Leanne Payne (1932–2016)

While I haven’t read this book, I’ve read all of Payne’s other books. Anyway, I wanted to give some background about Payne to warn others before they consider reading this book.

Many years ago, Leanne Payne was a member of the Church of the Resurrection in Chicago. But apparently, she eventually became involved in various quarrels and the sin of divisiveness, which the apostle Paul warned sternly about. One of her associates, Valerie McIntyre, also become involved in this sin. Ironically enough, McIntyre writes the following in her book Sheep in Wolves’ Clothing: "The Scripture has a name for this kind of dark [behavior]: factiousness, or . . . divisiveness. Of all the sins that issue out of transference, this is the most destructive." And then concerning how to deal with a contentious person in the Church, she writes: "More important, however, is rescuing the entire flock from danger through lovingly excommunicating the factious one. Sadly, when pastors wait too long to take this action the unrepentant person may not only leave of her own volition, but take others with her." Well, that's exactly what happened with Payne! She “ghosted” her church, taking several others, including McIntyre, with her.

So, Leanne Payne should have been excommunicated from her own church! As Titus 3:10–11 says: “As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned.”

Well, if Paul tells us to have “nothing more to do with” such a person, then why on earth would anyone ever want to read his or her autobiography? For more details about Payne’s sinful behavior, there’s a three-part article on the Web called “A Sad Story: When Psychology Destroys Christian Friendship” by a guy named Dan Brennan, who attended her church.

And to add icing to the cake, writing an autobiography is about the most conceited thing a Christian could possibly do. By their very nature, autobiographies are self-promoting and narcissistic. (Mr. Brennan has also stated that Payne had a big ego.) Would Christ approve of someone writing an autobiography? I don't think so—he said to praise others, not yourself. He also said that those who promote their good deeds before men will lose their heavenly rewards for those deeds. However, I think he might approve of a Christian writing a biography about another Christian that they admire.

Anyway, I hope this information is helpful for anyone who’s thinking about reading this book. While Payne is now deceased, that doesn't really change matters here. In a nutshell, an unrepentant, prideful person like Payne is not someone that Christians should look up to. In fact, she's a good example of how not to behave. 🤨… (más)

This is a book with some fine teaching, but unfortunately the author doesn't practice much of what she preaches.

This book is filled with interesting insights. In the end, though, it doesn't really tell you how to hear the voice of God. Basically, it lacks practical advice and examples. In fact, Ms. Payne even comes out and says point-blank: "I can write on *how to* put together a prayer journal, but I cannot write on *how to* hear from God." Frankly, that sounds like a cop-out, especially since the book's subtitle is "Learning to Hear God's Voice." Actually, I think the book is mistitled, because at least half of it isn't directly about listening prayer per se. A more accurate title would be: "Ruminations on Prayer, Including Listening Prayer." Her book is a lot like a cookbook that discusses food for the first 200 pages and then gives you 5 recipes at the end. Overall, it seems that she is frequently answering the questions that nobody is even asking.

The reason I'm giving the book four stars is that it contains a lot of fascinating discussions. If I were rating it strictly on its ability to teach a person about listening prayer, it would get at most three. In addition, Ms. Payne's recommendations for keeping a prayer journal are interesting but seem rather cumbersome, especially for those with limited time. In fact, a couple of reviewers from another Web site, both of whom gave the book 3 stars, had the following to say:

"After realizing that I wasn't going to be able to follow her recommendations on the prayer journal (I felt like I had to spend 23 hours a day doing it to do what she does), I tried to stop being overwhelmed and just read and receive....I think the trick...is learning from her in a way that I don't try to become her or someone I'm not."

"Someone needs to take her ideas from this book...and distill them down in a more readable format."

Basically, Ms. Payne's approach seems to lack simplicity. Keeping a prayer journal is certainly an admirable pursuit, but everyone's needs differ. Did the saints of the Early Church keep prayer journals? I don't know, but if so, I suspect that they were a lot simpler.

In spite of the book's shortcomings, overall Ms. Payne gives excellent advice and instruction in many areas, such as thanksgiving and praise, intercession, petition, forgiveness, etc. And throughout the book, she quotes from many different authors, bringing a certain richness to the book. For instance, she frequently draws on the wisdom of C.S. Lewis and Oswald Chambers, and she provides some extremely helpful quotes from M. Scott Peck's book "People of the Lie," which shed a ton of light on abusive behavior. She also gives useful pointers from F.B. Meyer on seeking God's guidance. At its best, this book is full of wisdom and sound advice. Of course, all authors have their blind spots, and Ms. Payne does come across as rather black and white in her thinking at times (in a way that the saints of the New Testament did not), so there were a few things in the book that I didn't completely agree with. However, most of them were fairly minor, except for some points I'll bring up shortly.

