not have to dream up new words— our prayer has in that moment begun to morph into something else, and it is really doubtful if we could still call that thing prayer.
Earlier, I had heard another interesting statement by a man of God, charismatic of course, along the lines(so it’s a paraphrase maybe with a little exaggeration): If you call yourself a Christian and yet cannot and have never prayed in tongues for an hour straight, you are joking. At that time, the circumstances of the assertion only made me chuckle, but now looking back, I cannot help but wonder whatever happened to prayer. Modern preachers and teachers of the Scriptures seem to be teaching myriads of mysteries about prayer that have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but have no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. It’s disturbing when prayer instead of being personal and heartfelt, becomes a clownish and despicable display of antics and groaning abilities. Is this what prayer really is about? All theatrics and disorder?
It would of course be preposterous to think that I am wholly in the right here, but please indulge me if you will— yes, I know it’s too much to ask. Very easily, and rather unwittingly, prayer can become a means of abdicating Christian responsibility. Many there are, prayerful Christians indeed, who yet walk in disobedience to most of God’s commands and live in sin. The statement itself is an irony given we would expect any Christian, at least in keeping with Pastor E. M. Bounds teachings on prayer (and I judge him faithful), a praying Christian cannot go on sinning. The experience we can claim, however, is that even in our praying, we still are mired in our sins. So what’s the matter here?
Such displays of plangent and raucous groanings are much more common in corporate prayers, but having noticed that my own praying in tongues is meant to help me not to have to think of new words, it’s obvious that the evil has made its way even into my private praying.
The first reaction from a Christian reading this, especially a famed and proud prayer warrior(seriously, I am not trying to sound sarcastic), might be to discount my words and judge me unspiritual. Easy, easy, dear comrade, just some little bit of consideration, that’s all I ask. We pray in tongues as we are helped by the Spirit of God, and as we cannot pray as we ought, the Spirit himself makes intercession for us in utterances and groanings that are too deep for words. Now, that’s a pretty solid defense for tongues and groanings— there simply aren’t any words for such deep groans. However, I am persuaded to think that the heart behind Paul’s statement(Romans 8:26) is not a tired soul too sleepy to dream up new words, or one a little unwilling to express itself in coherent phrases; rather, it’s a soul set aflame by God. The groaning and pleading that would follow would be a personal appeal to God and not for spectacle as is seen in some Pentecostal circles.
Our Lord Jesus, teaching his disciples how to pray, warned them against deluding themselves by thinking that they would be heard in heaven because of their many words. “That’s how heathens pray,” he said. “When you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites who love to stand and pray in synagogues and street corners so that they may be seen by others. Truly, they have received their reward.” That is admiration and approbation by men for their piety, yet what does it matter to be admired by mere flesh and blood for my outward obedience when I might not be truly obedient in my heart? The crucible is for silver, the furnace for gold, and the Lord tests the heart. “But when you pray, go up into your room and shut the door, and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”
William Law claims that we pray like Christians and live like heathens. I feel it’s more like: we pray like heathens, we live like heathens, and we call our heathenish ways Christian. For one thing, there are so many Christians keen on praying in tongues who are not keen on praying right. Even in tongues we err, and pray amiss, often because the tongues are earthly-minded or we are absent-minded— too lazy to dream up new words. It’s all lip business and not heart business as it were.
Several times, there won’t be enough emotion and high feelings to fire us up with enough passion in order that prayer may come easily to us, but even then, every prayer and appeal to heaven must be from the heart. The heart must pray lovingly, even if it feels empty, even if the mind is weary and unavailing, for after all, we do not pray because it feels good or it helps, as Henri Nouwen has been attributed to have said, but because God loves us, and wants our attention. I myself know I haven’t personally paid much attention during my prayers, carefully hiding behind my speaking in tongues. I can only hope for God’s mercy.
~MDG!!
Article was originally posted on substack. Find below the link, and perhaps follow more of the writer’s work.