My wife and I were flipping through channels on the TV one night last week.

Well, actually, my wife had control of the remote and I was trying to keep her from seeing that I was slightly interested in her shows by “working” on my laptop (which doubles as a heating pad in this frigid Canadian winter!).  We were happily sharing some “quality” relationship time in watching TV together but I finally drew the line when she tuned in to one of those trauma-ER-hospital-story-docudrama things.  I get nauseous at the sight of blood and really can’t get why my wife is fascinated by the inner workings of the human body displayed in all of it’s wonderfully made gooey glory on the operating table via a TV in our HOME!  I keep telling her she should be a nurse.  But she says she can’t handle snotty noses or dirty diapers (the early years with our children were….interesting….).  Being the hero husband that I am I suggested to her that I really wanted our quality time together in front of the TV to continue so could we please watch something else (and threatened to leave the room – with my laptop of course)!

That’s how we ended up flipping through channels and then we noticed that the movie Gladiator was starting.  We’d already seen it before but it’s just SUCH a good movie that we decided to watch it again.  Yes, I know some of you are shaking your head right now at me because of the abundance of blood and guts in this flick but hang on, there’s a difference!  With a movie I know it’s not real – it’s just amazingly good makeup and tomato juice and stuff.  Those trauma documentary’s show the real thing!  Now that we got that out of the way…

One of the reasons why Gladiator is such a great movie is because of the powerful story of what one good man will do for the dream of a better empire.  Of course he is also a man driven by the desire for revenge over the senseless deaths of his wife and son – but then when presented with the opportunity to let out his vengeance on the one who ordered their deaths the gladiator holds things in check because he knows it would plunge Rome into chaos (it wasn’t the right time)…  so he really does have the interest of the empire in mind.

But then, we all know how the mighty empire of Rome turned out don’t we?  There have been nations come and go in history, Kings and Queens have come and gone, empires have sprung up and disintegrated and big important guys on the world scene centuries ago are barely remembered today.  But that’s a big timescale isn’t it?  What about in our lifetime?  Trends and fads come and go,  brands get unbranded and movements stop moving. One year shoelace beads are all the rage and the next year they better be on your bike not your shoes.  A video on youtube goes viral and gets millions of views and it’s old news next week.  Thinking about all of this –  it really is amazing how much and in what people will invest of their lives.  Especially when it’s all temporary.

Of course, C.S. Lewis would write something like this:

“To the Materialist, things like nations, classes, civilizations must be more important than individuals, because the individuals live only seventy-odd years each and the group may last for centuries. But to the Christian, individuals are more important, for they live eternally; and races, civilizations and the like, are in comparison the creatures of a day.” – C.S. Lewis, “Man or Rabbit”

Sometimes we get wrapped up in the silliest things but I think it’s a good idea to think about what you really invest the prime, the best, of your life in.

• relationships with the ones closest to you OR the followers you’ll never meet.
• making memories OR watching memories
• your passions, the things you love doing (and are made to do) OR your “have-to’s” (everything else)
• loving people OR loving things.
• participation OR observation.
• planting OR consuming.
• getting to the top of the ladder OR building your character.
• striving for arriving OR giving while living.

For nearly everything it’s not a matter of either/or but instead, more/less because eternal things are what really matters.  How much do you invest in what matters?  If you had to add things to this comparison list what would you add?

Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. … — John 6:27 (NIV)

[photo from Flickr]

This past summer at my church Marshall Eizenga and I preached through a series called The Bible’s Biggest Losers and a couple of the people I preached about were Nadab and Abihu (kind of sounds like names Disney writers would come up with doesn’t it?).   Now these names might be a bit unfamiliar to you.  Probably because there isn’t a whole lot said about them in the Bible.  Nadab and Abihu were sons of Aaron, the brother of Moses, and the first man to be called High Priest of Israel.  What’s interesting about their story is that they were literally burned alive by fire coming out from the presence of the Lord. Well, interesting in a kind of macabre kind of way.  What did these two brothers do to deserve this?

1 Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu took their censers, put fire in them and added incense; and they offered unauthorized fire before the LORD, contrary to his command. (Leviticus 10:1 NIV)

Where the NIV translators used the word “unauthorized”  to describe the fire, the KJV Bible calls it “strange” fire (hence the title of the  message).  What was so strange about their fire?  In  the message I gave three reasons:

1. Wrong Timing
2. Wrong Authority
3. Wrong Motive

Feel free to go and read/listen to the message I delivered – I’m not going to go into detail here.  But what I wanted to draw attention to is some quick points I concluded with that kind of bring this whole episode home.   What do you think of these observations?  Is there anything else you would add to the list?

• Salvation without the cross of Christ is strange fire.
• Attendance without worship is strange fire
• Service without the Spirit is strange fire
• Testimony without personal experience is strange fire
• Teaching without study is strange fire
• Prayer without practice is strange fire

Oh, and by the way, you no what the saddest thing is about Nadab and Abihu?  They were among the few who actually saw God and ate and drank in His very presence (if you haven’t already, read Exodus 24:9-11).  At the time they were among the privileged few to come before the King of Kings, the creator of the Universe and soak in the majesty of His presence.  An incredible honor!  But then it seems they took God’s sovereignty for granted and forgot who they were and who He is.  Sometimes, I’m afraid, we do the same.

