Are You Praying in Tongues Too Much?

Praying in tongues is valuable! When we pray in tongues, we release our destiny and pray the will of the Father. The Holy Spirit knows exactly what needs to be prayed, and this prayer language He has given us releases what the Spirit knows needs to be released. I believe we should be praying in tongues daily, and I do. But are we praying in the Spirit too much?

How can we be praying in the Spirit too much? When it is the only way, we pray when we are not balancing our prayer life with praying in the Spirit, declarations, proclamations, prayer and intercession. Our prayer life must be a combination of all of these things, but especially we must balance out praying in tongues and releasing prayers in our native language.

“For truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, he will have whatever he says” (Mark 11:23).

“Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (Matt. 18:18).

In order to be speaking to our mountain and binding and loosing, we must be speaking out in English or our native language. The demonic realm does not understand our prayer language. That is one reason praying in the Spirit is so powerful, because we can release the will of God for our lives without the demonic realm knowing what is being released. However, there are also things we must pray and speak out in order to bind and restrict the demonic realm. And ultimately, we must remember, as God’s will is being released in our life, spiritual warfare attacks will come forth that we need to counterattack in and through prayer.

Jesus has given us authority over all things in Luke 10:19. “Look, I give you authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy. And nothing shall by any means hurt you.”

We take that authority through prayer and declarations by praying audibly and speaking to the spiritual realm. When we speak out, the spiritual realm must react and act because our words are prophetic. Our words have authority and are designed to penetrate the spirit realm. Our words have power and when spoken out create positive results.

As I have trained Christians around the world in enhancing their prayer life, I am told often that they pray in the Spirit all day. As I said before, praying in the Spirit is great and powerful, but it should not substitute all the ways we could be praying. Praying the Psalms out loud is also a powerful weapon against the enemy. When you read and truly understand the prayer book of the Bible, the Psalms, these are full of spiritual warfare declarations.

Enhancing our prayer life and our spiritual arsenal will accomplish much for the kingdom of God. Just as we are always studying and learning more about Scripture, so should we be aiming to increase our prayer vocabulary. Stagnancy in prayer is a common struggle among believers. One way to break stagnancy is to discover new ways to pray and have an adequate balance of all the biblical ways we can pray.

The next time you go to prayer, and you find yourself desiring to pray in tongues, yield for a moment and allow the Holy Spirit to instruct you how to pray. If you feel an unction and urgency in your spirit man to pray in tongues, then, by all means, do so. But, if you start receiving sentences in your spirit, or what I call “simple statements” in my book Speak Out, the Holy Spirit is giving you those sentences to pray out as declarations and intercession. The Holy Spirit came to co-labor with us in prayer. Therefore, let’s allow Him to lead us in the kind of prayer we should be praying every day. {eoa}

Kathy DeGraw is a prophetic spiritual warfare strategist releasing the love and power of God, to ignite and activate people, release prophetic destinies and deliver people from the bondage of the enemy. She is the founder of DeGraw Ministries and Be Love Outreach. She is the author of several books, including Speak Out, Discerning and Destroying the Works of Satan, and Warfare Declarations. You can connect with Kathy on Facebook at facebook.com/kathydegraw or visit degrawministries.org.