Deal With It!: You Cannot Conquer What You Will Not Confront

PRAISE FOR DEAL WITH IT!

"I believe Paula White is on the cutting edge of what God is saying now; not what God was saying, not what God will say—she’s dealing with the right-now things of what God is saying. This is a woman that the world needs to hear."

—BISHOP T. D. JAKES

Founder and Senior Pastor of The Potter’s House

She has done it again! Paula White has broken life’s issues down to the lowest common denominator and delivered a liberating message of hope through Jesus Christ.

—REVEREND BERNICE KING

Daughter to Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Paula White is an excellent teacher of God’s word. I believe that she can teach you how to confront the issues and overcome hang-ups so that you can be all that God has created you to be.

—JOYCE MEYER

Author of the best-selling book, Knowing God Intimately

"Paula White’s book deals with real people and real-life issues—with things that people don’t talk about, but need to . . . I think Deal With It! is going to be life changing."

—DARRYL (Former All-Star, New York Yankees) AND CHARISSE STRAWBERRY

"Paula White is one of the most significant voices in the body of Christ today, who by way of her personal pain has a powerful triumphant message to release you from the bondage of pain in your own life. . . I urge you to . . . open the windows of your soul to the message Paula White is about to release. Yes, you can Deal With It!"

—DR. MARK CHIRONNA

Overseer of Master’s Touch International Church

What God has done with Pastors Randy and Paula White is amazing. God is amazing . . . To see what the Lord has done with them is proof that God will do the same with you.

—BENNY HINN

Bestselling author of Good Morning, Holy Spirit

"Paula White is the real deal, and Deal With It! gives you the tools to deal with those issues that we all want to ignore."

—CINDY THOMAS

"I think the thing I relate to the most about Paula is that she . . . calls it like it is, she doesn’t pull punches, and what she says is more than a philosophy—it really works. Pastor Paula’s new book, Deal With It!, is awesome. It’s full of life lessons that are really practical, hard-hitting solutions."

—TAMARA LOWE

"Joni and I love and appreciate Paula White and her anointing. She is an anointed minister of the Gospel, she is a great blessing, and we love and appreciate her and Randy very much. You are going to be so blessed by Deal With It! "

—MARCUS AND JONI LAMB

Founders of Daystar Television Network

"I’ve known Paula White for many years now and I am telling you that the book that she has released, Deal With It!, is a book that you must have. It will absolutely show you step by step how you can be an overcomer and how you can win no matter what happens in your life—God is for you!"

—JENTZEN FRANKLIN

Pastor, Free Chapel Worship Center

"Once again, Paula White is teaching us how to be overcomers. It’s not what you achieve in life that makes you who you are—it’s what you overcome. You need to get Deal With It!"

— HARRY AND SHERYL (former Miss America) SALEM

"Paula White is a gift to the body of Christ . . . Her new book, Deal With It!, will be a blessing to you, because you cannot conquer what you will not confront. Buy it, and share it with your friends and family."

—DR. FRANK M. REID, III

Sr. Pastor, Bethel House of God

"Paula White is at the forefront of what God is doing on the Earth today. She is a message to this generation . . . Deal With It! is going to help you deal with all the problems that you have in your life."

—MELISSA PITTMAN

Wife of Michael Pittman of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers

"Paula White is strength and courage . . . Deal With It! is very simple. It teaches you how to deal with issues in life as a wife, as a mother, and as a professional. It’s a book for men as well. So men, put down your remote, set the football aside, and pick up this book—it is powerful."

—JUAN AND JANETTE LONG

DEAL

WITH IT!

DEAL

WITH IT!

YOU CANNOT CONQUER WHAT

YOU WILL NOT CONFRONT

PAULA WHITE

© 2004 by Paula White

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means-electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other-except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Thomas Nelson, Inc., titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail SpecialMarkets@ThomasNelson.com.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the New King James Version®. © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scriptures marked KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible.

ISBN 978-0-7852-6106-3 (HC)

ISBN 978-1-5995-1008-8 (TP)

Printed in the United States of America

09 10 11 12 13 QW 9 8 7 6 5

First and foremost, thank You, Lord, for Your unfailing love and Your greatness. You are amazing! Words will never articulate my love and desire for you.

