The Language of the Spirit Is Ewe: The Value of Praying With Your Understanding

I can already tell that this write-up will instigate the ire of many zealous Charismatic young men and women. Allow me to begin with my disclaimer then: I am a Pentecostal Charismatic Christian. I believe in the Holy Spirit and in the continuous manifestation of His gifts. I believe that the most common Scriptural evidence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament is the speaking of new tongues. I speak in tongues myself, and have prayed for others to receive the gift. That the gift of tongues is one of the most precious endowments of Christ for the prayer life of His church is undeniable. Praying with the Spirit is an indispensable part of praying in the Spirit.

It is however always important to ensure that we remain Christian in our Christianity, and align our doctrine, practice, and defense with the letter and spirit of Scripture. My challenge has been the abuse of the gift in recent times. I use the word abuse in two of its denotations: 1) improper or excessive use or treatment, and 2) to use or treat so as to injure or damage.

I don’t intend here to dwell long on the advantages of speaking in tongues that should make every Christian as desperate to receive, use and pray for the gift in others.

My burden, rather, is to address an imbalance. In our zeal for the supernatural, many have relegated the “other half” of a complete prayer life to a position of inferiority. We have championed “praying with the spirit” to the near-total exclusion of “praying with the understanding.” This is not a biblical balance. The Apostle Paul, the man who arguably wrote the most about the gifts of the Spirit, gave us the perfect model:

“What is the conclusion then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will also pray with the understanding. I will sing with the spirit, and I will also sing with the understanding.” (1 Corinthians 14:15, NKJV)

It is not an “either/or” proposition; it is a “both/and.” We have embraced the first half of that verse with passion, but we have let the second half atrophy. This neglect is a form of abuse, and it is injuring the church. Here’s why reclaiming the power of praying with understanding is so vital.

For the Sake of the Body: Edification and Unity

The primary function of any gift in a corporate setting is the edification—the building up—of others. When you are leading prayer, your primary goal is not personal edification but to lead the congregation into unified agreement before the throne of God.

How can we obey the command to “agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask” (Matthew 18:19) if we have no idea what is being prayed for? We can’t. We can be in the same room, all “praying,” but with completely different concepts in our hearts. The prayer for Samaria for the sons of Zebedee was for “thunder and fire”; for Jesus, it was for their souls. If you are praying in tongues for “fire” while I am praying with my understanding for “mercy,” we are not in agreement. We can only truly know and agree when prayer is offered with understanding.

This has three critical implications for our church life:

• It Teaches New Converts: How does a new believer learn to pray? By listening to mature believers pray. When all they hear is tongues, they learn nothing about prayer topics, how to structure a petition, how to plead a promise, or how to worship in prose. Praying with understanding is a crucial part of discipleship. Is it surprising that when His disciples asked Jesus, “Lord, teach us to pray”, Jesus offered a simple prayer formula in native tongue, rather than a fiery blast of postgraduate tongues?
• It Reaches the Unbeliever: Paul is blunt: if an “uninformed person or an unbeliever” comes in and everyone is speaking in tongues, “will they not say that you are out of your minds?” (1 Cor 14:23). But a heartfelt, clear, understood prayer can convict their heart, help them, and lead them to faith and salvation.
• It Stops Exclusion: We have made our services so exclusionary. Ironically, the world often seems to have a better grasp of inclusivity and tolerance than the Church of God, all because we have abused a gift meant for building up. We have created a hierarchy of spirituality where those who speak in tongues are “in” and those who don’t are “out.” We damage fellow believers, making them feel inferior or spiritually lacking. We must not isolate believers who have not yet received this specific gift when our officiants declare in “spiritual” voice, “Let us begin to pray in the language of the Spirit…”

For the Sake of Fellowship: Engaging God with Your Whole Self

Prayer is not a spiritual hack. It is not a way to “outsource” our devotional duty to the Holy Spirit while our minds are coasting along in neutral gear — or worse, wandering through a million other concerns. Prayer is, at its core, fellowship with God. It is intentionally drawing near to Him.

