Susy Smith wrote: “Another illustration of tongue-speaking that brings a message to someone who is least expecting it is related by Harold Hill in his book, How to Live Like a King’s Kid. He writes: ‘When another man came and sat in the prayer chair, I laid hands on him and prayed for him in the Spirit, praying in tongues. When the prayer was over, the scoffer (a man standing nearby and skeptically watching) was blubbering like a baby, crying up a storm, slobbering all over his expensive blue serge suit. “What ails you?” I asked. “Well,” he said, “I don’t know if the man in the chair got anything, but God spoke to me when you prayed for him, because you were praying in High German. I’m a student of High German, and I doubt if even you know it, because it’s a rare language.” I said, “I don’t know any German, high, low or medium.” “Well,” he said, “Who are you to scoff at my gifts?” And that big blubbering man got saved.'” What is Creator’s perspective, and how does this fit within the Divine Rules of Engagement, since the recipient was characterized as a “scoffer?” Why did he get this miracle and not the scores of diehard atheists and skeptics also scoffing at this?

What is important to understand about this story, which is a true and accurate account of speaking in tongues in a way highly improbable despite the presence of a seeming skeptic, is that the devil is in the details, always, in what can be allowed to happen in bringing forth a miracle. When people gather to participate in a religious service of some kind that involves the speaking of tongues, they do so because, in most cases, they are believers in the possibility, so they are not going to gawk and point fingers or to challenge others present but seeking a personal validation through the witnessing of the divine in action. So while they might personally not believe as fully as others, they are wanting to, and oftentimes that is when the divine can act using that wanting and the intention, as conscious energy from an attendee, to allow them the experiencing of a miracle in action—that was the case here. While that scoffer was someone known to be a skeptic, it was not someone simply wanting to disrupt things but someone truly wanting to find an authentic practitioner who could legitimately speak in tongues, in a way intelligible at least to someone, and not the many simulators who speak a kind of gibberish of their own creation, falsely believing it is a divine communication. It might be divine in supporting and even encouraging their doing so because it rewards their intention to have a physical experiencing of communing with the divine, but there are, indeed, false speakers in tongues, committing a kind of fraud, who are acting out of ego and not true faith that is in divine alignment. Most hardened skeptics would never visit a service of any kind, let alone one engaged in what seems to be high strangeness and a bizarre kind of delusional thinking, because they would feel out of place and most certainly would not want to be observed taking part in something they regard as bizarre and perhaps even a dangerous departure from reality.