Balancing Heart and Head

What are people looking for today in a church?  This is a question about which everyone has an opinion based upon what they are looking for in a church.  I find even talking about it frustrating.  Why?  All to often the advice given to pastors and to churches is either too general or too personal to the presenter.  I get tired of strange stories that do not ring true to my experience in growing churches.

So what can we do to answer the question?

I think many different church formats and structures can work to attract people to Christ and the gospel.  I believe that every worship style can be attractive.  I know I have been blessed by all kind of worship practices and I have witnessed folks of every age blessed by different worship practices.  Thus, I would say that the answer is not in tips and techniques.

Instead the answer is found in the attitude of the church and individuals within the church to the presence and work of God.  Where passionate spirituality is balanced with thoughtful presentation of the truth a local body of Christ will grow deeper and outward.  People will be attracted to Jesus, there will be conversions, and the gospel will permeate the entire atmosphere of the church.

Why do we not see this more?  If in our fallenness we crave such a place, why are more churches not marked by such balance?

One error is emphasizing the truth while ignoring the heart.  Why does this happen?  To explain I will begin with a thoughtful passage written by John Piper in a new book he co-wrote with D.A. Carson called, The Pastor as Scholar and the Scholar as Pastor.  Piper writes,

Now, how does this relate to the pastor as scholar?  On the one hand, its first effect is to protect the church from the dangers of a scholarly bent.  Many pastors, especially those who love the glorious vision of God's being and beauty and plan of salvation, have a scholarly bent that threatens to over-intellectualize the Christian faith, which means they turn it mainly into a system to be thought about rather than a way of life to be felt and lived.  Of course, it is a system as well as a life.  But the danger is that the whole thing can be made to feel academic rather than heart-wrenchingly real.  That's what Christian hedonism helps us to avoid.

Where the faith is over-intellectualized, many ordinary, authentic saints can smell the error.  Rightly, they start drifting away, but sadly, often into the worst extremes of emotionalism.  But if Christian hedonism is alive- I have found that many starving saints make their way home to a place where head and heart are more in balance, and the reality and power of the Holy Spirit are craved and cherished.

Piper, The Pastor as Scholar, 49.

Over six months ago I received an e-mail from someone who knew me tangentially as a scholar working in a seminary.  This man would listen to the end of some of my classes.  He never took a class, but he said he always found what I had to say interesting and thought-provoking.  He often would conclude, "I should check this out."  Unfortunately, he shared that he often did not go further in his enquiries!

What I found interesting about the e-mail was he shared that he thought I was some sort of Calvinist.  He shared that he hated Calvin, Calvinism, and anything to do with this system of thought.  He had been raised in a Reformed Baptist church and now he had no use for anything to do with Calvinism.  He thought we would have some interesting debates.

Interesting debates, indeed.  I am sure the discussion would have been rich and rather sharp at points.  Yet, I wonder how could this rather anti-intellectual Christian man come to hate Calvin, Calvinism, and the entire system of thought?  In place of a biblical system of thought that is primarily God-focused and grace-centered, he had embraced a strange emotionalism that passed as authentic spirituality.  

My guess is that he rejected a balanced, biblical, and heart-transforming vision of Christian spirituality for emotionalism and Christian-lite platitudes because someone shared the glorious vision of God's being, beauty, and plan of salvation as nothing more than a system of thought.  I know for years I was totally turned off to authentic spirituality because I encountered such an arrogant, heart-less presentation of biblical truth!

True spirituality, what some people would label Reformed/Calvinism as a form of thought, is joy producing and heart changing.  It is also logical and according to reality.  The key is that it should be both!  Why would we ever wish to divorce joy from logic or heart-change/true transformation from truth grounded in creation?  To be a believer, one does not need to check either their emotions or their brains at the door!  Bring both because as Piper has written about for years, God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.

