Aleksandr Sozhenitsyn was a captain in the Soviet Army during World War 2 and also spent eight years in the Soviet gulag prison system.  More importantly for us today, he is the author of one of the most important books ever written – The Gulag Archipelago (link to an abridged edition).  If you haven’t read it, I can’t encourage you enough to put it on your reading list.  Our world would be a better place with a brighter future if this was a standard requirement in every school system.

Reflecting on his experiences and the experiences he had gleaned from others he said this about the meaning of life:

“The meaning of earthly existence lies not, as we have grown used to thinking, in prospering, but . . . in the development of the soul . . . [it is a] pitiful ideology which holds that ‘human beings are created for happiness.’”

This is reflective of what Jesus said many centuries earlier when he told his disciples (I’m paraphrasing), “Don’t get caught up in self-gratification and worry, but seek first God’s Kingdom and the righteousness of God and then you’ll have what you really need” (Matthew 6:25-34)

These guiding insights into life deserve frequent meditating and soaking in to unpack their meaning for each of our lives and our current circumstances, but they at least mean this: whatever blessings and hardships you are experiencing in your life, the goal of life and God’s ultimate goal for your life is not comfort, ease, and abundance, but the maturing, development, and ascension of your soul.  Whether you embrace this or not will shape how you hold and experience the blessings and hardships that come your way.