What is it that enabled those to whom Hebrews was written to cope under such difficult circumstances?

We’ve had many experiences recently we never thought we’d have:

Queueing to get into the supermarket, food shortages, restricted movement, access to health care, responsiveness of the police, economic uncertainty immediate and also long term, social isolation.

It gives us a glimpse of what others have to live with continually as a daily reality.   This is an unwelcome intrusion for us but we know it’s not going to last.   At some point it will end.

For many in our world what we are having a taste of is an ongoing experience.

Long after we’ve got back to normal many, many people will keep living this way.

James Bond famously likes his vodka martinis shaken not stirred. But how can we be stirred but not shaken. When the Bible uses the word shaken it refers to collapse, being destroyed and being uprooted. How can we be those who are stirred by our circumstances but not shaken by them?