In the mid-19th century, an unrespected writer by the name of Fyodor Dostoyevsky was working in Russia. Only his first novel, Poor Folk, had found any success; subsequent efforts had not lived up to its early promise. In the merciless literary circles of Pietersburg, Dostoyevsky was an object of ridicule. In his failure, he was “beset by … indistinct terrors and apprehensions … nervousness, timidity and pathological self-consciousness” (Joseph Frank, Exile’s Return).

The political climate of the time was explosive and ripe for change. Dostoyevsky had hit upon some of those themes in his work. Revolutionary forces in Russia lured him into their meetings—and that got him into trouble. The struggling writer was banished to a dismal Russian prison camp, doing almost unbearably hard labor.

After four years of nightmarish imprisonment, he was transferred to the Russian Army, where he underwent six years of drills and parades.

These 10 years, while being incredibly difficult, had a remarkable effect on Dostoyevsky. By the time he emerged, his physical stamina had much improved, as had his self-assurance. He later said that his trials had led to “the regeneration of my convictions.” He felt he had been spiritually reborn and renewed. He had drawn deep meaning from what he had suffered.

The people Dostoyevsky had met in prison were among the best people in Russia, victims of a system gone wrong. Spending time with them changed his thinking about his fellow countrymen—it restored his love for them. He became inflamed with a desire to return to his writing and to spread to his readers the vision of these people that had led to his own regeneration. The experience gave more meaning to his life’s work. He endured the traumas and shocks of his surroundings by remaining focused on his work.

After having floundered as a writer earlier in his life, Dostoyevsky went on to become one of the most celebrated novelists of all time. What changed? What provided the catalyst for his improvement?

Dostoyevsky sourced his change back to the imprisonment, where, in the words of one biographer, his talent experienced “astonishing growth.”

God’s people often suffer terrible trials as well. In fact, God assures us that we ought to expect them. “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you” (1 Peter 4:12). The Christian life is not easy. In God’s eyes, we are special people in this world; and, like those Russian prisoners, our uniqueness can often get us into trouble.

But there is a very great purpose for our trials. God wants us to emerge from them with a regeneration of our convictions!

Just as Dostoyevsky’s trials changed his thinking and focused his mind, so must our trials do to us. That is why God gives us trial and tribulation. They are for our own good.

Everyone needs trials. Why? Because everyone needs such renewal and spiritual regeneration. Consider: For those with whom God cannot work now, who aren’t receiving that renewal now, God will send the Great Tribulation—the worst suffering ever encountered (Daniel 12:1; Jeremiah 30:7; Matthew 24:22).

How important it is that we take the right lessons from our trials today!

God wants to produce astonishing growth in us through trial. We can’t think that mere growth is good enough. Like Dostoyevsky, we must strive for astonishing growth! “Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples” (John 15:8). Fruit isn’t enough—we must bear much fruit!

But how can we endure, and then emerge, as Dostoyevsky did, better people in the end? In the same way that he did—we remain positive by focusing on our work.

In the prison camp, many of the prisoners who were skilled craftsmen used their time after hours to practice their trade, selling their wares to the local population for a little extra money. Though this custom violated certain rules of the camp, Dostoyevsky surmised that the authorities turned a blind eye to it because they understood how much the prisoners needed it—their private work provided an emotional release valve for their suppressed resentment against forced labor. He wrote, “If it were not for his own private work to which he was devoted with his whole mind, his whole interest, a man could not live in prison.”

“Without labor, without lawful normal property,” he continued, “man cannot live. … Work saved [the prisoners] from crime; without [private] work the convicts would have devoured one another like spiders in a glass jar.”

His own work consisted of absorbing lessons in what he was witnessing around him, recording them, meditating upon them—readying himself to comment upon them in future writing. The prison exposed him to an extraordinary range of personalities, giving him an opportunity to deeply study human nature under extreme psychic pressure.

Though witnessing routine atrocities that would have mentally crippled many others, Dostoyevsky maintained his composure and sanity using this one method: “… the life is constantly viewed through the focus of, and in terms of, the work, rather than the more usual way of regarding the work only as a more or less incidental by-product of the life” (ibid).

As one biographer points out, the portrayals of certain personalities in his later works provides insight into Dostoyevsky’s thinking during his imprisonment: “The imagery that Dostoyevsky uses to analyze their behavior allows us to catch some of the internal process through which he transformed his private neuroses into a [fertile] source of psychological insight.” He learned from his trials, drew upon his experiences, and channeled them to enrich his work! “Dostoyevsky’s remarkable response to this challenge constitutes the hinge on which his regeneration turned” (ibid).

That is how Dostoyevsky managed to have such astonishing growth!

Herbert W. Armstrong often said that we grow spiritually in direct proportion to how much our hearts are in God’s Work. In comparison to what we are involved in, Dostoyevsky’s life’s work was trivial. And yet, it provides a powerful living example of exactly what Mr. Armstrong told us! His commitment to his work helped him to survive prison; and, beyond that, it provoked the astonishing, life-altering growth in him that led to his being so widely respected today.

As a result of his years in prison, Dostoyevsky later developed epilepsy and other health problems. As he got older, his memory increasingly failed him—so much so that he couldn’t even remember the characters and plots of his previous novels. Still, he never lost his focus on his work. Though it became almost impossibly difficult, to where he had to isolate himself for months at a time, he pressed on in his work. It was at the end of his life, then, that he completed his greatest novel: The Brothers Karamazov. “I wrote this book for the few,” he said in a letter to a friend, “and I consider it the culminating point of my work.”

Can we have similar focus—regardless of trials and setbacks we may have? Our work, too, is for the few, at this time. But do we have the vision of one day bringing our message to the world?

The key to enduring with patience every trial—and emerging at the end with astonishing growth, settling for nothing less—is to keep your focus on God’s Work! Summon your greatest effort to do so—no work is more important!