"the brutal facts of our current reality..."

In the 1992 Vice Presidential debate, Ross Perot's VP candidate Retired Navy Vice Admiral James Stockdale began his speaking portion of the debate with those famous words: "Who am I? Why am I here?" Stockdale did not do very well in the debate, appearing befuddled and confused, and never got a chance to tell his story to the American people. Stockdale had been a Navy fighter pilot during the Vietnam War. After several successful missions, he was shot down over North Vietnam and captured by the North Vietnamese.

He was brutally beaten by a mob of villagers, his legs shattered and back broken. He spent the next 7 years imprisoned in a hotel in Hanoi, his arms and legs locked in leg irons in a bath stall. While there, he was routinely tortured, his shoulders being dislocated from their sockets among others horrors. When they said they were going to feature him in a parade for propaganda purposes, he maimed his scalp with a shaving razor. When they told him he would wear a hat, he beat his own face with a wooden stool till he was swollen and bruised. He told them he would never be used by them. When he heard that some prisoners were being tortured to death, he slit his own wrists, saying he would die on his terms, not theirs.

What does all this lead to? Just this: Decades later, Stockdale was interviewed by James C. Collins, an author who was writing his story. In the course of this, he discovered how Stockdale survived his imprisonment, not just physically, but mentally. He described it as "The Stockdale Paradox". Here is Stockdale's quote:

"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 Bible says that faith is the evidence of things hoped for, the substance of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1) and that without faith, it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6). But we live in the real world, where the "brutal facts of our current reality" often impose themselves upon us.

Faith for the Christian is having trust and relationship with a God that we cannot physically see, hear, feel or touch. How then can we know Him? Simply put, by His Word. Faith in the real world means life must be viewed through the lens of the Word of God. Minus a biblical view of life and the world, life is random chance, love is a mere chemical reaction, and no action has meaning beyond this temporal state.

With a biblical view of the world, we can trust in God, knowing he is in control, loves us with a perfect love, and has a plan and purpose for our lives (Proverbs 3:5-6, Jeremiah 29:11). And we can take comfort that whatever happens, Jesus will never leave us or forsake us (Deut. 31:6) and that all things will work for our good (Romans 8:28).

Pastor Mike