I don't think it was the gift of interpretation that is manifested in Christian meetings. But your freedom in English is certainly the result of praying in tongues. My experience is that when I don't know how to pray for something that is on my heart, I ask the Lord to guide my tongue, then I pray in tongues, then I find a new freedom in English to pray for it. It seems to me that praying in tongues activates the flow of the Holy Spirit to the Lord and then the expression in English comes.
Paul says that he prays with the Spirit and with the understanding. What I get from this is that his prayer with tongues is interchangeable with his prayer with the understanding (in our case, English), and both happen in the same prayer event to God. When he prays in tongues concerning an issue, the Holy Spirit gives him the words in his normal language to be able express his heart in both tongues and normal language. This is what makes prayer exciting and meaningful!
I loved the above post, and there are several things worth highlighting:
when I don't know how to pray for something that is on my heart, I ask the Lord to guide my tongue, then I pray in tongues,
This is basically how we should use the gift on tongues. We don't know how to pray like we should. The bible explains that. So we should "ask the Lord to guide" our tongue. He of course start giving us words in English, and many many people do that and pick up words in English to pray over others. I believe every Christian should indeed seek the Lord for what to pray when ministering or interceding for others. Never-the-less, I don't always need to know other peoples issues, do it? So the obvious solution is that the Lord should give me the prayer in a language that neither I nor they understand!!
For example: If another member of the church has a problem, like cheating on their wife, or stealing at work, or have gone back to drugs, or you name it - They are in need of prayer, but I don't need to know about it. I have enough things to think about than to worry about other people problems. I have a business to run. So, I need to pray for them with out knowing about it, and tongue is the perfect solution. Our Lord is so smart! Now I can still get the interpretation, but it doesn't need to be word for word or have some type of gossip in it. God doesn't gossip. So the interpretation and prayer might come out something like "Lord I we pray for the person life of this person and the issue he or she is having trouble with." The actual prayer in tongue might have been 'Father send your Spirit to put conviction on this person for cheating on his wife', but I don't know that and don't need to know that and they certainly don't want of need me knowing it. Them knowing that the Spirit had me pray about their personal issue is enough to get them wondering what the Lord is telling others and convict them of their sins.
So tongues, the ability to trust the Lord with our voice even when we don't know what is being prayed is very important. And so it the interpretation the Lord can and will give us. And we need to ask for both, because He uses both. Paul wrote to desire the gifts, which includes both the speaking and getting and interpretation of tongues.. We don't know how to pray like we should. We need to ask the Lord to guide our tongue before praying.
I guess, in a certain way, it could be similar to interpretation, because interpretation of tongues isn't direct translation, but the expression of the spirit of your prayer in English.
The above quote is another important bit of understanding. Too often people think that interpretation must be a "direct translation". Most of the time it isn't!! And it should be for a number of reason. One reason I mentioned above is that I don't usually need to know other people issues.
Another reason is that God is personal. For example, at church a pastor gives a message that should be from the Lord, and most everyone get something different out of that message!! So, if someone speaks in tongues are we all to get the same thing out of that message? Of course not. God is personal. When I started seeking interpretations, that is Him telling me via His small voice what was being said in tongues, I would sometime run into a situation that used to confuse me. Someone at church would get up and speak in tongues, then another person would get up and give an interpretation, while at the same time I would get an interpretation from the Lord via His small voice and the interpretation I got was not what was announce to the congregation. The Lord's explanation to me was what I just wrote about it being personal.
At first this didn't seem right to me, but I have been doing this for about 20 years and it now make perfectly good sense to me. God is a personal God to us. The more you get to know Him the more you understand what I just wrote. He is all about you, personally, so your interpretation does not need to be the interpretation that other might hear if they seek Him. And even an interpretation to the congregation is not going to mean the same to each person there. We should explain some of this and educate / edify other Christian in this area.
So don't expect a 'direct translation' and do expect to get what you personally need to get when you seek the Lord, always.
