I Want to Be Slain in the Spirit!

Disappointed: I joined a charismatic group about a year ago and am amazed to see numbers of people slain in the spirit when they are being prayed over. I desire the same but am always disappointed that I don’t get slain. The latest seminar I attended was a week ago and still I didn't get slain in the Spirit.

Dear Disappointed: I fully understand. I too have hungered to fall down under the power of the Holy Spirit as others do, and I have wrestled with this issue over the years. It is finally resolved in my heart and mind. Let me offer a few thoughts the Lord has shared with me.

We Don't All Have the Same Experiences

First, it is not necessary that I have the same physical manifestations to the power of God that others have. The Spirit came and rested on Jesus and He didn’t fall down (Lk. 3:22). So since this is not a required step or action of spiritual maturity, there is no reason for me to have to experience it in my life. However, I still might enjoy being slain in the Spirit, so is there anything I can do to prepare myself to receive it?

I believe it is right brain people who experience this manifestation more often than left brain people. I am a left brainer, so normally I wouldn’t fall down when being prayed for. I may desire the experience, but obviously, I am not going to fake it and just fall over, nor am I suggesting that right brainers are faking it.

What Right Brainers Do

Finally I realized that right brainers posture themselves differently inwardly than I do as a left brainer. As they are being prayed for, they are in the right side of their brains, meaning they are seeing what is happening. They are seeing the hands being laid upon them as the hands of Jesus. They are seeing power streaming from those hands into their bodies (Hab. 3:4). They are seeing their bodies absorbing this power and energy of the Holy Spirit, and feeling weakened as the power of God interacts with the energy within their own bodies. They are hungry to believe all this, receive it and experience it, so they have expectant faith and are tuned to inner sensations. As they feel a lightness, they don't resist, but simply allow themselves to fall into the arms of a catcher.

Now, obviously, not all right brainers experience it exactly this way, but these are the general principles.

What Left Brainers Do

So how is that different from what I do as a left brainer? Well, first of all I am not normally using vision. I am not seeing anything positive with the eyes of my heart. With my natural eyes, I am watching the person coming down the line praying for people and them falling, and I am thinking, “I hope this happens to me," and picturing and believing that I probably will remain standing, since I never fall. This is a totally different inner posture than that of the right brainer. This inner analysis, doubt, questioning and lack of tuning to believing pictures and inner sensations essentially bar me from receiving this experience.

What I Could Do as a Left Brainer

So I have discovered that if I will just posture myself as right brainers do, and see what they are seeing, and believe what they are believing, and not resist but if I feel a bit faint, then allow myself to fall into the arms of a catcher, that I too can receive that which they receive, and I can do it with integrity, and not just be faking it. So that is what I have done from time to time, when it has been appropriate and I have desired it.

Non-Judgementalism Please!

I don’t hunger for this experience like right brainers do. Nor do I judge it or come against it. Being slain in the Spirit is fine and meaningful for many, but perhaps not as meaningful to me personally, and that is fine. God has made us all different. If we measure ourselves against one another, we are fools, the Bible says (2 Cor. 10:12). So I celebrate their encounters with God, without judging myself by demanding that I need to have the identical same encounter.

The Bible neither prescribes this experience as a sign of spirituality, nor does it speak against it. So I adopt this same perspective.

Additional Resources on Spirit Encounter – Click on Links to Discover More…

• 4 Keys to Hearing God’s Voice - You can easily hear God’s voice daily.
• Naturally Supernatural – Christ can live naturally out through you.
• How to Walk by the Spirit – Acquire a biblical vocabulary to describe sensations in your heart and the spiritual encounters you experience.

You may hire a coach to assist you in mastering any of the above training modules.

The above three training modules are also available as Christian Leadership University Courses: REN103 Communion With God, REN204 Naturally Supernatural, REN206 Increasing the Anointing.

Our School of the Spirit offers the following: Hearing God's Voice