The words of James Stockdale, a fighter pilot shot down over Vietnam in 1965 who endured 7 1/2 years in prison camp, and how he survived:
"One should include a course of familiarization with pain...you have to practice hurting. There is no question about it . . . you have to practice being hazed. You have to learn to take a bunch of junk and accept it with a sense of humor." ~excerpted from Deep Survival by Laurence Gonzales
What's that got to do with the Christian life? Mmmm...maybe that perseverance is called for, maybe it's because we're swimming upstream, and because our path is frequently like walking barefoot on hot sand, and also because we're travelling somewhere contrary to the world's way and the branches along the path tend to smack us sharply in the face. But we'll make it. Our Savior has been down that path before, blazing the trail.
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18
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