Special Preview Excerpt: “Escape the Funhouse”

Photo Credit: Corey Doyle: Creative Commons
Go get it. Now. I’ll wait.

My newest devotional, Praying Grace for Women: 55 Meditations and Declarations for beloved Daughters of of God is now available for pre-order on Amazon. I’ve poured 35 years of loving and praying for an amazing wife and three extraordinary daughters into it.

I believe, with all my heart, that it contains truths and keys that are vital for thriving in these times of cultural shaking. Such times can be disorienting, which is the subject of this particular entry, which lives in the section titled “Grace for Peace”:

Escape the Funhouse

Help, Lord! Save us! For godly ones are disappearing. Where are the dependable, principled ones? They’re a vanishing breed! Everyone lies, everyone flatters, and everyone deceives. Nothing but empty talk, smooth talk, and double-talk. Psalm 12:1–2
Photo Credit: Paolosanches – Own work, CC BY 4.0 

Have you ever been inside an old-school carnival “funhouse?” The kind with a maze of strange mirrors and optical illusions specially designed to trick and confuse you? Some mirrors make you look impossibly round. Others twist you into a bizarre hourglass or other shapes. Clusters of mirrors disorient you. Other rooms with tilted floors and angled walls toy with your sense of balance.

Doesn’t that sound like “fun?” No? Well, it seems, thanks to the internet and social media, we’ve all entered a type of global funhouse. Traditional, long-trusted sources of news and information have abandoned any pretense of objectivity and now simply serve as propaganda arms for one side or another in the “culture wars.”

Thirty years ago, our sources of information came from a mere handful of large media organizations operating exclusively in three realms: television, radio, and print. For better and worse, the internet and smartphones upended all of that. Today every individual on the planet is a “news source” and a pundit, offering opinions, perspectives, and interpretations of the news—often anonymously and therefore with NO accountability. Many have an axe to grind, a viewpoint to sell, a grudge to settle, or a cause to advance. Some deliberately lie. Many unwittingly share false or misleading information with their network of friends.

Perhaps the psalmist David prophetically saw our predicament when he wrote his cry of “Help, Lord!” to begin today’s key scripture passage. In a funhouse environment, you can’t trust your own eyes. In a similar way, you can’t even trust your own brain because of something psychologists call cognitive biases. For example, confirmation bias causes you to notice “facts” that harmonize with what you already believe while making you generally blind to information that contradicts that belief.

So, is there any good news here? Yes! David delivers it in verse six of the same chapter as today’s key passage:

“For every word Yahweh speaks is sure and reliable. His truth is tested, found to be flawless, and ever faithful. It’s as pure as silver refined seven times in a crucible of clay.”

Psalm 12:6

You have a sure, reliable, trustworthy, ever-present source of information and guidance living right inside of you: the Holy Spirit of God. “The Helper,” Jesus called Him. More trustworthy than your own perceptions and thought processes, He is your way out of the funhouse.

Prayer of Declaration:

The Holy Spirit is my Helper; I shall not be deceived. Today and every day I turn my attention away from the flattery, lies, and deceit of this world’s information systems and toward the faithful flawless Words of my God. I trust in Him and do not lean to my own understanding.

Praying Grace for Women, “Escape the Funhouse”
It’s a lovely book.

New! And only for God’s Daughters

Now available for pre-order on Amazon.

My newest devotional, Praying Grace for Women, is now available for presale on Amazon. And I bet a question popped into your mind the moment you saw the title. It’s a question I address directly, right out of the gate in the Introduction to the book. Here are the opening paragraphs . . . 

I know what you’re thinking: A devotional for women by a man? My hope is that you’ll give me the benefit of the doubt and dive into a few of the entries here before you dismiss me. I had compelling reasons to write the collection of meditations you hold in your hands.
For one thing, my journey through life has gifted me with a front-row seat for what daughters of God battle daily and what causes them to thrive in God. You see, I’m in my fourth decade of marriage to one such woman. I love and admire her more than I can express. I really, really like her, too. I know it’s a cliché, but she is my best friend.
Together, we were gifted with three daughters who, by God’s enabling grace, we’ve watched grow into remarkable women of God. Now our babies are having babies, and of our seven grandchildren, we count five girls in the mix. I’ve been surrounded by glorious femininity for about as long as I can remember.
I’m confident that if you were to ask any of these ladies if I have some helpful spiritual insights to share about appropriating God’s abundant grace for rest, peace, intimacy with God, and breakthrough, I’d get a rousing endorsement from them. (At least from the ones who can talk.)

Secondly, spiritual truth is spiritual truth. I was profoundly encouraged to discover my previous book, Praying Grace: 55 Meditations on the Finished Work of Christ, had struck a chord with many women. I’ve heard from many who expressed profound gratitude for that devotional over the last few years and have let me know that they are on their fourth, fifth, or ninth pass through the work. I believe this collection will also find a treasured place on the nightstands and end tables of many women of God.

Like my previous devotionals, Praying Grace and Christmas Grace, these 55 entries provide a key scripture verse, a meditation on that verse, and a special kind of prayer–a prayer of declaration–the puts the truth of that scripture on your lips.

All of them reveal life-giving insights about God’s goodness, the depths and breadth of Jesus’ complete redemptive work on the cross, and very importantly, what the work means for you.

