Trump’s “spiritual adviser,” Paula White, has recently claimed she stood in “God’s Throne Room.” In Heaven, she stood face to face with the Big Guy himself, and saw his blurry face. If true, it would be the most amazing honor. Who wouldn’t want to stand before God—look into his face—even through a veil?
Yet this honor isn’t given out nonchalantly. The Bible records only a handful of people who have heard God’s voice; a few who have seen his visage; and even fewer who have seen his face. And each one of those people would never be the same again, even after their highly filtered connection with God.
This is how we know Paula is lying to us. Her Bible tells us so. And it’s obvious.
Starting with Abraham, who had a close relationship with Elohim, was told to pick up stakes, leave his family, become a nomad, and wander for the rest of his life for a promise that he would never see in his lifetime. Most of us don’t give Abraham’s call much thought, but we’ve all moved enough to know there’s a profound amount of stress attached to that. Imagine being told to uproot, but never being told “where” you’re going. Imagine being told to leave family, friends, gods, security and everything important to you.
Jacob, grandson of Abraham, met the Angel of the Lord (Elohim) one night near the ford of the Jabbok river. As the story goes:
That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female servants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak.
So many details are left out here, but we’re told Jacob feared for his life. His brother Esau had set out with his mercenaries to kill him, and Jacob was trying to protect the lives of his family. In that context, a man comes up beside him and Jacob instinctively goes to battle against him. And they wrestle all night.
The next day, when the two finally came to a resolution, Jacob renamed the place Peniel…
“It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”
Note the above verse: “I saw God face to face… and yet my life was spared.” Even as Elohim, a face to face with the deity was dangerous. And Jacob would be forever crippled from that experience.
The second youngest of Jacob’s sons, Joseph, had a dream, inspired by God.
When he told his brothers this dream, they hated him. Even his father Jacob—who had wrestled with God—“rebuked him.”
As a result, once they got Joseph alone, they beat him, sold him into slavery, where he ended up in Egypt. He would rise in his job to be in charge of his master’s house, but because he chose to remain faithful to God AND to his master, he would end up in prison—for seven years—until his dream would finally be shared by the pharaoh of Egypt, and Joseph would be able to interpret it, thus bringing about the fruition of his dream—years and persecutions later.
When God spoke to Israel from Mt. Sinai the people were so afraid they sent Moses in their stead, who went up the mountain, and met with God personally. However, when he came down from the mountain his face was so radiant that he had to hide it because nobody could look upon it.
Nathan was a prophet of God in the time of Israel’s greatest king, David—a man after God’s own heart. Yet even Nathan would find himself pitted against the king. When David slept with Bathsheba, and then killed her husband Uriah to cover it, God sent Nathan to call David out. You’d better believe Nathan had to do some serious tap-dancing if he was going to keep his life—especially after he got done telling David all that God was going to do to him for this indiscretion.
Then there are those who actually saw God, who entered—or were drawn into—his throne room. Ezekiel, Jeremiah (The Weeping Prophet), Isaiah (The Naked Prophet): otherwise known as the Major Prophets.
Isaiah was a member of the ruling class of Judah. Even before he met with God, he was already known to have populist, and some would say—liberal views. He was highly sensitive to the plight of the poor and recognized the ways the rich used their influence to enrich their own lives, even at the pain of others. When called before the Throne of God, Isaiah cried out:
“Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”
For some reason, this verse is never given the weight it seems to carry. “I am ruined.”“Woe to me!”“I am a man of lies who lives among a people of lies…” These are not casual sayings. They come from deep disturbances in the soul. It’s also a safe bet Isaiah was seeing “his” people—the ruling class, not the poor which would be seen later as he prophesied against those powers, calling for political reformation. These prophecies isolated him and even embarrassed him. In one instance he was commanded to live naked, in public—for three years.
