The readings this week really do support a rather common Christian theme, which is that being a Christian isn’t necessarily easy. Unlike the ancient Hebrews, we don’t worship God because we believe our lives will be all sunshine and rainbows - we don’t believe the Lord will make all our troubles go away. We believe because we know life is likely to deal us up a heaping helping of hardship from time to time - and some of us will get a bigger helping than others. But we know that Jesus Christ is the Lord of all, that God will give us the strength to persevere, and that we should follow the example of Jesus and NOT despair, no matter what life throws at us!