At times, Ms. Payne even gives some practical examples on listening prayer too. For instance, she tells about a word from God that helped prevent one of her associates from becoming the victim of a robbery. Unfortunately, such examples are few and far between. Much of this book reads like an academic treatise. And she never truly answers the all-important question: "How do I know if what I 'heard' really came from God?" The fact is, we tend to hear what we want to hear. She does mention that we need to test all things, but ultimately gives very few details on how to do so.

Although she does cite some Scriptures, Ms. Payne never gives any solid evidence that the saints in the New Testament practiced what she teaches. Where exactly in the Bible does Jesus (or any of the apostles) specifically mention "listening prayer"? Certainly, there are times to be quiet and still before God, but to teach listening prayer as a practice seems to be a mistake because it appears to go beyond what the Bible itself actually teaches. In the Bible, it seems that God always initiated any speaking to His followers and decided when and where this was going to occur. However, in her model, it seems you set aside the time and then expect God to speak to you, which is actually pretty presumptuous. While it is certainly helpful that she teaches us to keep our spiritual ears open for when God does speak, she almost seems to turn God into a vending machine, creating the impression that a Christian is supposed to listen to God about *everything*, and to expect a definitive response each time too. She basically makes listening prayer a magic bullet--almost an idol, even. I really don't think the Bible models that. In fact, her method even borders on the sin of divination IMO. In their book "Healing the Wounded Spirit," John and Paula Sandford discuss a friend who erred in similar fashion: "On the surface, it seems like trying to listen to God about all things is good. But God does not want to reduce us to slaves or robots. He has given us good minds, and He expects us to use them. Moreover, questioning revealed that our friend had been fearful of failure. He would use 'listening to God' to be overly certain. That became the sin of divination. Had God wanted to steer him away from one [way] to another, the Lord would have taken the initiative to speak....The Lord let him listen to a wrong voice...[which] was a rough way to learn, but it was certainly written on [his] heart to listen when God wants to speak, but not to push God to be his diviner." Oswald Chambers makes this point as well. (It is odd that while Ms. Payne seems to be extremely fond of quoting him, she neglects his quote on this matter altogether.) He states: "At first we want the consciousness of being guided by God, then as we go on we live so much in the consciousness of God that we do not need to ask what His will is, because the thought of choosing any other will never occur to us. If we are saved and sanctified God guides us by our ordinary choices, and if we are going to choose what He does not want, He will check, and we must heed....God instructs us...[and] guides our common sense, and we no longer hinder His Spirit by continually saying, 'Now, Lord, what is Thy will?'"

Speaking of turning Christians into slaves or robots, Ms. Payne makes several assertions in the book that lead one to believe that she considers any active questioning of God, debating with Him, or expressing frustration or even anger with Him to be "unbelief" or "slander." IOW, in their relationship with God, Christians are always supposed to be passive and tame--in some ways almost like robots. Not only do I disagree with her view, I don't think the Bible supports it either. Sarah Bowling, the daughter of Marilyn Hickey, really gets to the heart of the matter in the following comments on her blog: "I think that some people won't allow themselves to be mad or disappointed with God for fear of being disrespectful. Other folk go so far as to totally alienate any contribution or participation from God in their lives because of their anger, hurt, or disappointment with God. Is there a healthy middle point? Can a person be angry, frustrated, hurt, disappointed with God but still keep their relationship with Him?....Being honest with God is a necessary ingredient for intimacy with God....I think the idea of working through a conflict with God is even more important than when we work through a conflict w[ith] our spouse. I don't think that God is into a passive intimacy with us, where we just roll over & play dead. Think about some of the great men in the Bible: Job, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Peter, . . . . These men all had conflicts with God - good honest 'fights' where they disagreed with God, wrestled with Him, challenged His integrity, confronted the discrepancies in the world with God's character & sometimes just flat out debated with God. If we genuinely want a close relationship with God, there will be times when we will disagree with Him & I don't think this makes Him nervous. Engaging with God whether through intense love or frustration & even anger is better than indifference & passivity. There is such a thing as a 'right fight.'" As Bowling concludes, certainly there are right ways (as well as wrong ways) of expressing anger, etc., toward God. Unfortunately, displaying some of her black and white thinking, Ms. Payne seems to lump all the ways together as being "wrong." Using her criteria, one could even classify Christ's agonized cry on the Cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" as "unbelief," which would obviously be completely nuts.