Jeremiah, the Weeping Prophet, also from the Southern Kingdom, was called in the thirteenth year of Josiah, and he would see the fall of Jerusalem, and the destruction of Solomon’s Temple. In a bit of brutal irony, he would have to flee to Egypt. He was appointed to “reveal the sins of the people,” and the coming consequences, and even though he didn’t want to do it, God doesn’t necessarily take “No” for an answer. As a result, he was persecuted. His coworkers plotted to kill him. God tells him it’s only going to get worse. And it does… Jeremiah is beaten, put in stocks, and buried in mud up to his neck.
The bottom line is that the prophets—those who came face to face with God—were wrecked. That Paula White wants us to think she saw God without any personal consequences, is a lie. I think she knows it’s a lie. There are those who do have delusions, but I do not think Paula White is one of them. she knows she hasn’t met God, but she is so desperate for power, she’s willing to lie to us… and to God… about how important she is. But her own Bible calls her out—reveals her as a liar.
Having grown up as an Evangelical, I have coveted in so many ways, a connection with God, at the level of the prophets. Of course, at the time, I hadn’t realized the consequences. I simply wanted to connect with God. In my life, though, I’ve had two Spiritual experiences. One happened in the church I attended, and the other happened in my Plymouth Arrow on my way home from work (Can you see the irony of a spiritual experience in a Plymouth Arrow?).
The experience I’m talking about happened in church. I was listening to the pastor deliver a touching talk on both the prodigal son and his brother. So many concepts and ideas started opening up to me in such a way that I felt like a son, deeply loved by a father, no matter which son I was acting like. A sense of acceptance started over me and was starting to overpower me. The pastor called for everyone to stand and hold hands in prayer… and then it dropped. A sense of belonging, a sense of being loved. A sense of value that I had never felt before.
The other instance was similar, but not as intense. I was driving home from work, started to pray, and a sense of love—like I’m loved, and I’m “in” love. It followed me all the way home, and when I parked in the driveway, it was still there. And I would sit with it for about a half hour until my roommate came out to make sure I was okay. And she could see on my face I was having a moment.
It was more than just a feeling. It was deeper. It was in many ways indescribable. There was a sense of being “in” God… beyond just my personal being. It was coming from the “soul” whatever that was, and opened me up to love me like I never had.
The upside of these experiences is… I’ll never forget them. The downside of these experiences is… I’ll never forget them. For a moment in a life that had been abused, traumatized, shunned… I felt accepted and loved, as I was, and who I was was shown to me as valuable, even in the cold presence of the universe.
But for days afterward, I was afraid to have any interaction with people, because nothing ruins a spiritual moment than people. I was afraid to be me, afraid to be human, lest I ruin what happened. I was afraid to come down. Even though I knew that spiritual moments weren’t meant to last, coming down from something like this was similar to coming off drugs… I do not wish to overstate this, but that was as horrible and as it was wonderful being in the moment.
I look back at these experiences as a moment in time when my life—for a very brief moment—had meaning, and purpose, and a reason for being. In the experience, my problems were “doable,” no matter how difficult.
Yet when I came down, my problems persisted. My struggles remained, and I couldn’t help but doubt the experience. I’ve tried to manufacture those moments. I’ve begged God, the universe, my brain, for another moment to confirm that I’m still relevant. I’ve even questioned, vehemently, why would I have such an experience in the first place if it was only going to bring about these difficult feelings after.
Decades after the experiences, I’ve stopped questioning them. They happened. I know what it’s like to feel loved and accepted ONLY for a moment, but that feeling sits with me even through the very darkest times.
But this is the problem with “meeting God.” As we see through the prophets and those who’ve faced God, life was never the same afterwards. And those who experienced it found themselves at odds with the powers that be.
Biblically, Paula has revealed herself as a false prophet. Jesus told us:
Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.
The irony here, is Paula hasn’t even bothered to put on the sheepskin. Instead, she has blatantly revealed herself as the very person Jesus abhorred when he called them out, in what scholars call “The Seven Woes on the Teachers of the Law and the Pharisees.” Like her predecessors before her, Paula White operates in public, in power, like a whitewashed tomb—but inside she is “full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.”
Those who have met God show it (according to the Bible): physically, emotionally, and in their relation to power. There’s no “biblical” evidence that Paula White has had such an experience.