A man describes speaking in tongues for the first time at age 13 during a revival meeting. A tall man's sleeve kept brushing his forehead at the altar, and when the preacher laid hands on the man, the speaker felt an electric jolt he experienced as the Holy Spirit. The words came like a river, not forced, and afterward his doubt and hesitation in prayer fell away.
And I'll never forget when I first received the gift of speaking in tongues. I was at a revival meeting. I must have been about 13 or 14 years old. And I remember being at the altar, ready to receive prayer, but there was a tall man in front of me who was blocking the evangelist's view of me. So I was a little frustrated, but I just pressed in, continued to pray. And as my hands are lifted, my eyes are closed, I kept feeling this tapping on my forehead. It was the sleeve of the tall man. And so I'm thinking, this is just really distracting. I'm trying to pray, but I'm also trying to get as close to the preacher as possible. And then all of a sudden, one of the times that the tall man's sleeve hit me on the forehead, I felt like a jolt moved through my body. When that sleeve hit me, I looked up and the preacher was laying hands on the tall guy and whatever was transferring through the preacher and into the tall guy, came through the sleeve and went through my body. So there's that power of the Holy Spirit flowing like an electric current. And the moment that happened, it was like something just opened up in the Spirit. And I began speaking in tongues. And it wasn't like this rigid, forced language. It was just this flow. It was like a river coming out of me. And I'll never forget that after that moment, I noticed that there was less hesitation in my mind, in my emotions. There was less doubt. Doubt began to be weakened in my life as I made use of that gift. When I would pray, there was less hesitation and doubt. When I would worship, there was less hesitation and doubt internally. When I would read the Word, there was less hesitation and doubt. It affected all different aspects of my life.