The devotions are divided into four sections:

  • Grace for Rest
  • Grace for Intimacy with God
  • Grace for Peace
  • Grace for Breakthrough

I’m hoping you’ll order in now. Why would you order a book that won’t be available for three more months? There is only one reason. It will help and bless me. Preorders are helpful to authors, especially ones that no one has ever heard of (like yours truly).

I wrote out of love for these people:

We’ve added one more girl since this picture was taken.

Praying Grace for Women contains things that I want the women I love the most to know the best. I suspect it will bless you or the woman you love the most, too.

Ducks-Slightly Limited

One of the pleasures of the way our house is situated is seeing waterfowl from the back patio pretty much all year ’round. Great Blue Herons; White Herons; Cormorants are all frequent sights. And of course, ducks and geese of many varieties. (Sound up for commentary.)

A Mystery Solved

A Mystery Solved

On yesterday’s live VictoryNews broadcast, I made an observation that I think bears elaborating upon.

The rates of abortion (per capita) have been steadily falling for the last decade or two. This, in the absence of any additional restrictions. Why?

Also, the numbers of medical professionals willing to perform them has also been dropping rapidly. Why?

In their 1983 book, “Whatever Happened to the Human Race,” Francis Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop predicted that abortion-on-demand would, in a couple of generations, make our society completely indifferent to human life. It didn’t. Why?

I believe the core reason is the astonishing advancements of imaging technology inside the womb.

My wife and I saved and treasure all of the crude, grainy sonogram images of our three daughters from roughly 3 decades ago. Among them is one of our third, Olivia. Even with the poor image quality, it’s clear that she has her hand is cupping the side of face…

After she was born we were astonished to see her favorite way to sleep was in THAT position. Throughout her time in our home growing up, she always fell asleep with her hand cupping her face.

Yes, as a sage and dear friend of mine rightly pointed out recently, the sharp, deeply entrenched differences in our society over abortion are rooted in differing presuppositions about the beginning of life.

The thing is, those assumptions increasingly don’t have to be rooted solely in the realms of theology and philosophy. Yes, our hearts and spirits are speaking but so is the science . . . at an increasing volume.

A large and growing body of dispassionate scientific research testifies that, from a remarkably early stage, developing humans feel pain, respond to the mother’s voices, and even dream.

As I’m constantly prattling on about on this site, we all are increasingly hostages to our cognitive biases. We’re blind or impervious to facts and data that cut against what we NEED to think is true.

In this thread, I highlighted some of the reasons this might be the case where abortion is concerned.

The reality is, moral arguments, facts, data, reason, and appeals to human decency have not been able to loosen the powerful hold of these biases. But pictures have done what reason could not.

It seems that the more clearly we see the life inside the womb, the less comfortable we become, as a society, in destroying it.

Finally, compassion compels me to write a few words about the other victims of this tragedy. The living ones. In my early 20s, (the early 80s) I was a committed Christian but ambivalent, at best, about abortion. What changed that?

I met a series of women who had experienced abortions. Some had freely chosen it. Some had been pressured into it. But all were profoundly wounded by it. Many could tell you how old her child would be at that moment, had he or she lived.

It is then that I came to understand that every abortion produces two victims. So, I’m keenly aware that, whenever this topic flares up, as it has now, it brings a lot of pain to the surface for a lot of women–including many daughters of God.

So it’s vital to remember that we are all in desperate need of the mercy, forgiveness, and freedom from shame that Jesus purchased for us on the cross. We all are hopelessly lost and broken. Yet Jesus died to make us all whole and His.

Indeed, it is my life’s calling and passion to make everyone aware of God’s goodness and kindness, and of the astonishing depth and breadth of the restoration Jesus made possible for us.

So, should we avoid advocating for the unborn because doing so causes its past victims pain? No. As with trafficking, sexual abuse, and other scourges of broken humanity, it makes no sense to be passive about future victimizations because of the pain of past victims.

But please, let us be equally assertive and bold in extending kindness, mercy, hope, and healing to all the living victims among us. Many already stagger under a crushing weight of shame and regret.

Here’s wonderful news.

We don’t have to choose. It possible to simultaneously try to rescue the perishing while freely sharing the cup of mercy we all cannot stand without. Meanwhile, the science continues to advance the case for life.

A Recent Twitter Thread of Mine

Here’s your periodic reminder that the easiest lie to fall for is the one you NEED to be true. What narrative are you so emotionally invested in that you’ll grasp at anything that seems to validate it?

Reagan is famous for quipping that it’s not that liberals are ignorant; it’s just that so much of what they “know” simply isn’t so. That’s true for all of us now . . .

Cognitive biases and tribal polarization have us all seizing and remembering online bits of info that validate what we wish to be true and instantly dismissing any that seem to contradict it . . .

The only way out of this “fun house mirror” maze we’re in is constant awareness of the presence of cognitive bias, resulting in a healthy distrust of our own logic and information processing . . .

If only there was a scripture that validated this approach . . . Oh, wait:

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.”

Proverbs 3:5-6

Twitter: @DavidHolland

The Prayer of Seeing & Decreeing

A couple of weeks ago my bride and I had the privilege of spending some time with a wonderful congregation of believers in Menomonie, Wisconsin. Menomonie is a charming, small-college town wrapped around one end of a beautiful lake. Love Church is a special light to that community, skillfully led by Pastors Paul and Dana Carlson.

Here is the message I shared with this sweet gathering of believers: