Hardship Can Be the Best Friend of Our Souls

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was a Russian soldier who criticized Stalin and was sent to Soviet prison camps. He survived and he wrote books. Eventually he became a Nobel Prize laureate.

In one of his books, he famously wrote, “Bless you prison, bless you for being in my life. For there, lying upon the rotting prison straw, I came to realize that the object of life is not prosperity as we are made to believe, but the maturity of the human soul.”

Reread that and think about it.
Imagine if the majority of people in the world thought this way.

It would certainly disrupt economics.
And it would change the entire ways people live.

Then consider that his insight perfectly parallels the teaching of Jesus.
We’ve had the idea all along. But we love comfort, and we love our stuff. And those who don’t have comfort and stuff wish they did.

But God knows what it does to our souls.
It is no wonder that the population of the USA and other wealthy nations is morally and spiritually losing its way so badly. Collectively speaking, all we know is prosperity.

So, of course, we get deceived into thinking that we are of central importance.
Of course, comfort and happiness and getting what we want are so important to us.
And of course, many people either lose interest in God, or they redefine him to conform to themselves.
What else would we expect?

Hardship can be the best friend of our souls.
Hardship jolts us, shakes us free, from the velvet grip of comfort.
And everyone’s opportunity of hardship may be different from that of others.

But when we see how deeply redemptive the salvation and maturity of the human soul is than a sea of materialism, it’s natural to understand Solzhenitsyn and to follow the way of Jesus.

Hardship can be the best friend of our souls.