Ms. Payne also teaches that God is always speaking to us, and that we need only have the ears to listen. Although she seems basically well-meaning in this teaching, where does the Bible actually state that? As far as I can tell, that is merely her opinion. In fact, I think that Pat Robertson, with whom I disagree on a lot of issues, hits the nail on the head when he states the following: "How annoying are the superspiritual who always say, 'God told me this -- God told me that -- God told me this other.' It seems that their every thought is a revelation from God. God does not customarily operate that way. He speaks to us, but He does not chatter away, day in and day out, the way some people claim He does. This has been my experience, and it is the concept that is in accordance with the biblical record." Unfortunately, Ms. Payne does seem to think God chatters away 24/7.

There are problems with the mechanics of the book as well. First, it completely lacks an index. The writing itself is also pretty sloppy and poorly proofread. Here's one of the biggest blunders (from p. 83): "Already we know who's [sic] strength he went in...." Then we have (from p. 46): "The way our actions compliment [sic] grace...." And yet another gaffe (from p. 104): "Like the protection the blood on the lentil [sic] post symbolized...." (My version is from 1997. Apparently the last gaffe has been corrected in later editions, but it's mind-boggling that it ever made it through in the first place, showing how careless the proofreading seems to have been on this book.) I could give more examples, but those three should suffice. Furthermore, at times Ms. Payne's writing is bloated and pretentious, lacking clarity. Sometimes, even after reading a sentence or paragraph half a dozen times, I still didn't completely understand what she was trying to say. On a humorous note, Ms. Payne's writing style reminds me a bit of the flowery way that the character Jane Hathaway used to speak on the old TV series "The Beverly Hillbillies." For instance, one day in Mr. Drysdale's office, she launched into a little tirade against a certain female client who was there also. After Miss Jane had finished, the client immediately turned to Mr. Drysdale and, with a puzzled look on her face, asked: "What'd she say?????" His response: "Don't ask me." :)

Unfortunately, Ms. Payne often asserts her opinions as facts too. In one instance, she does so while tackling a truly bizarre topic. For instance, she writes: "It must be said, too, that there are certain kinds of prayers that God cannot answer. As usual, C.S. Lewis says it best: 'Can a mortal ask questions which God cannot answer? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable. How many hours are there in a mile? Is yellow square or round? Probably half the questions we ask...are like that.' Nonsense questions come from out of the depths of our foolishness....I have noticed that nonsense questions usually have more than a tinge of unbelief and even atheism to them." First off, do you know anybody who has ever asked God a question like that? I certainly don't. Even so, the Bible is silent on the matter. To say that God, who created the universe, "cannot" answer such questions is just plain ridiculous. God has a sense of humor--I'm sure there are an infinite number of ways He can answer silly questions. But since the Bible says nothing at all about this, why does she feel the need to go into a topic so strange and to assert her opinions so strongly about it in the first place? As I mentioned earlier, it seems Ms. Payne is often delving into matters that most people couldn't care less about.

