Book Review: Something Greater

Motivational speaker Paula White-Cain knows how to command an audience and give them hope and direction.  I’m intrigued how she remains confident despite her critics. 

I learned how she does it when I read her latest book, Something Greater.

Her early years are full of pain so it’s understandable that she would make poor choices but Paula owns up to her mistakes and reminds us we can go on because the devil is a liar.  God turns it all around for good for those who love Him.

When God tells Paula to develop a women’s ministry, He tells her three things on his heart:

1.      Fill women with the word of God.

2.     Build godly relationships through fellowship.

3.     Spoil them, pamper them, and shower them with good things.

The name of her women's ministry is Paula Today.  It reaches a potential audience of 5.7 billion people in over 200 countries.  Women identify with her.  She understands divorce, abuse, death and rejection.  She applies God’s Biblical promises with boldness and authority!

Pastor Paula writes like the life coach she is, revealing lessons from two failed marriages.  She chooses to forgive her mother and tells of a healed and restored relationship with her.  Isn’t this the desire of women, to be close to their moms?  Paula, a mom herself, enjoys mothering and grand-mothering and shares about those roles. 

Paula, retired senior pastor of New Destiny Christian Church in ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Apopka, Fla., also works for the White House.  She met Trump in person while teaching Bible studies in New York.  Their relationship is saturated in respect for one another.  The Donald Trump she describes over the past 14 years is not what the public perceives.  Paula enters relationships with people with a goal to lead them to Christ so they can have the benefits of salvation which she enjoys.  If they already know Jesus, she encourages them to go deeper in the faith.  She ministers to President Trump and reminds him he has been raised up by God for such a time as this.  I like the way she prays for Trump before he accepts the nomination for president at the Republican Convention.  Paula decrees:  “We believe in faith, it is time for darkness to be dispelled.  It’s time for this nation to live out its holy calling on the earth.”

I glean from Paula’s story that if you prepare, God sends opportunities to you.  After committing her life to Christ at age 18, she devoured the Bible.  She articulated its wisdom and accepted invitations to teach, to preach, and to minister to the needs of others.  She has a strong gift of encouragement.  She admits that when she walks in the Holy Spirit, this gift of encouragement brings restoration to others.  On the other hand, she learned when she walks in the flesh, she tends to rescue others.

Paula longs to see people through God’s eyes.  She asks God for a word of knowledge and discernment when she meets people so they can know God is real when they hear a nugget of some truth about themselves.   I’m inspired as I read her words because I see how important relationships are to her as well as they are to God.  He has a plan and purpose for every relationship in our lives.  Paula decides to be faithful to that purpose whether it’s popular or not, comfortable or not.  Often in her biography, she says:  “I know that I’m nothing without God.  I know whose I am—who I belong to.  That’s all that counts!” 

Paula ends her book with this same line of thought.  She stands in awe that she, a messed up Mississippi girl that overcame many hurdles in life, could be used for God in so many exciting ways.  She knows it isn’t any brilliant thing about her.  God uses her brokenness.  It’s all God!

Paula’s story encouraged me.  We are all broken and need God.  I thought about the people in the Bible; they were far from perfect, too, but serve as examples to us to live for God nonetheless.  He promises something greater for us when we do.

I highly recommend Paula’s book.