Admiral James B. Stockdale was a United States Navy vice admiral and aviator who was imprisoned for over seven years during the Vietnam War.
He managed to survive despite the excruciating mental and physical torture he endured. In an interview with Jim Collins, an American researcher and author, James was asked who were the ones who did not make it out alive. His response was surprising to say the least. He said, “Oh that is easy, the optimists.”
You see, the optimists pinned their hopes on expectations like being out by Christmas and then when Christmas came and went, they would be shattered. After repeated disappointment, they would eventually give up and die of a broken heart.
What is the expectation you consciously or subconsciously pin your hopes on?
Are you perhaps unrealistically optimistic and destined to end up with a broken heart?
Later in his lifetime when James was asked about how he survived, he made the following statement: “You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end, which you can never afford to lose, with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”
The brutal reality is that death, sickness, poverty, loss, greed, corruption, and the like is a very real part of this world.
The brutal reality is that expectations based on humanistic ability, scientific progress or luck will always falter at some point.
But there is a hope.
This hope is found in Jesus Christ. An eternal hope for justice, peace, healing, reconciliation, and life.
This eternal hope should by no means make us passive survivors in our current brutal reality. It should mobilise and fuel us to be torch carriers who manifest hope and show the way others still lost in the dark.
So become a realistic optimist and allow Jesus to be the source of your hope.
– Romien Joubert is van die Lighuis Jesus-bediening
