A while back I was praying and asked God to fill me with His Spirit and do whatever work He needed to do in me. Then I got this warm, buzzing, almost electrical feeling that spread through my whole body. I wasn’t trying to make anything happen, it just did.
It happened one more time after that. Since then, I’ve kind of avoided praying that same way because I don’t want to start chasing the feeling or treating prayer like a vending machine.
I also wonder sometimes if being too aware of what we expect can get in the way when we pray.
Has anyone else experienced something physical like this during prayer? And does it mean anything about where I stand with salvation?
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Scripture never ties assurance to a physical sensation. The buzzing in your arms means about as much as the plain trust you bring to every ordinary prayer where nothing happens at all.
I had something like that once, at a prayer meeting years ago.
A heat that started in my chest and moved outward. I’ve never been able to explain it or make it happen again. I think you’re probably doing the wise thing by not making the feeling the goal. I’d think twice about avoiding that kind of prayer altogether, though. Asking God to fill you and work in you is exactly the prayer He wants to hear. If He answers with warmth one day and silence the next, that’s His business.
(I’ve known people who chased the warmth for years and ended up worn out.)
Anyway. Most of my praying since then has been the kind where I feel nothing, and that’s what I’ve got.
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I wouldn’t use a bodily feeling to measure salvation. Our bodies react strongly to awe or that sense of God being close, and the experience can still be real. But the feeling itself can’t tell you what caused it. Being grateful and humble about it seems like the right way to handle it.
I think it’s possible to feed the Holy Spirit, but it’s not supposed to be the goal.
The Bible does show people reacting physically to God’s presence. But it never says warmth or tingling means anything specific. If the self-awareness is what’s throwing you off, try praying a Psalm or some written prayer you already know by heart. It puts your attention on actually talking to God.
As for salvation, look to Christ crucified and risen, and whether you’re trusting him.
Vending machine is a strange comparison for this. A vending machine gives you the same thing every time you put money in. You prayed that prayer, got the sensation twice, and presumably prayed plenty of other times with nothing at all.
In Ephesians 5:18 the verb is a present tense command, more like ‘keep on being filled.’
Paul follows it up with singing, giving thanks, and submitting to each other. All of it outward and ordinary. So praying that way repeatedly is just doing what the verse says, and the result you should expect is a changed Tuesday. I don’t think the expectation part is a problem either. Scripture treats expecting nothing from God as the problem (James 1:6-7 is pretty blunt about it). What matters is what you expect. Expecting God to work in you is faith. Expecting a specific feeling as proof He did is where it goes sideways, because then you’re grading the prayer instead of praying it.
When the Spirit shows up physically in Acts, the signs are mostly for other people to see. The Bible doesn’t really spend time interpreting warm buzzing feelings, so I wouldn’t spend much time on it either.
Scripture never ties assurance to a physical sensation. The buzzing in your arms means about as much as the plain trust you bring to every ordinary prayer where nothing happens at all.
I had something like that once, at a prayer meeting years ago.
A heat that started in my chest and moved outward. I’ve never been able to explain it or make it happen again. I think you’re probably doing the wise thing by not making the feeling the goal. I’d think twice about avoiding that kind of prayer altogether, though. Asking God to fill you and work in you is exactly the prayer He wants to hear. If He answers with warmth one day and silence the next, that’s His business.
(I’ve known people who chased the warmth for years and ended up worn out.)
Anyway. Most of my praying since then has been the kind where I feel nothing, and that’s what I’ve got.