At one point, Ms. Payne discusses a couple of members of a prayer group she once belonged to who, she says, had the gift of exhortation: "[They] knew how to exhort, and exhorted fearlessly. If someone was out of order, or not quite on target, they were told. This is extremely important in learning; we all need it....When I first came into the group...I did not dare open my mouth [to pray]. On the third time when I was 'passed' over and did not participate, Helen...shook my knee...and said, 'Next time, you speak, or you don't come back!'....On another occasion, a young Pentecostal man came in...[to receive] the baptism in the Spirit....[and] started wailing and doing all the things he had seen people do in hopes of receiving....I shall never forget what Helen did....She...gave the young man a shake, and said quite firmly: 'Stop that behavior young man! It is not necessary!'" Helen's "exhortations," which Ms. Payne admires, actually seem rather controlling, insensitive, and harsh to me. Each time, Helen shook another person (in public no less), and basically barked out an order (one even containing a threat!) over something pretty minor. Is that really the biblical meaning of exhortation? A commentary on the Web says this: "The word 'exhortation' today often carries a connotation of harshness, and that is actually incorrect. The Greek word 'parakalon' in Romans 12:8 is literally translated 'encouragement'...and refers to the often gentle actions of one who 'comes alongside' to offer comfort, counsel and encouragement....Although it does not exclude the possibility of rebuke, the emphasis is on the positive." Overall, the Bible places a lot of weight on gentleness and meekness. However, Helen's "exhortations" quoted above seem rather bossy and fleshly instead. Gal. 6:1 comes to mind, and that verse is talking about sin--the incidents in this anecdote did not even involve sin, so wouldn't gentleness be called for all the more? And where does the Bible ever give a blanket command to "exhort fearlessly"?? In fact, if you're overeager to correct everyone around you, chances are that you have a "beam" in your own eye. I'm just concerned that Ms. Payne holds up these so-called exhortations as an example. In addition, she mistakenly states that exhortation is a gift of the Holy Spirit. The Bible does not list it explicitly as one of the nine gifts of the Spirit, although it does mention exhortation in Romans 12 as a gift given to certain believers. It all makes you wonder if Ms. Payne actually understands the biblical model of exhortation. Incidentally, she also doesn't seem to understand the biblical meaning of "binding and loosing." She's correct that it has nothing to do with demons, but she's mistaken in thinking that it has to do with freeing people from the effects of sin. Fortunately, there are various articles on the Web that give the correct definition of this biblical terminology.

Although Ms. Payne's research for this book is certainly impressive, sometimes you wish she would think for herself a little more. For instance, while C.S. Lewis was a brilliant author in many ways, she seems to be a bit too fond of quoting him at times, almost using him as a crutch. One big problem here is that she presents Lewis's writings as if they represent the epitome of orthodox Christianity. Unfortunately, Lewis held some seriously heretical doctrines. For instance, he believed that macroevolution was a perfectly valid explanation for the origin of life. He also didn't believe in the inerrancy of Scripture. And he thought that the story of Adam and Eve might well be just a myth—not something to be taken literally. In addition, apparently as a university professor, he was often known to go out with his students and get drunk. To learn more about the many heresies that Lewis believed, you can do a Web search for this article: "C. S. Lewis — the most beloved heretic." And to make matters worse, Lewis married a divorced woman, Joy Davidman, in 1956. He had sought the blessing of the Anglican Church, but the Bishop of Oxford refused to marry them because Joy had been divorced. Since the Anglican Church did not condone divorce, he would not give them his blessing. To be fair, Davidman's first husband William Gresham had been married before, so one could make a case that his marriage to Davidman was not a real marriage. Still, Lewis flat-out ignored the advice from the Bishop of Oxford and apparently found another bishop who would give him and Joy his blessing. At the very least, you could say that Lewis married a woman who had been living in adultery with another man for over a decade. Does that really sound like God's will to you?

Anyway, Ms. Payne devotes a couple of pages to a discussion of Lewis's definition of friendship--the sharing of common interests rather than the sharing of affection per se--quoting him as if he were gospel. However, while his definition of friendship does have some truth to it, it's clearly simplistic if you ask me (it basically states that friends don't care about one another as people). In fact, David and Jonathan's wonderful friendship would hardly have met that criterion, at least not in the beginning. Other examples from the Bible come to mind as well. In addition, this limited view of friendship doesn't really ring true with my own experiences, and I suspect many others would say the same thing. It's also kind of funny that this definition appears at the beginning of the chapter "Listening Prayer Is Friendship with God." Exactly how does Lewis's definition square with the main point of the chapter? Are Christians and God merely supposed to share "common interests"? :) At any rate, in reading this book, you do have to be patient with some of Ms. Payne's idiosyncrasies.

It's interesting that, while Ms. Payne seems to quote Lewis on so many different topics, including some on which his expertise is questionable, she neglects his insight entirely in an area that he has written profoundly about: unanswered prayer. In fact, it seems that Ms. Payne disbelieves in the notion of unanswered prayer altogether, as she blithely asserts, "That our God is faithful to hear and answer all prayer...is something I want to shout from the housetop....Except where there is unconfessed and consciously held sin, God hears our prayers and answers them." Then she shuts down any potential questioning with: "If we are foolish, we might charge God with not hearing us simply because the answers do not come as we would like or as quickly as we hoped." Don't get me wrong--I agree with what she is saying in general. However, she seems to oversimplify the matter, as if Christians are never ever supposed to wonder why they don't seem to be getting answers to their prayers, and then if they do they are of course just being foolish or else they obviously have unconfessed sin in their lives. Sorry, but that's just too convenient and easy. In certain ways, Ms. Payne just doesn't come across as very "real," and often seems to have pat answers (like Job's friends) for complex situations. I mean, do you know anyone who seems to have gotten answers to all of his or her prayers? I certainly don't. And it's comforting to know that even Lewis wrestled deeply with this topic, yet never arrived at any completely satisfying answers. Unfortunately, Ms. Payne seems to think she has the matter all figured out, displaying still more of her black and white thinking.