All of us have met people who have drifted to an extreme of being either too intellectual or too emotional.  These folks do not represent the truth in its entirety!  Keep looking for and striving for a faith that is both intellectually deep and emotionally transformative.  This is the heart of true spirituality. It is the heart of the gospel.  It is also the absolute heart of true and authentic Reformed/Calvinistic spirituality.

The Life Changing Power of Jesus

Many people' idea of the gospel is that some day we'll get to the bridge to paradise and be asked, "Why should you be allowed to cross?"  As long as we answer correctly, we make it across.  Answer wrongly, and we're cast into the abyss.  The gospel is redefined to the the announcements of the minimal entrance requirements for getting into heaven.

In Hank's church, this is all we asked of him.  He knew the words.  He knew what his standing before God was based upon.  But we didn't know how to transform his life.

Jesus never said, "Now I'm going to tell you what you need to say to get into heaven when you die."  The gospel writers make it clear that Jesus' good news was that we no longer have to live in the guilt, failure, and impotence of our own strength.  The transforming presence and power of God is available through Christ, right here, right now.  To live in that power, you must become his disciple, or as Dallas Willard captures it, his apprentice.

John Ortberg, "True (and False) Transformation: Two Counterfeit Forms of Spiritual Maturity, and one way to find the real thing,"  Leadership, Summer 2002, 102.

The power to change lives.  

How many of us really want to see such power!  Yet, when we look around the Christian world we don't see folks who are radically different from "nice" folks in our culture.  I find many truly nice folks. I don't find many who are radically different or refreshing holy.

Are we really satisfied that our faith is all about making us nice?

I hope not.  

When I see Jesus I see a man who the religious leaders and religious people would not consider nice.  He challenged them.  He challenged his disciples.  He did love them, but he also was too confrontative and radical to be considered  nice.

He was also holy and pure, yet fun to be around and loving to all types of people.  He taught as one with authority.  He had power to heal souls and bodies.  Those seeking God loved him and wanted to be around him.  Those seeking to put God in a box of their own making hated him and had him killed.

If we apprentice to Jesus, can we not expect to experience the same weird and apparently contrary contradictions?  Yes!  Those who walk with Jesus and learn his ways experience life changing power in the here and now.  They are transformed by grace ever increasingly to Jesus' likeness.

Why don't we see this more?

Perhaps because we don't know anything different.  Thus, we make ourselves satisfied with a cultural religious form instead of a culturally transformative religious life that always marks Christ followers.  If so, repent, believe, and follow the Lord Jesus!  He bids us to come and die to self, to being "nice", and to our addiction to fitting in.  He calls us to a life of faith, a life of love, a life of power, and a life of transformation.

Lord Jesus, power out your Holy Spirit upon us that we may walk with you and experience life transforming power!

Two Faces of Pride

"One's pride will bring him low,

but he who is lowly in spirit will obtain honor."

Prov. 29: 23

"Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool,

but he who walks in wisdom will be delivered."

Prov. 28: 26

In the past 24 hours, I have been asked twice to define "pride."  What does this look like?  How could you say I am proud?  Since I can see my sin, is it possible for me to remain proud?

Then, today's Proverbs concerning pride jumped off the page.  Pride is the topic for today.  I know this topic well, since I am an exceedingly prideful man.  I am so prideful, that even the last sentence sounds like pride.

So what is pride?  Is its opposite "a lowly spirit" as it says in the Proverbs?  Does this mean I must walk around depressed and moaning about my inability all the time?  I am not sure I want to do that.  So, what is pride?

Let me again quote from Henry Fairlie's The Seven Deadly Sins Today, 39-41.

"But a reasonable and justified self-esteem is not what is meant by the sin of Pride.  The first definition of pride in the dictionaries is of something unfitting.  'An inordinate self-esteem,' says Webster's, as also does the Oxford English Dictionary: 'an unreasonable conceit of superiority... an overweening opinion of one's own qualities.'  Its synonyms or near-synonyms are not attractive: vanity, vainglory, conceit, arrogance, egotism, boastfulness, self-glorification, selfishness, and many more, all of which we use as terms of reproach.  There is some cunning in the question, "Should we not be proud of ourselves?"  Even as it is so innocently put, there is already a note of vanity and self-satisfaction in it, and one feels that the Devil is there, alert as ever, making an opening for the real sin of Pride to enter.  

