It doesn't take long to realize that living is trying to move forward against a lot of resistance. It's like having the wind in your face, climbing up a hill, or trudging through a foot of snow. Yes, when I look around, I see the struggle - the epidemic of opioid addiction, alcohol addiction, the worried look on people's faces on the train home from the city, the people lining up in front of food pantries, the exhausted parents picking their kids up from school. In some ways many are looking at a "defeated life". 

I love the passage from Galatians 6:9, "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap the harvest if you do not give up." It's a great passage, and it's a difficult passage because who has time to do a lot of good when you are just trying to survive and avoid a defeated life? In Galatians St. Paul is trying to tell us not to grow weary, not to give up, and not to be defeated.

I feel nobody gets through this life alone. Galatians has another passage that says, "Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ." The church is a community that offers far more than we sometimes realize. It offers direction, purpose, inspiration, opportunities, fellowship, and a helping hand. In the old hymn Blessed Be the Tie that Binds there are the words, "and for each other flows a sympathizing tear". There is a humorous way of saying the same thing: "the cavalry is on its way".

Every day we are presented with a new and beautiful struggle; every hour is a fresh opportunity to make our mark on the world. Let's never become weary of doing good.

MEH