Smoke, nothing but smoke. There’s nothing to anything in life.

Smoke, nothing but smoke. There’s nothing to anything in life. (The Message)

Sounds like a line from a blues song, but it’s actually the main message of an entire twelve-chapter book of the Bible. 

And it’s not singing the blues. It doesn't speak directly to the person feeling the blues.

It's actually more suited for someone who's feeling hopeful. That's the primary audience.

It’s meant to be a fairly depressing, yet relentlessly rational, assessment of life. 

A life that's lived, that is, under one condition. 

That one condition is in the air we breath, so it’s hard not to arrive at the same conclusion at some point in life, even as Christians. 

So, we’re exploring the message of that book this weekend. And we’ll dive into the only two verses in the entire book that refute this depressing assessment of life.

"You are to love those who are foreigners"

The Bryants (Michael, Kristen, and family) and there team led another VBS for Karen children last week. Kristen writes...

We had a great three days of VBS led by 46 adult and kid volunteers. We once again had three generations serving together.   It is great to be able to serve as families. 

It was more chaotic the last night with 131 kids, but they had fun playing games, shouted out the verse, sang promises of God, and heard about God's love and forgiveness.   Twenty-one kids marked that they made first-time decisions to follow Christ!

It is exciting to be able to spend that time with them.  Hopefully, as the words to the songs that we sang over and over come into their minds, they will be reminded of God's love for them.  

I was choked up when the backpacks worked out perfectly.  I couldn't believe it!  We had so many extra kids show up that last night.  We had the exact amount of bags for the kids that came. God is so good!