'Being proud of oneself' is often equated today with 'feeling good about oneself'; and feeling good about oneself is an altogether laudable ambition, but again only as long as one has adequate reasons for feeling good. ...

Pride is camel-nosed, as Angus Wilson has said.  It is also high-blown, puffed up, stuck-up, stiff-necked.  All of these are epithets, not only of superiority, but of aloofness.  The proud man sets himself up and, in doing so, sets himself apart."

Pride can have two distinct forms.  It can be the arrogant jerk who always has to tell you about herself.  It can be the selfish business man who makes all of life about himself.  It can be the person who refuses to listen to advice.  All of these folks may walk securely, feeling good about themselves, and being confident in their abilities.  This is not the point.  Their real sin is not competence, but their self-satisfaction and self-righteousness.  The center of their world is themselves.

Why is this important to recognize?  Because pride can also be depressed, self-loathing, and full of self-pity.  While people marked by these traits are not self-confident nor do they feel good about themselves, they are extremely self-centered and self-consumed.  Instead of talking about their achievements, they talk about their failures and struggles.  The center of their world is themselves.

As I see it, our greatest problem is that we do not recognize this sin within ourself.  We see it clearly within others, and it drives us crazy, but we have a hard to recognizing our own self-centered pride.

How do we escape the trap of self-concern and self-righteousness?  We must look for our validation and our righteousness from somewhere else.  It is found through confession of our sin against God and faith in Christ as our only hope.  

Augustine and the Roman Catholic tradition maintained that pride was the heart of all our sin and fallenness.  Martin Luther agreed, but he said the primary sin in our pride is that of unbelief.  Because we do not believe in Christ as our righteousness and life, we fill the void with something else.  Most of the time we do it with ourself.  Instead of claiming and living Christ's righteousness as ours, we trust in our self-righteousness.  Such misplaced trust leads to pride, which contaminates all of our life.

What about the depressed, self-loathing, self-pitying individual?  How do they trust themselves?

The key is that such a person does not trust or believe Christ's righteousness is for them.  They refuse to believe that Christ is enough.  In the name of supposed humility and recognition of their limitations, they pridefully dismiss that God loves them in Christ and that His power can transform them.

At its heart, all pride flows from our unbelief.  It is always ugly in the presence of a Holy God because His holiness reveals the folly of our unbelief and its resulting pride.

What can be done?  Repent of our unbelief, confess our misplaced pride, and believe in Christ as our righteousness, our transforming power, and our only hope.  Allow His grace to change our unbelieving hearts!

"Forgive and Forget" Deficiencies

Every author writes in the crucible of the culture.  We are never free from the influence of our culture- reacting as defenders of the old convictions and naysayers of current trends, or just the opposite.  I am no different.  I do not believe forgiveness involves forgetting the past and ignoring the damage of past or present harm.  To do so, even if it were possible, would be tantamount to erasing one's personal history and the work of God in the midst of our journey.  The only way for the "forgive-and-forget mentality" to be practiced is through radical denial, deception, or pretense.

Many raised on the familiar chant, "forgive and forget," may already question this book's viability.  I can only hope the reader will read further before labeling the book as heretical.  The "forgive and forget" approach has included some important truths about forgiveness that should not, like the clean baby, be thrown out with dirty bath water.  From this approach, we must learn the importance of radically putting aside the right to use the past harm to justify present sin.  But we must not pretend that past harm never happened.  I believe the past can be remembered for the well-being of the abuser.  Facing the damage of the past can bring good into the present day relationship with the one who perpetrated significant harm.

Dan Allender, Bold Love, 16.

Life has been a wild ride for the past month or so.  After a nine month struggle with her health, my mother was finally diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer.  About 10 days ago, I was blessed to go visit her for a week.  I was shocked to see how much weight she had lost.  Yet, her positive attitude and "can-do" nature remains.  Then, I returned home to Easter preparation.  

