Lately, I have been reading up on great men of faith and their stories of survival and service to God and their fellow man during times of plagues and crises. Men like Martin Luther, Charles Spurgeon, and John G. Lake, all served valiantly out of faith and love for God. 

This week, I have been thinking about our attitude and mindset in a crisis like we are facing with the Coronavirus. Let’s face it, we can all put up with a little discomfort for a week or two.  But when a crisis lasts over as a period of time, our optimism begins to wane. I have watched this when I have been deployed to disaster regions, especially after a flood when recovery is a long process. Add to this the unseen aspect of this virus, not knowing where or when it will appear, and everyone is on edge.

Two survivors of war have a similar message and lesson for how to survive.

 Viktor Frankl, psychotherapy and holocaust survivor of the Nazi concentration camps of WWII, described in his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, how many prisoners died around Christmas time. He believed that they had such a strong hope they’d be out by Christmas that they simply died of hopelessness when that didn’t turn out to be true.

Frankl writes:

The death rate in the week between Christmas, 1944, and New Year’s, 1945, increased in the camps beyond all previous experience. In his opinion, the explanation for this increase did not lie in the harder working conditions or the deterioration of our food supplies or a change of wealth or new epidemics. It was simply that the majority of the prisoners had lived in the naive hope that they would be home again by Christmas. As the time drew near and there was no encouraging news, the prisoners lost courage and disappointment overcame them. This had a dangerous influence on their powers of resistance and a great number of them died.

Frankl developed a concept that he called “tragic optimism,” or optimism in the face of tragedy.  

The exact idea was repeated in the prison camps of North Viet Nam and observed by James Stockdale, former vice presidential candidate, naval officer, and Vietnam prisoner of war.

Stockdale’s insight became popularized by Jim Collins as the Stockdale Paradox, in his leadership book Good to Great.  Collins asked the former POW, “Who didn’t make it out?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” he said. “The optimists.”

“The optimists. Oh, they were the ones who said, ‘We’re going to be out by Christmas.’ And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they’d say, ‘We’re going to be out by Easter.’ And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart.”

Tragic optimism and the Stockdale Paradox both suggest we look at our situation with sobriety and faith.  We need optimism to see us through a long-term struggle, believing we will survive and maybe come out better. Sobriety keeps us grounded in the reality of the moment and what we must do.

We must have a faith that believes we will prevail in the darkest times while also maintaining a willingness to look at our current reality. In other words, it’s the idea of hoping for the best, but acknowledging and preparing for the worst.

Jesus’ words to his followers offered a similar hope and perspective.  He knew they would face dark days of persecution, doubt would fill their minds, and they would be overwhelmed with fear. 

Jesus said, “And everything I’ve taught you is so that the peace which is in me will be in you and will give you great confidence as you rest in me. For in this unbelieving world you will experience trouble and sorrows, but you must be courageous, for I have conquered the world!”  John 16:33 TPT