On April 24, 1916, twenty-two men watched as Ernest Shackleton and five others set out in a tiny lifeboat for South Georgia, an island eight hundred miles away, to look for help. These twenty-eight men had reached ice-covered, mountainous Elephant Island after their ship Endurance was destroyed near Antarctica.

The odds of Shackleton’s mission succeeding seemed impossible. If those six men could not find South Georgia—their only hope—all twenty-eight would certainly die. Imagine the joy of the twenty-two left behind when more than four months later a rescue boat appeared on the horizon with Shackleton on its bow shouting, “Are you all well?” And the call came back, “All safe! All well!”

What kept those men alive? Faith and hope placed in one man. They believed Shackleton would find a way to save them.

This human example of hope sounds like the faith of the heroes listed in Hebrews 11. Their faith in what the writer called “substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” kept people like Noah, Abraham, and Moses going during great difficulties (Hebrews 11:1 NKJV).

No matter what happens, you can have hope through your faith in one Man: Jesus.

The ship Endurance left South Georgia Island on December 5, 1914, headed for Antarctica. It was not until September 1916 that the twenty-eight men were safe on land again when they arrived in Chile.

I’m trying to have faith, God. Sometimes it’s hard because of what people say or because of bad things. Help me keep having faith in you!