This is a really scary blog for me to write, but also probably one of the most freeing, so I’ll just start at the end and go from there…
A few months ago, I had a prophetic dream, it went a little something like this:
I was standing in my kitchen with my mom and dad and I was 9 months pregnant. I looked down at my belly and I felt a mix of both shame and excitement around my pregnancy.
I walked into my living room and delivered my baby, then placed the baby in a basket, set it aside, and walked back into the kitchen where my parents were. My dad was making cookies and I took them from him and started making them myself.
Let me back up:
A long time ago, back when I was applying for the World Race, I was told by people that it was a cult and that it was full of bad theology and that it would be a bad idea to join their organization. For months I wrestled with what to do (because, like, I didn’t want to join a cult). I felt like the Lord was drawing me specifically towards this organization and I wanted to be obedient, so I jumped and applied, but I decided that I would go through this process with my eyes wide open.
Month 3, when I was in Bulgaria, I met a group of people my age who were away at a church conference. One night they invited me and my team to a bonfire that they were having and that began one of the strangest nights of my life. Some of my teammates and I followed our new Bulgarian friends a few miles outside of the village and into the woods. Seemingly at random they decided that we had reached the perfect spot to set up our fire and then we all sat down to hang out for a bit (or so we Americans thought). Almost as soon as we sit down, one of the Bulgarians who spoke pretty good English starts preaching to us. He talked about living a life marked by the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues, and being baptized in the Holy Spirit. And I’m just sitting there like … um what is happening. My little theology ‘red flags’ start going off and I started thinking- I don’t know if I agree with what this guy is talking about.
Then, they decided to pray over me and my teammates to receive the gift of tongues. We all kinda looked at each other and before we knew it we were all being prayed over in heavenly languages.
I don’t really know how to describe it, but something started stirring in my abdomen. It wasn’t exactly physical, but I could feel it, and it began moving up my esophagus, and then into my throat, and then into my mouth. And I knew in that moment that if I opened my mouth I would start speaking in tongues.
So you know what I did? I kept my mouth shut and I told God no.
A few months later, during our Month 6 debrief in Thailand, my squad was having a worship night where we created space for anyone who wanted to come up and speak something out or address the squad in some way could. One of my friends, M, gets up and shares that she is tired of hiding it and being ashamed and shares with the squad that she speaks in tongues then said that she felt like God wanted to her pray over the squad in her tongue.
When she was finished she sat down, I didn’t know what to make of it. I know that the Bible says that there needs to be an interpretation, and there wasn’t one- right away. About 2 minutes later another friend of mine stands up and shares the interpretation with the group.
That kinda knocked me on my butt. For so long I had been skeptical about if the gifts, specifically tongues, was even a real thing, and here, right in front of my eyes, I saw it happen. And then I thought: oh no- did God try to give me a gift and I said no?
For two months I wrestled with feeling guilty about telling God (literally the God of the universe) no when He tried to give me a gift, and I began asking for forgiveness. I mean, if this is real and it is from God, then why was I so scared of it?
Month 8 debrief rolls around and M and I ended up sitting down for a one on one (AKA just spending some intentional time together). My original plan was to take a brain break together and such chill, but the second I sat down I blurted out “I’m supposed to ask you about tongues”. I had no idea where that had come from but I knew it was true. That began an hour long conversation about tongues where we just sat and searched the scriptures together and I grew so incredibly convicted. Did I really want to know God, and know all of Him, or did I just want what I could understand and what I was comfortable with? That same day sweet M ended up praying with me for 3 hours, asking for forgiveness and praying that the Lord gives me a second chance to receive His gift.
While we were praying several passages came to us:
9 “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
11 “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for[f] a fish, will give him a snake instead? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” Luke 11: 9-13
Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. 2 He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. 3 And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’
4 “For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’”
6 And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7 And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8 I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” Luke 18:1-8
17 A man in the crowd answered, “Teacher, I brought you my son, who is possessed by a spirit that has robbed him of speech. 18 Whenever it seizes him, it throws him to the ground. He foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to drive out the spirit, but they could not.”
19 “You unbelieving generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy to me.”
20 So they brought him. When the spirit saw Jesus, it immediately threw the boy into a convulsion. He fell to the ground and rolled around, foaming at the mouth.
21 Jesus asked the boy’s father, “How long has he been like this?”
“From childhood,” he answered. 22 “It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.”
23 “‘If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for one who believes.”
24 Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”
25 When Jesus saw that a crowd was running to the scene, he rebuked the impure spirit. “You deaf and mute spirit,” he said, “I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.”
26 The spirit shrieked, convulsed him violently and came out. The boy looked so much like a corpse that many said, “He’s dead.” 27 But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him to his feet, and he stood up.
28 After Jesus had gone indoors, his disciples asked him privately, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?”
29 He replied, “This kind can come out only by prayer and fasting.” Mark 9:17-29
My take-away from all of this was: have faith and wait on the promises to come. I also felt the push towards fasting and began to fast one meal a day until the Lord answered my prayers. (Here is a resource that I looked at while learning more about tongues, for those who are interested).
Everyday for the rest of my Race (about 3 months) I fasted one meal a day.
During that time the Lord worked and moved and showed me so many things and it was interesting to see a change occurring in myself.
My prayer at the beginning of my fast was that the Lord would give me this gift, that He would open the mouth of my spirit and allow me to communicate with Him in that way. Then one day, about a month into my fast, I realized that my prayers had changed from ‘give me’ to ‘teach me’. I stopped asked to receive and started asking the Lord to teach me how to use this gift biblically (mind you, I still didn’t receive what I was praying for yet).
