Take a moment and travel in your imagination to the end of time—to the great day of judgment. The record books are open and you are standing before God the judge. Imagine that God says to you, ‘Why should I spare you hell and welcome you to heaven? Why should I give you life and not death?” 

Life can indeed be a perilous journey. John Newton’s famous hymn, “Amazing Grace,” speaks of "dangers, toils, and snares" that he experienced firsthand. On one occasion, he was thrown from a horse, narrowly missing impalement on a row of sharp stakes.

Have you ever been homesick? Perhaps you experienced homesickness as a child while attending a camp? Christian believers are very much a pilgrim people who find themselves homesick for heaven. As the writer to the Hebrews reminds us: ‘….here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come’ (Hebrews 13:14). 

True character often emerges under pressure. True convictions often are shown in the furnace of difficulty. And true faith is often revealed in the kiln of testing. Some of the greatest leaders in history showed their true mettle under pressure. Winston Churchill is revered for his extraordinary leadership during the Second World War. 

Several famous people narrowly missed boarding the Titanic. One of them was John Raleigh Mott. He was an influential evangelist and a YMCA official who shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1946. He and a colleague were offered free passage on the Titanic by a White Star Line official interested in their work, but they declined and instead took a humbler liner named Lapland.