There is a difference between “biblical faith” and “blind optimism”, as it is being practiced today.
Biblical faith calls us to trust in Jesus regardless of the circumstances. Biblical faith recognizes that although Jesus has died and been raised to life again, the believer’s ultimate hope for good does not reside in this world. Biblical faith admits that in spite of Jesus’ death and resurrection, the world is still broken (Romans 8:19-21, 2 Peter 3:13), and the believer living in a broken world is not completely immune from the ups and downs of that broken world.
The apostles because of their understanding of this truth were not ashamed of their suffering, neither did they deny it. For example the Apostle Paul, advancing the criteria of his apostleship to the Corinthian church in 2 Corinthians 11, does not appeal to popularity or material success. He rather turns to his suffering as proof of knowing and following Jesus. He boldly speaks of his flogging, imprisonment, frequent exposure to death from his journeys, and his season of hunger. He even speaks of a time where he was saved from death, not by a spectacular supernatural intervention from the exercise of his faith, but by the God-ordained kindness of believers who lowered him in a basket from a window through the city wall (2 Corinthians 11:16-33).
To the Philippian church, the apostle was not ashamed to write: “I know what it is to be in need…”. In fact, the popular text “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” was the apostles testimony of God’s sustaining power in the midst of the ups and downs of life (Philippians 4:10-13).
In 2 Timothy 4, the apostle Paul speaks of his experience being abandoned by friends (Demas in vs 10 and the church at his trial in vs 16), yet he is strengthened by the abiding presence of the Lord in the midst of it (vs 17).
Biblical Faith someday looks like Jesus silencing the storm. At other times, it looks like His presence holding and comforting us in the midst of the storm (even when the storm lasts longer than we would have wanted). Biblical faith looks some days like the “messenger of Satan and his torment” removed in response to prayers; while on other days, it looks like being able to rejoice in weakness, because God’s response to our prayer for its removal is simply “My grace is sufficient for you, and my power made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12: 1-10).
This faith acknowledges that life doesn’t always go as we want: that we sometimes experience hurt, pain, and loss even as God’s people living in this world; yet it finds comfort in God’s promise that a day is coming when the eternal morning will dawn and God Himself will wipe all tears away (Revelation 21:4). It recognizes that suffering, hardship or poverty in itself is not a full-proof indicator of the absence of faith in the believer (Acts 14:22, 2 Timothy 3:12, Hebrews 10:32-34, Philippians 1:29-30, James 2:5). Rather, it affirms that no suffering that the believer may experience in this world is comparable to the glory that is to be revealed in him at the return of the Lord (Romans 8:18-39). It longs for comfort defined by the presence of the Lord, and “a city whose builder and maker is God” (Hebrews 11:10).
Biblical faith is not governed by reality, neither is it out of touch with reality. Blind optimism however ignores and denies reality. Blind optimism holds that our best life is here and now, contrary to what the Bible teaches. Blind optimism insists that life will always go our way if only we had enough faith. Blind optimism is too short-sighted, unable to view life from God’s eternal perspective, that it holds a definition of comfort and good defined only (or primarily) by our experiences in this life.
Yet, just as gravity is true whether or not we are acknowledge it to be true; a faith not grounded in the reality of God’s word knows by experience a hurt that could have been avoided.
We don’t invite the rain by preparing ahead for it. And so the wedding vow “to love and to hold, in riches and poverty, in sickness and in health” is not an invitation for poverty and sickness (just as it’s not an invitation for riches and health), but a firm declaration that by the help of the God (who alone instituted marriage for the good of mankind) we will uphold His view of marriage (that it’s a lifelong commitment) come what may; and that glorifies God.