A Review of Joel Osteen’s “The Power of Favor”
Preying, Not Praying
Joel Osteen has a bit of a bad reputation because he didn’t open his megachurch to those seeking to escape from the ravages of Hurricane Harvey when it hit Houston a couple of years ago. Granted, it may have been not safe to do so at the time, and he did (eventually?) open the church (and claimed the church had always been open). Whatever the reason for keeping the church shut (or not shut, but poorly advertised as being so), one cannot overlook the fact that the Mayor of Houston did proclaim a day of honour for Osteen for his efforts to rebuild the city after the hurricane blew on through. Still, the blot remains. Tell people you’re reviewing the latest book from Osteen, and you might be met with, “Oh, the guy who doesn’t follow Jesus’ teachings to help those in need.”
It might be an unfair blot because, in his latest book called The Power of Favor, Osteen comes across as a pretty positive guy and the type of person you might want in your life simply for his enthusiasm in his positivity. Basically, the whole book is about how God is about to bless you with his favour for no reason at all other than you’re a follower. Having trouble getting a job? No worries, God is going to bless you with one that’s above your normal pay scale. Having trouble finding a significant other? Hey, God is going to very soon bring into your life the most beautiful girl or the most handsome boy. Suffering from incurable cancer? Well, God is going to take your cancer away and make you healthier than you’ve ever been.
It may sound all too good to be true, and, sadly, it turns out that it is — and I’m about to relay how from personal experience. However, I want to be charitable and point out the good things about this book. If you’re in a mild funk, this book might lift your spirits. Osteen has a friendly and affable writing style that’s quick and to the point, and might perk you up. Instead of saying that God is about to “show up” in your life, Osteen says “show out” — which is probably done deliberately (after all, isn’t God already showing up in your life?) but is kind of cute. And, like that tagline from the X-Files, I desperately wanted to believe that the promises of this book would come to pass. They are that appealing. Who doesn’t want to get a promotion for the simple reason that you follow God, not because you deserve it?
Sadly, life doesn’t work out the way that Osteen presents itself in this book. For one thing, Osteen promises that God is not only going to give you what you want, but he’s going to offer it to you in abundance. So let me tell you a recent story about myself. I work as a contractor through an agency for a Crown corporation in Canada’s capital. The Crown corporation wanted to raise my hourly wage from X amount of dollars to Z amount of dollars. It would have been a substantial raise — I would be making roughly $10 more an hour than I currently do. The thing is, the agency wanted to take their cut and offered me Y amount of dollars. After much to and fro-ing between the corporation and the agency, I wound up taking a bit of a compromise. Instead of God raising my wage beyond my wildest imaginings, I only got a bit of a raise — still significant, but not the raise my employer wanted me to get. According to Osteen, God would have pulled through and I would have gotten Z amount of money. That didn’t happen. So either I’m wondering about God’s provision or if Osteen is just plain wrong.
The second thing that happened to me that went against this book is the fact that I’ve been without a laptop for a month. (This is why I’ve been absent from Medium dear reader. I hope you missed me when I was gone.) I had to take it back to the shop three times for them to finally figure out what the problem was. The thing is, I’m on a warranty plan that’s supposed to give me a new laptop if I ever have an issue that can’t be fixed with the current laptop — and it looked like that would be the case with this laptop that I’m now writing on. No matter, though, how much I prayed, “God, show me your blessing and your favour” every time I went into the store under my breath, it didn’t get me any closer to getting a new laptop. So, instead, I’m now writing on a laptop whose anti-virus program was at odds with my operating system’s drivers, meaning that I had to cancel my subscription to the anti-virus program and will have to try a new one and hope the problem doesn’t repeat. I feel like I’m surfing the Net without a condom on right now. Not exactly the outcome that Osteen writes about happening to his followers.
Osteen’s defense? He says that the problem is in your belief. You just don’t believe hard enough for these good things to happen. Well, while my belief about God can waver from time to time, God should have more reason than not to bless me with the things I want. For instance, in my church, I am the co-founder of a peer support group for those who have mental health challenges. I also was a member of the hospitality committee, running the dishwasher some Sundays during conversation and refreshments time after Church. I’m also a current member at large for Church Council, and sit on a lay committee for a student theologian currently practicing in our church. So, clearly, I would have more rights than many others to have good things happen to him, right? Osteen, where are you on that? For all the ways I honour and respect God through all of my church activities, you would think that He might want to toss me a bone or two, maybe?
Speaking of Osteen, he relays a lot of personal experiences of going into stores and finding bargains through dealings with salespeople in this book that are presented as proof and success stories that the “God, bless me with your favour” prayer works. The thing he doesn’t mention, though, is that he drives a Ferrari and has a net worth of somewhere between $40 million and $60 million. Surely, store owners in the Houston area know this whenever he walks in, so of course they’re going to bend over backward just to please him. Thus, a lot of the personal experiences that he relates in this book are probably suspect at best. In fact, I must wonder about treating God as your personal ATM or fairy godmother as Osteen does in this book. While I do think Osteen is onto something about the powers of positive thinking, I think he does go one step too far in insisting that God is going to show up in big, usually materialistic ways in your life for just thinking good thoughts.
As alluded to earlier, there’s a whole chapter on abundance at the back of the book. But, wait! Doesn’t God tend to side with the poor? You know, that bit of the Bible about the least being at the front of the line when it’s time to storm the gates of Heaven? In any event, while I think I got something out of this book about trying to have a more rosy set of thinking, the notion that God is going to bless you with countless things that you want in your life in the First World is a load of hooey. I don’t think God works like that. He didn’t for me. In the end, we’re left with The Power of Favor, which all I can say is that it doesn’t come billed exactly as advertised. Too bad. Believe me, I could really use a new laptop or a bigger salary to pay for it.
Joel Osteen’s The Power of Favor: The Force That Will Take You Where You Can’t Go on Your Own was published by FaithWords on December 17, 2019. The publisher graciously provided a review copy in exchange for a fair and honest review.
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Get in touch: zacharyhoule@rogers.com
