Reading Chasing the Dragon has really made me grow in my view of missions, God’s calling, and speaking in tongues as a prayer language. This book was published in its first printing in 1980 by Jackie Pullinger. She was a missionary to the Walled City in Hong Kong and had a very unique and extraordinary calling and ministry. When she was a young girl she had a desire to be a missionary and had that call all the way through high school. In high school, she was denied this because she didn’t want to be looked down on by schoolmates, but she still held on to the desire. After graduating she started applying to different missionary organizations, but none would accept her. Instead of becoming downcast and doubting this calling she kept at it. A long time went by and she had prayed a lot about it she still felt the desire to go, but God had not told her where to go or opened any doors. In fact she didn’t really hear much from him but she still held fast.
She talked to many people and still had no direction because they all told her the same thing which was to “pray about it.” This didn’t help her though because God didn’t speak anything else to her about it. Then one day she got to speak to a minister who told her to just get a ship ticket to the farthest possible country and pray about each place it stops and see if God wants her there. This is exactly what she needed to hear, so she set out having hardly any money and not being connected to any mission organization. She left England and finally arrived in Hong Kong where she felt God wanted her.
(This is the walled city of Hong Kong that had no government and no police. It had a lot of crime from the 1960s through the 70s and 80s. This was Jackie’s mission field.)
So this really spoke to me about God’s call on our life. Perhaps you feel that God has something for you to do in life and it has not happened yet. God could be calling you to do something for Him and you haven’t seen any doors open. Go for it! You can seriously do so much more than seems possible. I am proof of that. A year ago I had no idea that I would be traveling to 11 countries in 11 months and proclaiming the Good News. I am not extraordinary in many ways, but neither are most people on my squad. We are all just normal people who heard God tug at our hearts to leave everything behind for Him and followed through with it.
So on to missions. The people who really get to see the miracles overseas are the ones who are there permanently or long term. People take time to open up and it takes time to get to know the area. This also gives you time to build relationships and learn the language. This is what Jackie did and she sees some of the coolest miracles in a town where anarchy ruled.
Finally speaking in tongues is also a major topic in this book and has been big here on the race too. This is a very difficult subject and can cause contention, but I would like to get through all that and show you guys the truth. The Holy Spirit lives in all of us and is fully God. Romans 8:26-27 “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.” There are some things about God that I don’t fully comprehend so it does not seem far fetched to me that there would be words and things that I don’t understand that he would speak through me. Not only this, but the Bible says that the Spirit intercedes for us when we don’t know how to pray. The apostle Paul also boasts that he prays in tongues more than anyone so there seems to be merit in praying in tongues. (1 Corinthians 14:18) I don’t think that the apostle was speaking about other languages because there wouldn’t be any reason to boast about this. He could simply say he prays more than anyone else and leave out the tongues part. Paul spoke Aramaic, Greek, and Hebrew, but I believe there was more than this and he has a prayer language too.
So I have spoken in tongues more than I ever have before and it is really awesome. All I can say is that I feel the Holy Spirit rising up within me and it just comes out in a language that I don’t know. When the four of us guys where praying for this lady to be free from a demon, we all prayed in English and tongues at different times – one of the guys had never spoken in tongues before. Jackie Pullinger says that it was a real breakthrough for her too when she started using this new prayer language as you can see in the book.
I know some of you may not agree with me about this, but that is okay. I am just being honest in what God has been showing me and growing me in. You see, we all have God in a box. This box is manageable and easy to define, but that isn’t God and he doesn’t easily fit into anything. He is all powerful and all knowing. His ways are so much higher than ours and I am on this journey to have my boxes broken! Praise God for redemption and grace that comes through knowing His Son who died for us. I just want to love him so much more. I hope you do to. I also urge you to read “Chasing the Dragon.”