All of this means, no time to write!  My emotions have also been on edge, so I don't feel like I have had the emotional strength to do much writing.

I am so thankful that while I did not write much, I sure did read many pages.  It is amazing how being away from the noise of my household allowed me the space (and quiet) to enjoy reading.  I hope to share some of the pregnant passages I am still processing.

The first comes from an older book by Dan Allender called Bold Love.  I absolutely loved this book!  Why?  Because I agreed with Allender on his definition of love and what it should look like in practice.  I strongly recommend this book.

I wonder if Allender influenced my thinking directly over 20 years ago?  I ran the sound for all the Christian speakers who came to Gordon-Conwell.  Allender was one of those speakers.  In fact, I remember that he treated me better than most of the "Christian stars" that I met.  I remember enjoying his talks and talking with my wife about them.

I think in our world today we have such a misguided and shallow understanding of love.  Allender agrees.

As I see it, love is active in that it seeks the best for the other.  It actively seeks to bring the gospel to bear in the life of everyone involved in a situation.

I know all too often, I would prefer to call it love when I avoid difficult people or conversations.  I would prefer to call it love when I vent my feelings.  I don't really want to go the extra mile to apply the gospel of truth and grace to difficult people or situations.

I think the "forgive and forget" mentality goes right along with my natural tendencies to avoid healthy and needed conflict.  Somehow I think it would be easier and better if I just moved on.

Yet, when real abuse occurs (not just minor irritation), forgive and forget is not love.  It is avoidance.  As such, it misses the mark of God's call, which means it is sin.

So what does Bold Love do?

I think first, one must be honest with God and talk with Him about what happened.  So often dealing with abuse and hurt is not done from the perspective of a relationship with God.  Only God can heal out hearts and only God can help us really forgive.  We might need the help of other believers at this stage, but we should begin here.

Second, we prayerfully consider how to deal with the abuse and hurt.  When, how, and where to confront/deal with the past abuse is tricky.  It takes discernment and wisdom to know what to do.  This is why I think the first step is so important!

Yet, one thing is true.  Somehow we must not allow the abuser to continue in their sin.  

Wow this is tough!  Particularly if you are in a close relationship with the abusive/hurtful person.  Yet, the reason why we cannot just forgive and forget is because doing so allows for continued abuse.  Allowing someone to continue to harm others is actually encouraging their sin.  This is the opposite of love.

Again, I think we will need godly and good advisors on how to do this.  Do we confront?  Do we remove ourselves from the abuse?  Do we confront, remove ourselves, and then move on?  So many options require wisdom.  

Have I mentioned the importance of the first step of being in relationship with God?  Honestly, without the wisdom of God, I don't know how anyone can really love.

Another post without any answers!  At least I think it is a good question to ponder and process.  What do you think?

The Deadly Sin of Envy

"It has been said that Envy is the one deadly sin to which no one readily confesses.  It seems to be the nastiest, the most grim, the meanest.  Sneering, sly, vicious.  The face of Envy is never lovely.  It is never even faintly pleasant.  Its expression crosses our faces in a split second.  'Few are able to suppress in themselves a secret satisfaction at the misfortune of their friends,' said La Rochefoucauld, and few of us are able to suppress a secret envy at someone else's good fortune, or even at someone else's good joke.  If we confessed each day how often we had been envious during it, we would be on our knees longer than for any other sin.

Although all the deadly sins are morbid and self-destroying, Angus Wilson has said, most of the others provide at least some gratification in their early stages.  But there in no gratification for Envy, nothing it can ever enjoy.  Its appetite never ceases, yet its only satisfaction is endless self-torment.  'It has the ugliness of a trapped rat that has gnawed its own feet in its efforts to escape.'"

Henry Fairlie, The Seven Deadly Sins for Today, 61.