[image from flickr]

..and new decade – wow!  What was I doing 10 years ago?  Hmmm…I think I was doing an all-nighter with some youth in the church I was pastoring in Hanover.  Honestly, I can’t remember… which is probably not a good thing.  I actually caught myself saying to my 6 year old son tonight that in 40 years I will probably be dead.  Note to self: don’t tell your young child at his bedtime that you are going to die someday. It leads to a very long conversation.  Just saying.

I’m really looking forward to 2010 and this next decade.  From a tech point-of-view, the changes that I’ve experienced in the past 10 years are simply astounding! Of course there have been a lot of changes in my personal life as well.  I really can’t imagine what the next 10 years are going to bring!

As far as new years resolutions go, I’ve never really been one to make them – I guess I always think, why should I only resolve things only once a year?  It’s funny, but for me, my year tends to start in September, not January – must be something to do with having kids in school and pastoring a church…

Still, there are some things I am hoping to accomplish in the next year.  I just thought I’d write them here so I can look back a year from now and see how I’ve done.  So, in no particular order:

• My wife and I really want to work on paying down a lot of our debt.  It’s been an ongoing big deal for us but we’re determined to kiss our debt good bye.  As a result there’s going to be some difficult choices made as we cut out some of the expenses in our lives.  One of the tools I think will help us is this.
• As part of paying down our debt I’m going to start trying out different ways of monetizing some of the things I do on the internets.  I’ve already started somewhat by doing some custom work related to my Organize Series Plugin for WordPress but I’m planning on expanding on that by releasing some custom add-on plugins for Organize Series that will not be free.  Along that lines, I’ve been following this discussion on Weblog Tools Collection because it helps me consider how I might go about doing this.  Been thinking about bringing classy ads to my blog too.
• I plan on posting more frequently here at UnfoldingNeurons.com – I think there is room for more Canadian Tech and Ministry bloggers out there.
• One of the highlights in the past year for me was taking some training on being a leadership coach.  Every now and then I think we come across something that as individuals we really connect with as something we’re created to do.  Coaching is one of those things for me.  I’ve decided that I’m going to pursue the path to becoming a certified leadership coach as it really jives with what I believe God created me for.  I’m starting off this year by leading my church pastoral team through a peer coaching course and I’ll also be attending another training session myself.
• I’m going to comment and interact more on the internets.  Confession: I’m a lurker.
• On that note, it’d be an awesome honor to be invited to be a guest blogger on one of the blogs I read.  Dunno if I have anything to offer, but still it’d be cool
• I hope to continue volunteering for some great causes (along with continuing the work I do for vohmalawi.org and vohzimbabwe.com).
• I may be going on a trip to Siberia this year.  Yes, that’s crazy.
• I’m going to continue working on being a great Dad and husband to my family…if I fail at that, then it doesn’t matter what else I succeed at.
• I’m going to be memorizing scripture through the year along with others in my church family who are joining in the journey (I’ll be posting about this sometime in the next two weeks).  My 8 year old daughter is also participating and when I sent her an email (yes she has email – I’ve introduced her to the Google Behemoth)  to tell her that I’m doing it too she replied, “Neat. Bring it on Dad”.  The gloves are down.
• I love YouVersion.com and thanks to the many Bible Reading plans they’ve made available, I’m going to be reading through the Bible (again) this year.  If you don’t read the Bible, you should – it’s one of the best things you can do (and the digerati team behind youversion has made it so easy!) My wife and I are working through a plan together as well.

Well, this list has been getting pretty long but it’s a great start.   I could keep adding to it but I think I’ll leave it at that for now.  What about you?  Have you got any things you hope to accomplish for the new year?

For most of 2009 I didn’t post as frequently as I wanted to here at UnfoldingNeurons.com but I did manage to get a few posts off.  I thought I’d take some time at the end of this year to give an overview of the most viewed posts.  Since anything to do with my Organize Series plugin kind of blows all the other posts out of the water I’m going to skip including it in this list.  I’m also only including in this list posts that I actually wrote in 2009.  Starting with the most viewed post…

• Number 1: Donate Friday
• Number 2: Catalyst Day One: Rob Bell
• Number 3: Catalyst Day One: Francis Chan
• Number 4: Catalyst Day Two: Dave Ramsey – “The Momentum Theorem”
• Number 5: Why I think every Church and Pastor should Blog
• Number 6: How I Keep Track of Printed Articles [Evernote Usage]
• Number 7: …because it’s the way it’s always been done
• Number 8: Catalyst Day Two: Chuck Swindoll
• Number 9: Catalyst Day One: Malcolm Gladwell
• Number 10: Catalyst 2009: Labs

Are there any posts you’ve read on UnfoldingNeurons.com that you think should be on this list?