What the %@#&* is happening to me?!

It happened again.  Another person drawn in.  

A fairly new friend of mine was doing nothing but minding his own business.  Well, actually he was consumed with his own business.  Venting to God about said business.  This idea of even talking to God as if he were really there is a new thing for my friend.  But he was trying it out, and found out that it works.  God responds.    

After a few times of doing this kind of prayer-therapy with God, venting his frustration and asking hard questions and directions regarding his own life, he called another friend of mine and had a very interesting question.  Choking back tears, he whispered into his cell, “What the %@#&* is happening to me?  I’m trying to pray but I keep saying words I don’t understand.”

This gets me thinking.  How many people experience glossolalia (speaking in tongues) for the first time and have no idea that it is the Holy Spirit?  

I had a friend in college who was en route to become a Catholic Priest, and when we got together one day and prayed, he was obviously moved on and began speaking in tongues.  

I asked, “When were you first filled with the Holy Spirit?”

He said, “Is that what that gibberish funny-talk is?”  

For me, I don’t think the Spirit is simply tongues, but I do think God has has poured his Spirit into people around the world and they have received supernatural power, a counselor, the Spirit of truth, a comforter and more … and they have no idea.

What stories can you tell of people who wondered what the %@#&* was happening to them, when it was just God at work … in them?