The greatest commandment is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” God wants your mind engaged in this relationship. He wants to reach your soul (your mind, will, and emotions) as well as your spirit. He hears your thoughts, your considerations, and your plans, and responds accordingly (Matt. 1:20).

When we pray with understanding, we are not praying alone; our understanding cooperates with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit illuminates our minds, brings scriptures to our remembrance, and guides our thoughts. This is how we fulfill the command to love Him with our minds. We actively use our intellect to recall His promises and quote them back to Him, using the “sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” as the basis for our requests.

God desires our free-will participation. He doesn’t want robotic prayers forced through us; He wants intimate, willed prayers from us, in conjunction with the prayers by the Spirit. We must not be lazy in this duty.

For the Sake of Growth: Sanctification and Focus

This may be one of the most overlooked benefits of understood prayer: it reveals your own heart to you.

When you pray in tongues, you are edified, but you do not know the content (Romans 8:26). When you pray with your understanding, you are forced to articulate the deepest desires of your heart. In doing so, you often discover what’s really in there. You might find that your prayers are selfish, fearful, or even vengeful. You discover “bad prayers” and unchristlike ways of thinking.

This is a gift! It’s better to pray with understanding and know your own heart now, where you can be convicted by the Spirit and repent. As you pray, you grow in self-knowledge. You can actively change your prayers, saying, “Father, forgive me, that is not Your will. Align my heart with Yours.” This is how sanctification happens in the prayer closet.

I marvel at Jesus’ brave prayer in Jn. 12:27 and 28. Do you see how He was able to plan and edit His prayer beforehand? This certainly cannot be done when praying in tongues, and yet it instigates God’s glorious and immediate response —

“Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.”

Furthermore, and on a practical level, it also helps you focus. We all know the “wandering mind” problem. But when you have a specific prayer topic you are articulating in your own language, it gives your mind an anchor. And when your mind does wander (as it will), you have a specific, understood line of thought to which you can bring it back.

For the Sake of Faith: Creating a Record

Finally, praying with understanding is intensely practical for building your faith. Why are the prayers of Jesus in John 17, the prayers of Paul in Ephesians and all his epistles, and the prayers of Nehemiah and the Psalmists so valuable to us? Because they were not done in tongues. They are preserved for our learning because they were prayed with understanding.

This provides two benefits:

1. A Record That You Have Prayed: You have a clear memory and can even write down what you have laid before the Lord. When you tell others, as Jesus could tell Peter, “I have prayed for you” (Lk. 22:32), you can be certain that you really have. If you only pray in tongues, you cannot definitively know what was asked.
2. The Ability to Track Answered Prayer: But more than knowing what you have prayed for, you can know what God has definitely answered. When you pray with understanding, you can list your requests. When God answers, you can go back to that list and put a checkmark by it, building a personal history of God’s faithfulness. This “record” becomes a powerful testimony that fuels your faith for future battles. This is a massive faith-builder, and you can give specific thanks for specific answers. How beautiful it has been for me to flip through my physical and digital notebooks over the years and see the scores of prayer topics marked as done!

The “Both/And” of a Healthy Prayer Life

Let me be clear, as I was in the beginning: this is not a call to stop praying in tongues. God forbid. Praying with the spirit is a beautiful, powerful, and necessary gift for personal edification, spiritual warfare, and intercession when our own minds fall short.

This is a call to stop neglecting the other half of the equation. This is a call to return to the balanced, biblical model of Paul. The current “abuse” is one of an “improper or excessive use” that has damaged our corporate witness, starved our minds, and hindered our discipleship.

Let us be mature Christians. Let us build our houses with more than one tool. Let us cherish the gift of tongues. And let us equally cherish the profound, transformative, and indispensable power of praying with our understanding.

“I will pray with the spirit, and I will also pray with the understanding.”

Let’s do both.