In one place, shockingly enough, Ms. Payne even engages in self-plagiarism. What exactly is that? Here's a definition from a U.S. government Web site: "Self-plagiarism, also known as recycling fraud, occurs when an author reuses text in subsequent writings without attributing the previous publication." On p. 43 in this book, the entire next-to-last paragraph ("The incarnation is staggering....") is snatched almost word for word from her very first book, "Real Presence," without any kind of citation whatever. This isn't the first book she's done this in either--I can think of a couple places in "The Healing Presence" in which she also basically reused sentences from "Real Presence" without citing them. Why is this wrong? Because it's an attempt to recycle old material and pass it off as something new. If, however, the author fully cites the old material (which Ms. Payne does not), then it isn't usually a problem.

It's sad when authors don't practice what they preach, and Ms. Payne is certainly guilty of that as well. She states that when telling others about any words that we feel God has spoken to us, we should always use humility and say, "It *seems* God is saying this to me" instead of "God told me this." The ironic thing is that she never does this herself. Throughout the book, she quotes words that God supposedly spoke to her, but never *once* does she say, "It seems God told me this." Of course, this implies that while she feels the words that others claim to have received from God are subject to testing, hers are not. That seems pretty hypocritical and prideful to me.

Unfortunately, hypocrisy and pride would not really be a surprise coming from Ms. Payne. I have had some dealings with her ministry in the past and have found Ms. Payne at times to be self-righteous, rude, and even verbally abusive. I also know of others who have had similar experiences. And many years ago, she had a bitter split with her former associate Mario Bergner and her church in Illinois, the Church of the Resurrection (mentioned in this book). You can read more about that by doing a basic Web search. Even though she had been a prominent and active member of that church for years, one day she and a few others just picked up angrily and left--without saying a word to anyone. Apparently she and Bergner (who also attended there) had had some "differences," to put it mildly. She then totally cut him and her church out of her life, displaying all the maturity of a six-year-old in the process. There are definitely mature, godly ways to end relationships, but her behavior was anything but Christian. It's like leaving a job in a huff one day without giving any notice at all, much less two weeks' worth. Furthermore, she banned Bergner from her conferences and refused to feature his books there anymore. Her sinful, arrogant behavior goes completely against everything she has ever written. In her books, she always warns against living from the center of the "wounded, immature child" or "old self," but it seems that's precisely what she was doing herself in her split with Bergner. In fact, Ms. Payne could well have been speaking about herself when she wrote these words in this very book: "[I know of] several Christian leaders [who] are in serious spiritual trouble through mishearing God--and none will accept exhortation, even from those they have most loved and respected in the past. In all these cases, an overweening spiritual pride is all too evident. It can so quickly come in...." She also writes: "[When we listen to God], the main thing to watch out for is egoistic subjectivism. This is a practice of the...old nature....[in which] every feeling concerns itself with ego." Actually, her behavior is quite consistent with what she states elsewhere in the book: "[From early on] my besetting defect and sin seemed to be impulsiveness." (Incidentally, Ms. Payne has also been divorced twice, and it seems that her impulsiveness played a large role there as well.) And while she claims that God eventually "removed" this Achilles heel from her life, based on the impulsive way that she left her church, it's obvious that Ms. Payne still has a serious problem in this area, though she seems to be in deep denial about that. It appears to me that Ms. Payne split with her church because she was used to always having her own way and didn't want to be held accountable to anyone else, which is of course nothing but rebellion against God. (Prov. 18:1 seems relevant here: "A man who isolates himself seeks his own desire; he rages against all wise judgment.") And what's truly ironic is that impulsiveness and rebellion are the complete opposite of listening to God, which she is attempting to model for others in this book. It's also ironic that she writes, in another book: "Disunity among [Christians is]...a pernicious thing....The Holy Spirit is seriously grieved by our disunity and *absents* Himself. We are no longer abiding in Christ. In the Church, disunity is therefore one of the chief evils clogging the channels through which God's healing power is to flow....When this happens...the gifts of the Holy Spirit may remain, but they jangle as a 'noisy gong' or a 'clanging cymbal.' These gifts, turned inward, become narcissistic and lack depth and content. Love is missing." Funny how she doesn't seem to think what she writes applies to herself. Furthermore, has Ms. Payne ever publicly repented of her sinful behavior? To my knowledge (please correct me if I'm wrong), she has not. For instance, in her autobiography from just a few years ago, there is absolutely no mention of Bergner at all, which implies that she is trying to sweep the entire incident under the rug and pretend that he never played an important part in her life. Sadly, such deception and unrepentant hubris is all too common among today's "Christian leaders," who, just like the Pharisees of old, are always pointing out the speck in the eyes of others while ignoring the beam in their own eyes. Let's also not forget that Christ gave stern warnings about these kinds of "leaders."