What is envy?  I don't think we can recognize envy like past generations and other cultures.  Why?  Envy is so ingrained in our culture that it is like the air we breathe.  It is the way we do business.  It is often the foundation of our thoughts and lives.  

So what does envy look like today?

In our culture it takes the form of rampant consumerism.  We are so marketed to that we do not know anything different.  While this marketing promotes other deadly sins such as gluttony and lust, it appeals to our base nature desire more.  Remember these slogans:

"You deserve a break today."  "Be all you can be."  "Because you are worth it."  "When you only deserve the best."

These just come off the top of my head.  How many more are out there?!  At its heart, each slogan appeals to our most base nature.  We do deserve better.  It is particularly clear we deserve better when we see others enjoying, flaunting, having that which we want.  Not so secretly, the thought crosses our minds that those who have what we want do not deserve it.

Envy now rules.

Has not our entire political discussion engaged and promoted envy?  President Obama won reelection in large part by pounding this theme.  The rich do not deserve what they have.  They only got what they have by taking it from the poor.  The subtle and unstated claim here is that they should be punished and you should be rewarded because you deserve more.  Is this not how to make a strong middle class?

Envy is our cultural marker.

Why can we not be happy with someone else's success?  Is it not possible for everyone to succeed, even though some do so to greater measure than others?  Do not those who succeed in greater measure employ those of us who need jobs?

When envy rules, these questions do not matter.  All that matters is a growing dislike of those with what we want and "deserve" and a gnawing desire for something that will satisfy our soul.  This path will not breed a happy and strong lower class, middle class, or upper class.  It breeds anger, resentment, and ever deepening sin.

These observations have obvious implications for the Christian life.  We must recognize our envy so we can repent and find our rest in relationship with God!  Yet, the fingers of sin go deeper than mere individual sin.

Our churches are often marked by an incredible spirit of envy.  We want the gifts and talents of others.  We want to be recognized like they are.  We are just as smart, just as spiritual, just as talented as others. Why do people not recognize us?

How do we deal with this?  It depends if we are an aggressive person or a passive person.

If we are aggressive, we try to move and manipulate within the church so people recognize us.  We tear down those we envy.  It might not be a direct attack, but we withhold encouragement and affirmation.  We master being a fault-finder instead of being an encourager.

If we are passive, we give up trying.  We know we do not have the talent of others, though we wish we did, so we refuse to use the gifts we do have to the full measure possible.  As a result, we do not grow.  Like a stunted plant, we lack health and vitality because the Spirit does not flow through the gifts we do have and we should use to benefit others.  (See the passage in 1 Corinthians 12 for how Paul describes this condition)

Just like our culture at large, envy rules.  "Its appetite never ceases, yet its only satisfaction is endless self-torment."

The only way off this carousel of sin is repentance and faith.  We were created to have our satisfaction and joy from our relationship with Jesus.  Ask the Spirit to point out where envy rules in your life and in the church.  Ask for grace to repent and find satisfaction in Jesus' love for you.  Meet with other gospel-centered believers for encouragement as you seek to lessen the rule of envy in your life.  Most importantly, when the Spirit points out your envy for things, power, or gifts, repent and believe the gospel!

The Source of the Next Economic Crisis

I have always loved economics.  I think the way we use money and create systems to use and control the flow of money/commerce/transfer of goods is fascinating.

I also think the system we have now is utterly broken and false.  We don't have a free market anywhere in the world.  I take that back.  We do have free markets in Italy with their black market trade, in arms dealing, and in prisons.  Any market that is "official" is being manipulated and controlled by folks I don't know on computers.

The following is an article from Zero Hedge, which is an economics blog.  I found it interesting because it explains an unsettling and disruptive economic/social crisis that is rapidly approaching.  I would love to know what folks think about it and I look forward to the discussions.

To give away my position, history tells us that when internal structures fail a nation/empire is ripe for invasion from folks who want to take your stuff, or you must mobilization your army and go take other people's stuff.  What does this mean for all the geo-political posturing that is going on today?

