Myths, Truths and a Crystall Ball

David Ashcraft
March 16, 2010

I recently made a presentation to a secular audience in northeastern NC on my expectations for the nest ten years. I enjoyed the preparation as well as the presentation; during the next few days I will post an edited version of my comments.

In order for some of my comments to make sense, you need to know David's "11 Truths for Living:"

• God alone is sovereign.
• Jesus' death on the cross is sufficient payment for my sins.
• My body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.
• God's way is always better than my way. Always.
• God wants worship and then service.
• I want to serve God wherever I am.
• Success is accomplishing the plan that God has for my life, reflecting God's grace daily.
• How I react to life's trials and temptations is important.
• My Guiding Principles must be aligned with God's principles as revealed in the Bible.
• Satan never encourages me to do the right thing.
• My showing God's grace influences others

2010. Twenty ten - a new beginning; a new year and a new decade. For the last three months we have heard a lot of people talk about the first decade of the 1990's. Some have called 2000-2009 the lost decade, the decade of do nothing, the first decade of a decline in the standard of lining for Americans. Wells Fargo calls the past decade the “Resilient Decade.” [1] For the most part, the U.S. declined in key measures of performance. [2] Some, including some of you might feel like you are inside a crucible. Life seems brutal. We get mashed, broken, stirred around. I’ve learned in my 64 years that it’s not the mashing or the brokenness that matters in my life. It is how I respond to what is going on around me.

I read the other day that life is 10% stuff that I can’t control and 90% how I respond to that 10%. True leadership emerges from the crucible of life’s problems, in times such as these. With the beginning of a new decade, we can mentally wipe the slate clean and begin anew. We can focus on the 90% that we can control.

---

[1] Highlights of 2000-2009:

• Y2K scare in 2000.September 11, 2001.
• Accounting scandals in 2002.
• Invasion of Iraq in 2003.
• Tsunami in Asia killed 200,000+ people in 2004.
• Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
• Peak of the housing bubble in 2006.
• Recession in 2008-09.

---Wells Fargo. “The Resilient Decade,” December 2009.

[2] A quick review of the past ten years shows:

• The U.S. began the century producing 32 % of the world’s domestic product and ended the decade at 24%.
• The decade began with a budget surplus and ended with a deficit of 10% of GDP.
• Between 25-35 % of manufacturing jobs have disappeared in the past 10 years.
• Median family income for the decade was flat.
• The U.S. today is almost as dependent on foreign nations for manufactured good and the loans to pay for them as we were in the early years of the republic.

---“A Decade of Self-Delusion,” Patrick Buchanan Blog, 12/29/2009