What Is Faith In the Face of Coronavirus?

     In these wild times, and from various religious perspectives I've seen on social media, I thought I would take the opportunity to reflect on faith. In a pretty timely manner, I also came across an interesting idea which ties in to this topic: the Stockdale Paradox (named after Navy vice admiral James Stockdale, who was a POW in Vietnam for 7 years). Basically, he framed the idea that faith cannot be blind. What's that mean in the face of the Coronavirus?
     Well, the blind faith I've seen from people looks something like this:

• We must put our faith in God so he can deliver us
• The country will reopen in time for Easter, so that we can give glory to God
• God will take care of Coronavirus - we just need to believe
• The Coronavirus will be cured when we've offered up enough prayers (akin to "100,000 comments and Jesus will cure muh cancer!")

      This is in direct contrast with Stockdale. When asked who didn't make it out of Vietnam he said:
     "Oh, that's easy, 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^" Again, this dude made it through 7+ YEARS of war imprisonment. I'm not talking about sitting there picking your ass of boredom - dude was tortured, had his leg broken twice, and injured himself in various ways as to not be used as a propaganda tool or give up information. I think it's exceedingly fair to give him a large dose of credit on the level of faith it takes to survive a harrowing ordeal. So what's this have to do with our current predicament?
      Well, do his words ring a bell? Something about the country opening for Easter, with no reasoning provided except that it happens to be a religious holiday? How foolish of people. Instead of this (extremely dumb) take, what might appropriate faith look like if we were to take our lessons from this certified badass?

• We must put our faith in God so he can deliver us 
• let us follow the advice of the medical professionals He created and adhere to social distancing and good hygiene.
• The country will reopen in time for Easter, so that we can give glory to God 
• This definitely isn't happening. We will celebrate Easter when the medical and science experts (that GOD HIMSELF created) give us the okay
• God will take care of Coronavirus - we just need to believe
• "we just need to believe..." IN THE MEDICAL AND SCIENTIFIC PROFESSIONALS THAT GOD MOLDED IN HIS OWN IMAGE
• The Coronavirus will be cured when we've offered up enough prayers (akin to "100,000 comments and Jesus will cure muh cancer!")
• NO YOU DUMBASS, OTHERWISE CANCER/CHILD MOLESTATION/RAPE WOULD ALL BE CURED BY NOW 

     I really tried to maintain a level tone but.... y'know, it is what it is. Faith doesn't mean you get to cross your fingers and hope the big man in the sky will snap his fingers for you when he deems it appropriate. Faith means God gave you the tools to deal with adversity and you need to demand more of yourself.