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,

Right now China is at the top of the S-Curve, and the problems of stagnation are still ahead.

What happens after all the low-hanging fruit has been picked? We can phrase the same question using a different analogy: what happens when all the oxygen in a room has been consumed?

One way to understand why the global financial meltdown occurred in 2008 and not in 2012 is all the oxygen in the room had been consumed. In the U.S. housing market, there was nobody left to buy an overpriced house with a no-document liar loan because everyone who was qualified to buy a McMansion in the middle of nowhere had already bought three and everyone who wasn't qualified had purchased a McMansion to flip with a liar loan.

Once the pool of credulous buyers evaporated, the dominoes fell, eventually circling the globe.

What happens after the low-hanging fruit has been picked? Here's an analogy: erect an enormous 13-story building on a thin slab foundation that is barely adequate for a 2-story house, and tie that flimsy foundation to the earth with fragile hollow pilings. What happens? Collapse.

Analysis of the Collapse Of 13-Story Building in China
Shanghai building collapse (Telegraph, UK)

Anyone tracking the global economy has an eye on China, for obvious reasons.China has led the world's growth for the better part of two decades, and now the growth story has entered a new phase. China is weakening its currency (renminbi/yuan), and trying to throttle its vast credit/shadow banking expansion even as Chinese officials claim China's economy is still expanding at a phenomenal clip (7+% annually).

I think we can shed some insightful analytic light by saying that the low-hanging fruit in China has all been plucked, and this creates an entirely new set of problems and challenges.

The first thing to note about nations experiencing rapid growth is the mathematical impossibility of continued break-neck growth: when China's economy (in purchasing power parity (PPP) or nominal dollars) GDP was $500 billion, an expansion of $50 billion equated to 10% a year.

Now that China's PPP gross domestic product is around $13 trillion, a 10% growth rate would require an expansion of $1.3 trillion--roughly the entire GDP of Spain or Canada.

Obviously, fast growth is easy when the low-hanging fruit are abundant, and it becomes progressively more difficult to maintain as the economy expands.
This pattern of rapid growth, maturity and stagnation can be seen in the S-Curve, a pattern that natural and human-made systems alike track.

When a country lacks infrastructure, or the infrastructure has been destroyed by war, then building infrastructure is the dominant activity in the low-hanging fruit/fast growth phase. Nations such as Japan and Germany experienced rapid growth after World War II for much the same reason China has boomed: infrastructure.

China has reached the maturity phase of the S-Curve in a mere 20 years: every major city has a subway system, thousands of miles of rail and highways have been laid, tens of millions of housing units have been built, and so on. As a result of this single-minded pursuit of building, China now sports nearly empty cities, train stations, malls and highrise residential towers.

In other words, all the low-hanging fruit of infrastructure have been picked.
Observers in Beijing see (well, not very far, due to the severe smog) endless growth of housing, due to strong demand. But this rosy view overlooks the fact that housing throughout China is out of reach not just of the millions of poorly paid migrant workers pouring into the cities but for college graduates--assuming they can even find a job (Chinese College Graduates Cannot Secure Jobs)

Even the cheapest condos cost well over $100,000 (in USD) in 3rd tier cities and much more in 1st and 2nd tier cities. The average starting salary for graduates is 2,000 to 3,000 yuan ($326) a month (roughly $4,000 to $6,000 a year), and salaries of around 50,000 yuan a year ($8,600) are considered good.

As a result, a double-income middle class household can only own a flat if the parents' savings are devoted to the down payment, which is usually 50% of the purchase price in China.

So all the stories of housing demand being permanent are misleading, because only a tiny sliver of the millions of people coming to cities can afford even the cheapest flat in the suburbs.

The other problem is that the low-hanging fruit have all been stripped via an unprecedented expansion of credit. Credit has a pernicious characteristic: it inevitably leads to diminishing returns as low-value, high-risk projects get funded in the rush to build anything and everything everywhere.

In other words, once the high-value low-hanging fruit has been picked, the sensible, high-value investment opportunities have all been taken and all that's left is marginal malinvestments.

