By Rev James McNay, West Kilbride Parish Church

Potholes! Potholes everywhere!

I wonder sometimes if you despair at the state of the roads which seemed particularly bad at the beginning of the year with potholes widespread on our roads.

Of course, it can be horrible to go through a pothole with your car - and it can do all kinds of damage - but it is worse to go through a pothole on a bike which could cause potential injury.

I'm sure that over the last couple of weeks, you have been aware of the European Championships taking place in Glasgow and Berlin.

One of the events taking place in Glasgow has been the road cycling - the time trial and the road race.

Many in the Glasgow area have been affected by road closures due to the road cycling which has been inconvenient for them. However, one of the things they have not been complaining about is that due to all the cycling events, all the roads have been fixed up - there is now a lovely smooth surface with not a pothole in sight!

In many ways, the state of our roads is a bit like life. Sometimes it is smooth with everything going well; sometimes it is tougher going with lots of potholes along the way. Sometimes we manage to avoid the potholes, but sometimes we have to go through them and it is painful. Each cyclist in the road races in Glasgow had their own support car to help them along the way in case anything went wrong and in the same way in life it is important for us to have support. In the Bible, God promises never to leave or forsake those who seek after him. He may not fill in the potholes, but certainly he will support us and help us to negotiate them.