To my husband, my coach, my best friend and covenant partner, Randy, who encourages and inspires me to be all that God has destined for me. You are a rare gem that becomes more valuable each day. My love for you is indescribable.

To my four children—Bradley, Brandon, Angie and Kristen. You are my joy and motivation. You have my heart! I believe in you and am so proud of you.

To my spiritual father and mother, Bishop T. D. and First Lady Serita Jakes. Your wisdom and guidance have been invaluable and have helped mold me and navigate the destiny of my life. I honor you and love you.

To the staff of Paula White Ministries and Without Walls International Church. Thank you for faithfully serving the Lord and your diligence to bring the vision to pass. Great will be your reward.

To my extended family and friends, whom I love and appreciate.

And to my World Partners. Without you, Paula White Ministries would not be what it is today. Thank you for believing in a messed up Mississippi girl with a big God and a big dream. Together we are transforming lives, healing hearts and saving souls.

CONTENTS

Introduction:

You Cannot Conquer What You Will Not Confront

1. Ruth

A person with my background just can’t succeed.

2. Leah

If I could just find Prince Charming to love me . . .

3. Rahab

What do you mean, I have to change my life?

4. Dorcas

Everybody wants a bigger piece of me.

5. Gomer

You just don’t know how deeply I’ve been hurt.

6. Hannah

I can’t stand that woman!

7. Mary Magdalene

My name is mud, and it always will be.

8. The Shunammite Woman

Freaky Freddie isn’t coming through for me.

9. The Daughters of Zelophehad

I have a hunch I’m being ripped off.

10. Esther

Why is this happening to me?

Conclusion

Appendix

About the Author

YOU CANNOT CONQUER WHAT

YOU WILL NOT CONFRONT

Mirror, mirror, on the wall . . .

Most of us grew up knowing the conclusion to that line from a children’s fairy tale. We all, of course, want the mirror to answer us, "You are the fairest of them all!" Or if not the fairest, at least the smartest, richest, most capable, famous, powerful, talented, important . . . or spiritual.

But what does the mirror really say?

What does the mirror of the soul really reflect back to us?

This book is based on a premise:

You can’t conquer what you will not confront.

And you can’t confront what you don’t identify.

Each of us bears the responsibility for looking into the mirrors of our own souls and dealing with what we see there.

If you are unwilling to identify, and then confront, the major issues of life, you can’t be truly successful in the eyes of the Lord and obtain the destiny full of promise and provision that He has for you. You cannot live a joyful, purposeful, fulfilling life of destiny unless you identify and confront anything that would keep you from being successful in His eyes.

I certainly know that to be true in my personal life.

Many years ago when I first met my husband, Randy, I found myself struggling with those is he the one? questions. Randy hadn’t seemed at all my type when we first met, but the more I got to know him, the more I liked him. We began to date, and I soon realized I was falling in love with him.

At that point, I began to put up a wall in my heart. Be careful! my heart said. If he gets to know the real you, he’ll reject you just like all the others have! Subconsciously even more than consciously, I concluded, Don’t let him hurt you! If you let him get any closer or discover any more about you, he’ll walk out.

Old hurts and emotions from my childhood and teen years began to bubble up and I felt myself instinctively to be in danger of being exposed, injured, and abandoned. So I did what I had always done when I found myself with those feelings—I began to try to manipulate the relationship to my advantage.

There was only one problem. Randy, unlike every man I had known before him, refused to be manipulated!

One evening we quarreled over something I had done, and when Randy confronted me about it, I began to pull out all of my same old excuses and defenses. Randy further confronted me about my manipulative behavior, and a heated discussion degenerated into an all-out argument. The more I felt myself losing ground, the higher the wall rose inside me and the more I resorted to my usual techniques.

When theatrical speaking and gesturing failed, I fell to the floor, pulled my knees to my chest in a fetal position, and cried my own brand of crocodile tears. I punctuated my words with great gasps of air and heaving sobs. I was fully prepared to hyperventilate if necessary as I screamed out the bits and phrases of my well-rehearsed role, You don’t know! You don’t understand! Your daddy didn’t commit suicide! You were never abused!

I was certain Randy would reach down and wrap his strong arms around me to comfort me. I was confident he would hold me and stroke me in sympathy, and that we would eventually get to the kiss-and- make-up stage.

But Randy didn’t do any of what I expected.