And then, after talking with some much wiser friends, my prayer changed again- this time from ‘teach me to use this’ to ‘God I just want more of you’.
Then it happened: During ministry one day in month 10 I became overwhelmed with anxiety. I was able to get up and walk away by myself for a second and I began praying. I didn’t know what was causing my anxiety but I asked the Lord to open the mouth of my spirit so that like the Bible says in Romans 8, my spirit and the Holy Spirit could intercede for me. And God gave me a word. In faith I started repeating that word over myself and instantly I felt peace wash over me. I experienced a freedom that came from deeper than my understanding.
During my final debrief in month 11 the Lord convicted me again. I was still fasting and praying for a full prayer language, and just more of the Holy Spirit in general, and I felt like the Lord was asking me to step out in faith even more, and pursue a baptism of the Holy Spirit.
Side Note: For those of you who have never heard this term before (I mean, I hadn’t before the World Race), Baptism of the Holy Spirit has been explained to me like this: When we choose to enter into a relationship with Christ, its like walking into a river. We receive the Holy Spirit at this time and we are saved, were standing in the river. Baptism of the Holy Spirit happens when we choose to submerge ourselves in the river and allow the river to guide us and take us down with the water. It’s asking the Lord to continually fill us with His spirit. This is not a salvation baptism, but an intentional surrendering to the Holy Spirit. If that doesn’t make sense, Check out this mini sermon thingy by Francis Chan.
Again, I took some time to research what the Bible said about this topic and I asked multiple trusted people who I knew had more experience with baptism of the Holy Spirit what they believe and what they were taught.
The Lord and I had been doing this dance for the past few months were He would lovingly push me to trust Him more, and I would hesitate, and He would show me his faithfulness, and I would counter that by researching and attempting to understand everything. I came to the end of myself a little bit and the Lord reminded me that I am not going to be able to understand the fullness of all that He is, but that even in the things that I don’t understand, He is still God.
So I jumped. I gathered a few trusted friends during my final days on the field and we prayed for me to receive Baptism of the Holy Spirit. God showed up and He did a lot of really cool things that were personal and intimate. I think one of my major take-aways from the Race was that I learned to hear God’s language of love for me. (If you’re interested in what that experience was like for me I’d love to answer some questions and talk about it- but it was something that was very personal and important to me so I won’t share those details here… its also kinda a lot and this blog is already SUUPPPERRRRR long so you know…)
I received more and more words in my tongue during my Baptism of the Holy Spirit, but not a full prayer language, but I felt like there was no more for me to ask of the Lord and so I ended my fast.
A month after being home, at PSL (Project Search Light) in Gainesville, Ga, I had another encounter with the Lord. During the worship on the final night, I was kneeling at the alter, frustrated and attempting to pray to God still in my broken prayer language, when my tongue kept getting confused. I would stop and then go back to repeating the distinct words that I had felt the Lord gave me. I had been doing this for a few minutes, when one of my friends, D, came up, put his hand on my back, and just said “God says let go” and boom. I was speaking in tongues.
In a beautiful moment of trusting the Lord and choosing to give Him control of literally everything, my spirit broke free. I began to pray in tongues.
This brings me back to my dream that I told you about already.
When I had my dream, I was so so so very confused, I mean its a pretty weird dream to have. I was at training for my WR Semesters trip that I lead and I ended up sharing the dream with a few of my co-leaders.
Now at this point I thought that this was just some kind of weirdo dream, I’d never had a prophetic dream before, I didn’t think that I was someone who had the ability to have one. After I finished telling them about my dream, one of my co-leaders looked at me and said ‘I think I have an interpretation for you but I am going to take a few days to pray about it.’ And I was like Whhhaaatttt. But it got me thinking, and then I got the chance to ask the Lord about it myself and He gave me an interpretation too.
The interpretation:
The Lord had been growing something inside of me, that is, my relationship with the Holy Spirit, and even more specifically the gift of tongues, over a period of 9 months. I felt excited about this life change that was happening within me, but also ashamed of how it would be viewed by others.
When I received His gift, AKA the baby, I was overwhelmed and tried to ignore the life change that had happened by going back to something familiar, like making cookies.
When I came home from my Race, I didn’t want to tell anyone about what I had seen, or my experiences with the Holy Spirit because I feared that people would not be accepting, or that people would ‘judge my theology’. I feared that people would think that I went off and blindly followed whatever AIM (the organization) told me to believe.
But lately God has been telling me that its time to kill my fear of man, and to not be ashamed of the place that He has brought me to. I walked into this journey with my eye open and I did my best to search the scriptures and pray before walking into anything, but I don’t have to justify myself before man because God knows my heart and He has brought me to where He wants me to be. During this time, I have learned about how unknowable the Lord is and I feel like in this season He has grown my faith into something that it wasn’t before.
So, sometimes when I pray now I speak in tongues. When I don’t know what I need, my spirit intercedes for me in heavenly languages, just like Paul talked about in Romans 8. I’m done with feeling ashamed of the gifts of the Lord and how He chooses to move in my life. How can I be ashamed of my Father?
If anything that I have talked about here has stirred something within you and you have questions, I would love to talk to you- but first, please bring your questions to the Lord and let Him tell you what He wants you to know. He has more answers than me anyway.
Much Love,
Morgan
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