In the U.S., this led to the famous McMansions in the middle of nowhere. In China, the general faith is that every building project, no matter how marginal, will soon be filled (and regardless of demand, the government will never let housing decline, even in ghost cities).

But as pointed out above, this presumes the millions of poorly educated rural migrants and the 7 million students graduating from college every year will soon be earning upper-middle-class incomes. Once the fast growth phase has ended, this becomes much more problematic. And indeed, reports of unemployed college graduates are now the norm (see below). As for migrants, most toil in very marginal jobs with low, insecure pay.

Another systemic problem arises when the low-hanging fruit have been picked:expectations of future prosperity have been pushed into the stratosphere, and these expectations will inevitably be disappointed as growth slows.

Rapid industrialization leads to rampant pollution. China has spent very little of its GDP on environmental investments, and now the bill is coming due. It is mathematically impossible for China to spend what needs to be spent (say, 5% of GDP for a decade) on cleaning up the environment and maintaining 7.5% annual growth. Promising people both will only set up a profound disappointment as neither goal can possibly be met.

Lastly, China lacks the cultural capital of maintaining infrastructure. In the 20 years of picking low-hanging fruit, buildings have been routinely torn down and replaced. The idea that a building will have to last 50 years, never mind 100 years, does not compute: if a building shows signs of aging, the solution for the past 20 years has been to tear it down and replace it with something grander.

This was possible in the fast-growth phase, but it is impossible in the stagnation phase for the same reason noted above: it's possible to tear down and replace 1,000 major buildings a year in the early years, but it becomes physically and financially impossible to replace millions of aging housing units.

Those familiar with construction and this lack of infrastructure to oversee and fund maintenance foresee tens of thousands of buildings that will slowly but surely become uninhabitable as elevators break down, pumps stop working, leaks cause concrete to spall, etc.

Anyone with even modest construction experience can see that the foundation beneath the toppled 13-story building is not even remotely adequate; the slightest temblor will destabilize all such buildings, and such feeble footings built directly on grade will lead to cracked pipes and a host of other impossible-to-fix problems.

Right now China is at the top of the S-Curve, and these problems of stagnation are still ahead. The most severe challenge in my view is not material or fiscal, it's psychological: when sky-high expectations crash to earth, social discord starts its own S-Curve of rapid growth.

Chinese College Graduates Cannot Secure Jobs: 28% Of Beijing's 2013 Graduates And 44% Of Shanghai's Have Found A Job:

This year a total of 6.99 million students graduated with a master's, bachelor's or technical college degree in China, an increase of 190,000 from 2012. In contrast, the number of jobs available decreased by 15 percent compared with 2012, according to China Youth, a state-run youth newspaper. Combined, these statistics mean a large portion of graduates will not have a job coming out of school.

Making matters worse for graduates, the "lucky" ones with jobs can expect an average salary of 3,000 yuan per month ($487.89). Netizens have calculated that at this rate, a 2013 graduate will have enough money to purchase a bathroom in the suburbs of Beijing in 10 years, if she doesn’t eat and chooses to live on the street.

Pancreatic Cancer Prayer

"You turn men back to dust,

saying, "Return to dust, O sons of men."

The length of our days is seventy years-

or eighty, if we have the strength;

yet their span is but trouble and sorrow,

for they quickly pass, and we fly away."

Psalm 90: 3, 10.

I have not been writing and for that I apologize.  My thoughts have been focused on everything except writing.  My emotions have not allowed me to have the clarity of thought needed to think and to write clearly.  I have been wanting to write this post since last week, but I needed to allow my mother time to share her news personally with her friends.

What is the news?

Last Monday, we received the news that my mother has stage 4 pancreatic cancer.  I had feared for this diagnosis since October when she first showed weird symptoms.  I am writing today to ask for prayer for her, for her husband and friends, and for us.