Long, slow, agonizing seconds turned into a minute . . . then two. Finally I opened one eye and slightly lifted my head to see if he was still in the room. He was.

Randy was standing several feet away, staring at me with a stern look on his face. His words were not at all the ones I had anticipated—or the ones I felt sure I would hear as I silently pleaded with him using a pity-me gaze.

Rather, Randy said simply and strongly, When you want to act like an adult and talk to me . . . then we’ll talk. When you’re ready to deal with this in a rational way . . . call me.

And he walked out.

I cried even louder, but he didn’t come back. I paced the floor and my self-pity turned to anger. How could he be so unsympathetic? How could he be so cold? How could he treat me that way?

After a couple of hours of fuming and weeping, I crawled into bed, thinking, Surely he’ll call me.

But he didn’t.

We had been having dinner together almost every night. Surely he’ll show up for dinner with a bouquet of my favorite flowers, I thought.

But he didn’t.

We had been talking four or five times on most days, and every time the phone rang, I was sure he was on the other end of the line, ready to apologize and sympathize.

But no call came.

Two days passed . . . then three, five, eight . . . and finally ten days. I decided I could be just as stubborn as he was. Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen days. No call. No note in the mailbox. No contact. Finally, I sat before my mirror in the bathroom and stared long and hard at the sad, tear-drained person staring back at me. I took a long, hard look at myself—not just at my appearance, but at my life.

What was the problem?

Who had the problem?

What was the solution?

Who had the answer?

I picked up the phone and called Randy. He answered with a very pleasant, "Oh, I see you’re ready to act like an adult. You’re ready to deal with this. Now we can work through it."

The two weeks of silence between us had seemed like an eternity. I was glad we were back in communication, but deep inside, I also knew that I had monumental issues I needed to address. But how? Where should I turn? What should I do?

I finally picked up my Bible and held it up to the Lord. I said, Lord, I don’t want to be going around this mountain when I’m forty or fifty years old. I don’t want to be on my third or fourth marriage, facing the same issues and hurts deep in my soul. Help me!

I began to diligently dissect my Bible, and especially the women of the Bible. They became my mentors, my role models. I discovered that the women of the Bible also had faced very serious issues, and that in their lives they had discovered some very important principles and had gained some very important answers.

What I learned from them, I trust you will also learn from them.

If you are willing to identify, confront, and conquer the issues of your life— to truly deal with them—God will heal you, restore you, and lead you into the destiny that He has planned for you, a destiny that is beyond your wildest dreams.

DEAL

WITH IT!

2 GOD’S WORD ON RUTH

Ruth was a Moabitess. She grew up on the high plateau south of the Arnon River, during the time of the Israelite judges, as part of a nation that worshipped the false god Chemosh. She married into a Hebrew family that came to Moab from Bethlehem to escape a famine. Naomi was Ruth’s mother-in-law. After the husbands of both Naomi and Ruth died, Naomi decided to return to Bethlehem. Ruth refused to be left behind. She went with Naomi to Bethlehem and began a new life. She worked in the barley fields of Naomi’s relative Boaz, gleaning the edges of the grain field. She eventually won the respect and love of Boaz, who took her as his wife. The Scripture reference for Ruth’s story is Ruth 1:16–22, and you will find it in the Appendix to this book.

1

RUTH

A person with my background just can’t succeed.

A part from the unnamed woman in Proverbs 31, Ruth is the only woman in the Bible who is called a virtuous woman. That wasn’t, however, a description that came from her early years.

Ruth was born and raised in Moab, and the Moabites worshipped a god by the name of Chemosh. Part of this very lewd form of worship involved the sacrifice of young children to Chemosh as an offering (see 2 Kings 3:27). The mentality of all the Moabite people was distorted by this idolatry. A society that sacrifices young children is a society that has very little value for life or family. We can conclude from the atmosphere of her childhood and teenage years that Ruth was exposed to a highly perverse culture and the worst forms of human behavior.

Moab was considered a cursed place by the Jewish people. Centuries before, Abraham’s nephew, Lot, had escaped Sodom with his two daughters. Lot’s wife looked back and became a pillar of salt. Lot and his two daughters managed to hide out in the mountains after Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by fire and brimstone. The daughters, no doubt thinking that they and their father were the only three people left alive on the entire earth, got their father drunk on two successive nights. They each had sex with their father and they each became pregnant by him. One of the children born out of this incest was named Moab. His descendants were the Moabites.

