“Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered King Nebuchadnezzar, “Your threat means nothing to us. If you throw us in the fire, the God we serve can rescue us from your roaring furnace and anything else you might cook up, O king. But even if he doesn’t, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference, O king. We still wouldn’t serve your gods or worship the gold statue you set up”  (Daniel 3:16-18, MSG).

     On August 12, 1990, a Russian attack submarine called The Kursk suffered a series of catastrophic explosions. The Kursk was patrolling the waters of the Barents Sea. 118 crewmen were killed over a period of several days. Twenty-three of these men managed to survive for several hours after the first explosion. One of them was a twenty-seven-year-old captain by the name of Lieutenant Dmitry Kolesnikov. He wrote a note to his wife while waiting to die. Two words from that note were displayed in a black frame next to his coffin at his funeral service. He wrote: “Mustn’t Despair.” “Mustn’t despair”.

“If one of you wanted to build a tower, wouldn’t you first sit down and calculate the cost, to determine whether you have enough money to complete it? Otherwise, when you have laid the foundation but couldn’t finish the tower, all who see it will begin to belittle you. They will say, ‘Here’s the person who began construction and couldn’t complete it!’” (Luke 14:28-30, CEB).