Pancreatic cancer has the highest mortality rate of any cancer.  It is particularly important that they find it and treat it early.  All too often, this is not the case because pancreatic cancer hides.  It looks like so many other diseases and problems.  I heard yesterday that the average diagnosis for pancreatic cancer is 5 months.  My mother was 7 or 8 months from symptoms to diagnosis.  They think she had it for at least a year.  I write the following so others can know what to look for.  Maybe it will be helpful to someone.

My mother was a healthy 70 year old (She would hate for me to confess her actual age.  She claimed to be 39 until I turned 39).  Then she had developed a bad backache that radiated up her spine in late July when she came out to visit us.  She thought it was pulled muscles from weeding the day before she flew out to visit.  Yet, nothing made it better.  Then she about a month later she developed severe nausea and intestinal issues that she could not shake.

In the midst of this time, she had to change doctors because her original doctor thought she had a bladder infection.  Really?  Her long-time doctor had retired and her new doctor was simply not very good.  After a month or so of not getting the doctor to take her issues seriously, my mother began the process of finding another doctor.  I am sure this factor aided in the delay in getting a good diagnosis because she had no one overseeing all the specialists.

That began several rounds of testing.  Everything was a bit weird.  They did an MRI and they found blood clots in her ovaries.  Mom's original doctor put her on a blood thinner, but no one could place why she had this blood clot. The doctor also did not want to follow up to figure out the cause.  This was when I began to fear a pancreatic problem.  

Mom's new doctors began to look for answers.  The mysterious blood clot was not really seen as important. Instead, they found a simple fix to her symptoms.  It ends up her gall bladder was not working properly.  This is the most common surgery in America.  They took it out without complication.  This should have fixed the problem as it does for many.  The problem was that her symptoms did not change at all.  In fact, she kept losing weight and she retained her back pain.

Now began the CT scan and MRI phase.  Nothing is found except more blood clots.  This should not happen since she was still on blood thinner.  What is going on?

Blood clots are a symptom of several rather nefarious forms of cancer including some types of ovarian and pancreatic cancers.  Perhaps there were other causes?  She began to see specialists.  She had an endoscopy and colonoscopy.  They found stomach ulcers.  They treated the ulcers.  They looked into her ovary issues and found her cancer numbers were very high for ovarian cancer.  When investigated, no cancer was found in her ovaries.  Yet, in the biopsies some strange numbers were found that could be related to the pancreas.  She was referred to a pancreatic specialist.

Finally in January she got into the pancreatic specialist.  She was told that these numbers did not mean anything and that she did not have pancreatic cancer.  

What did she have?  Still no answers.  Continued symptoms.  Continued weight loss.  Growing fatigue.

Finally, in the beginning of March they did some exploratory surgery to look around and take some biopsies.  The pancreatic doctor shared with my mother's husband that he was sure there was cancer somewhere but he could not prove it.

The results of the biopsies confirmed pancreatic cancer.  It has left the pancreas and ran alongside the pancreas to the liver.  It was thought to be in the bile ducts and the liver.  There were blood clots throughout her mid-section.  She was told she has 6-12 months to live if she does chemo and less without.

This was the news of last Monday.  Perhaps anticipated, but not welcomed.  Honestly, my wife and I just don't know what to do with ourselves.  We are so far away we can't just drive over and give her a hug.  We have had to process through what we felt and thought.  The plan is for me to fly to Ohio to visit next week. 

This week she began chemo and  she plans on going to the Cleveland clinic for a second opinion and further treatment options.  Since last fall she has lost 45 or 50 pounds.  

As a praise, since the exploratory look she has had no more back pain. She remains fatigued with one good day and one bad day.  She still has all the severe intestinal issues and she has no appetite.

All of the symptoms I have listed can be symptoms of pancreatic cancer.  As I read through people's accounts of the disease, I find many similarities.  Unfortunately, these same symptoms can also be symptoms of many other medical issues!

If you have them, get it checked out.

Please join me in praying for my mother and for all involved.  Pray for wisdom for the doctors and for proper processing for everyone involved.  Thanks!