Because of the sin in which he was born, Moab and the nation that he produced was accursed. God’s Word tells us that there was no dancing, no praise, no gladness in the fields, and no joy in the streets of Moab because it was a cursed place. The Bible says this about Moab: ‘Fear and the pit and the snare shall be upon you, O inhabitant of Moab,’ says the LORD (Jer. 48:43).

Can you imagine what it might have been like to grow up in this lifeless, idolatrous, sorrow-filled place? Those who worship idols are always disappointed and bitter to some degree because no idol can give a person life or blessing or a future. The idol worshiper invariably has to come face-to-face with the fact that he is worshipping a self-made, dead, lifeless god. What could be more sorrowful than taking the body of a dead child from before the altar of a dead god? A spirit of death hung over Moab, Ruth’s homeland. She grew up under the oppression of that spirit. Her upbringing was very different from that of the man she married.

Ruth became the wife of Chilion, the son of Elimelech and Naomi. Elimelech was a Jewish farmer who had come to Moab with his wife and two sons to escape a severe famine that had brought all of Judah to the point of starvation. Elimelech and Naomi were from Bethlehem. Both of their sons—Mahlon and Chilion—married Moabite girls. The older son married a woman named Orpah. The younger son married Ruth.

Now, it was acceptable in Moab for a Moabite girl to marry a Jewish boy, but it was not acceptable in the Jewish tradition for a Jewish boy to marry a Moabite girl. Even if nothing was said out in the open, there had to have been an undercurrent in that home that something wasn’t quite right.

Mahlon and Chilion were apparently prone to sickness. Mahlon’s name means puny—he may have been born prematurely. Chilion’s name means unhealthy. Both of these men died young. Elimelech also died. Naomi found herself a widow with two widowed daughters-in- law.

Ruth, who had lived under the shadow of death all her life, had encountered even more death. She who had known the bitterness and disappointment that are part of idol worship now found herself living with a mother-in-law who was bitter and disappointed.

All of these things must have played a part in making Ruth who she was. Experiences such as the ones she had, and the atmosphere of the environment in which she lived, must have had an impact on her psyche. We can say that our environment doesn’t impact us, or that the comments of other people don’t have an influence on us, but deep inside, we know that isn’t true.

In the light of her past and the events of her present, there was something great about Ruth—she rose above her past. She had an ability to look at her past and present and say, I want no more of this. I want something better. I want something more.

After the death of the men in this family, Naomi heard that the famine was over in Bethlehem, and she decided to return home. She began her journey with both of her daughters-in-law by her side, but along the way, she stopped and told them to turn around and go back to Moab—to return to their people and their gods. One daughter-in-law agreed and returned. But Ruth loved Naomi and clung to her (Ruth 1:14).

Naomi said to these young women, Go back to your families. Go back to the customs and ways in which you were raised. I’m going to a place that is unfamiliar to you.

Ruth refused to return and said, Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God (Ruth 1:16). Ruth wanted the customs and traditions and God of Naomi. She was saying to her, I’m going where I’ve never been to create something I’ve never had . . . because in knowing you, Naomi, I’ve come to love you. I’ve come to know your God and love your God. I’m willing to go where I have never been to become something I want to be.

Ruth recognized that she had already experienced her past, and she hadn’t liked it. There was nothing left that had any value to her. She made a choice.

Millions of people are where Ruth was in that moment. They each have a past they wish they could forget. They’ve already experienced their pasts, and what they experienced brought them nothing but pain and heartache. They see nothing of value in the pasts they’ve lived.

Are you there?

Is your past one that you wish you had never lived?

Is your past something that you want to continue to relive again and again?

You cannot enter your tomorrow as long as you hold on to your past. You must let go.

This is often easier said than done. For many of us, our pasts hold brokenness, disappointment, and scars from life’s tragedies, and we are still living out the consequences of our failures and foolish choices. You might think that letting go of the bad things in the past would be easy—yet often in a twisted, distorted way, we hold on to our pasts because they are something with which we are familiar. There’s a sense of security in holding on to the familiar . . . even if the familiar is bad.

Often we are afraid to enter the future because it is unknown and unfamiliar. Even though it may be much better than our past, we haven’t been there yet. It isn’t what we’re used to. Therefore, we drag the