I suppose one of the most confusing things about the gift of tongues is that
the Bible teaches that it is not understood unless there is an interpreter. The
question that arises, therefore, is why God would give us the ability to
speak with words we do not understand? The Bible does not give us an
answer to this question. We can only speculate as to why God does what He
does. Having said this, let me offer some personal suggestions.
First, as human being, we are quite logical. We filter everything through
this logic. Naturally, we struggle to believe what we cannot explain. This,
of course, is where faith in God is essential. I would venture to say that
many of our prayers are filtered through our own ideas and preferences. We
come to God telling Him what we want and persist in these prayers until we
get our answer. There are times, however, when what we want is not what is
best for us. Israel prayed for a king even through it was not in their best
interest. Because they persisted in this request, however, God gave them a
king. Sometimes the preferences and logic of our mind get in the way of
what God wants to do. Being able to pray from our spirit without these
obstacles may be why God gives us a language we cannot understand or
manipulate for our purpose.
Second, in the Christian life, we need to understand that not all of God’s
ways are logical and reasonable to our earthly mind. God will ask us to do
things that will not make sense to us. It did not make sense for David to
face Goliath with a slingshot and a few stones (1 Samuel 17). I did not
make sense for Gideon to reduce his army from 22,000 to three hundred to
face the Midianites. Nor did it make sense to arm those men with empty
jars, lights and trumpets, but that was the command of God (Judges 7). Did
it make sense for Noah to build an ark on dry land with no body of water
nearby? Did it make sense for Moses to lead over two million people into
the desert without adequate provisions for the forty-year journey? Did it
make sense for the disciples to follow the command of Jesus to feed a
hungry multitude with a small boy’s lunch? From a human perspective,
these events did not make sense. God’s ways are very different from our
ways, and His logic is not like ours. If we only do what we understand and
what makes sense to us, then we will miss out on the wonderful things He
wants to do through us that defy human logic and reason.