I would warn others to stay far away from her ministry, because I think Ms. Payne is extremely dangerous to the Body of Christ. As she states in another book: "There are few souls more dangerous to the Church and her mission than those in whom the gifts still operate but clang." I mean, if she acts that way in public, who knows how she treats people behind closed doors? Besides, any power of God still remaining in her ministry would most likely be seriously diluted because of the disunity that Ms. Payne initiated.

Something else to think about: In another book, Ms. Payne teaches that the most common reason so many Christian leaders fall is that they have never fully reached self-acceptance, thus remaining stuck in an immature, narcissistic state. Considering the immature way that she cut her church out of her life, I would suggest that the same applies to her. This too is ironic, since she is always mentioning the importance of acquiring the virtue of self-acceptance in her books and lectures. I guess it's a lot easier to teach something than to actually live it.

Here's some more irony--in this book, she includes the following quote from Thomas à Kempis: "If we are to know or learn anything profitably, we must desire to be unknown and esteemed as nothing." Well, just a few years ago, Ms. Payne wrote her autobiography. Exactly how can you desire to be unknown and esteemed as nothing if you're writing an autobiography??? You can't. By their very nature, autobiographies are narcissistic and imply a huge ego: "Look how important I am! Because I am so important, I'm going to write a book about myself!" In Matthew 6, Jesus warns about publicly displaying one's good deeds, declaring, "I solemnly tell you that they [who do such things] already have their reward." I think an appropriate term for this would be "the sin of self-promotion." In fact, Ms. Payne meets several criteria of a false prophet: 1) arrogance, 2) abusiveness, and 3) hypocrisy (i.e., "do as I say, not as I do"). Although most Christians probably don't realize this, it is entirely possible to qualify as a false prophet even if your theology is mostly sound, because you're not actually living what you teach. In fact, it was quite a shock for me to realize that, in various ways, Ms. Payne fits that profile. Incidentally, a recent study showed that about 30% of Canadian pastors suffer from Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), which is a very serious disorder. Basically, it means you're toxic, or a wolf in sheep's clothing. So, with NPD being that common among ministers, I have little doubt that Payne herself had NPD as well, which would explain so many things about her. Here's a snippet from an article on the Web: "Narcissistic personality disorder crosses the border of healthy confidence into thinking so highly of yourself that you put yourself on a pedestal." Well, if writing an autobiography isn't putting yourself on a pedestal, then I don't know what is. Besides, the Bible states that God is no respecter of persons. In His eyes, there are no "big Christians" or "little Christians"—everyone is equally valuable, and nobody's work in the Kingdom is more important than anybody else's. On the other hand, writing an autobiography is just plain snobbery, and basically says, "Look at me. I'm SO much more important than all those little people out there!" If any Christian ever deserved to write an autobiography, it was probably the apostle Paul, but he didn't. Why not? Because he was concerned about glorifying Christ, not himself.

The author's un-Christlike behavior aside, this book does have a lot to offer. Should you buy it? If you're an avid reader and have plenty of time, you might want to check it out. You'll learn a lot, even if it's not exactly what you expected to learn. However, if you don't have much time and just want something straightforward, I would recommend Herman Riffel's "Learning to Hear God's Voice." It is practical, easy to read, and refreshingly unpretentious, and also aligns better with biblical teaching IMO. Furthermore, Riffel tackles certain issues that seem to be blind spots for Ms. Payne. For instance, he provides helpful details about why we need to test what we hear and exactly how we should do so. Unfortunately, his book is out of print, but you should be able to find it used online. Anyway, if you do decide to read this book, as long as you stay away from Ms. Payne herself and her ministry, I think you'll be just fine.… (más)