Vapor

A word about focus

Reading through Proverbs and Ecclesiastes monthly has been a pattern for the last

year or so. I don’t know if it’s turning 40 or what, but something about Ecclesiastes

really hit home recently.

Most of Ecclesiastes is translated as “meaningless”; everything, money, power,

possessions, etc., is meaningless.

But the other translation for that word meaningless I’ve heard is “vapor”.

When you think of most of what the author writes about as a vapor, it changes the entire

viewpoint.

It’s not that the things listed are without value, but that they just pass by quickly or only

exist for a moment as water evaporating into the air.

It’s there, but you can’t touch or grasp it. It exists and vanishes in the same moment.

After reading this, one possibility of applying it would be not to care about anything,

since it just evaporates and doesn’t last. However, another possibility for application is

that, while many good things in our lives fade quickly, like a vapor, we should focus

instead on the things that do last.

I sit here reading out of my Grandfather’s Bible. At some point, someone took him to

church, and he, in turn, took his daughters to church. A construction Forman took my

dad to church, which must have been an incredible transformation from the stories I’ve

heard, who, in turn, took my mom and me to church. My wife and I attend, and we take

my daughter, our great-niece, and our nephew. I don’t know if they’ll remember those

church visits, but I know I will.

Here at Cup of Cold Water Ministries, where I serve as Treasurer on the Executive

Board, there are multiple family legacies spanning generations. I have faith that if you

dug through the world around them, you would find stories of lives impacted by the work

of our CCWM Missionaries told for multiple generations, even though for us, it was only

a vapor of time.

As we sort through things every month that sometimes seem meaningless, like

insurance, which is my career field, budgets, meal planning, household chores, etc.,

those things will pass through like a vapor. Problems will resolve themselves, and new

ones will arise. The numbers will change each month, and truthfully, it will be whatever it

will be. God will control that, but as we tell His story from one generation to another, we

will leave that inheritance for many generations to come.

As the board and home team gather together at the CCWM Headquarters monthly,

working through the agenda to ultimately help people go where God has called them to

serve, it can be a task-led focus, and those tasks are important, but more importantly,

let’s focus on those generations changed for eternity by the salvation offered through

Christ and not get overwhelmed by the vapor of the temporary things of life.