Can You Pray in a Language You've Never Learned?
Mid-prayer in a football stadium, Bob spoke words he didn't know—and a Kenyan brother recognized, in his own tribal dialect: "Bow down and worship."
In September 1983, while living across the street from the University of Minnesota, my mentor Bob Perry read Arthur Wallis’s book God’s Chosen Fast. At the time, he had never fasted longer than a day, and didn’t know anybody who had fasted longer than a day, but he decided to try a ten day fast.
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He recruited ten different people to fast one day each with him, a different person each day. It was a straight water fast, old school, no preparation, no understanding how to do it.
Toward the end of the fast, he and a group of friends went into the football stadium on a Sunday afternoon to worship and pray, declaring that the stadium would be full of hungry, passionate students for Jesus.
Some of them began to pray in the Spirit. Bob had noticed that his prayer language shifted, and that afternoon he prayed in a prayer language he had not heard before.
Then he looked over to his left, and saw a black brother from Kenya fall to his knees and began to worship. Tears began to flow down his face as he worshiped. Then he said, “Bow down and worship! Bow down and worship! The Lord is telling us to bow down and worship! Kneel before me! I’m the Lord your maker! Kneel before me!”
Bob said, “He kept saying it over and over. I was so excited. The gift of faith of my Kenyan brother as he was praying and proclaiming, we went on and worshiped and praised.”
Afterwards he said, “Bob, you will not believe it. But you were speaking one of my native tongues. Not the common language of the Kenyan people, but my dialect.”
In this prayer in his tribal language, Bob was saying, “Bow down and worship, bow down and worship, kneel before the Lord your maker.”
That was like the first time something like that had happened to him.
So exciting!
Holy Spirit, we welcome you to speak to us and guide us and direct us. If you do so like in Acts 2, we would love it, when people from many nations asked, “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? We hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!”
But mostly we thank you for your grace in our lives. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Pray on every occasion in the Spirit, with every type of prayer and intercession,
Amy Joy
P.S. Bob taught me how everyone can fast. This story is about a water-only fast, but you can also do an intermittent fast, a partial fast, or a soul fast. No one needs to be left out! Even if calorie restriction is a problem … you can still take part!
We have a beautiful book for a 21-day guided fast, available in English and in Spanish.