بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful, Most Compassionate
Assalaamu alaykum
Dear Friends
I pray that you are well.
Imagine you are standing on the beach and the waves are gently hugging your legs and it recedes and you run after it and it comes back and you run away from it and it goes back to the ocean and you run after it and it comes back to you and you run away from it towards the white sandy beach and you do this many times, as though a play between you and the waves, until the sun started to set, and you sit down watching the sun setting with the sound of the gentle waves. How serene! How beautiful! How great! SubhanAllah "And to Him belongs greatness in the heavens and the earth, and He is the Mighty, the Wise." Qur'an al-Jathiyah 45:37
But people become proud when they can do something, when they have something, forgetting how small they are in front of the Creator, Al-Aziz Al-Mutakabbir, forgetting they were created from a drop of sperm, and they were a thing unremembered.
"Has there come on man a while of time when he was a thing unremembered? We created man of a sperm-drop, a mingling, and We made him hearing, seeing." Qur'an Al-Insan 76:1-2
"And when We bestow favor on man, he turns aside and behaves proudly, and when evil afflicts him, he is despairing. Qur'an Al-Isra' 17:83
Try stopping the waves from flowing to the roads when you were playing with it, running away from it. Try bringing the sun from west. You can't. If Allah commanded the ocean to flood, it would flood (remember the Tsunami!). The waves are waiting for Allah's command to flood the earth (remember Tsunami alerts!). There is nothing we can do to stop it when this happens. The sun is waiting for Allah's command to rise from the west and the sun will obey His command, the same way it is obeying Allah's command now--and this is when the door of repentance is closed and we will be on our way to the most difficult day of our being.
So, shrink yourself before Allah and be grateful with what you have. When you love something, you cannot force Allah to give it to you. When you hate something you cannot force Allah to take it away from you. You cannot make Him do anything. When He decides something, He refuses to decide something else. Who are we to tell Him what to do? We are His slaves and slaves submit to His Lord. His Lord does not submit to him. When you are humble, naturally it will lead you to gratitude, for when you are humble before Allah, the All Mighty, only then you will see the vast mercy that Allah bestows upon you and His creation. And Allah will give you more.
"And when your Lord proclaimed, "If you are thankful, surely I will increase you, but if you are thankless My chastisement is surely terrible."' Qur'an Ibrahim 14:7
"Allah is the guardian of those who believe. He brings them out of the darkness into the light; and (as to) those who disbelieve, their guardians are Shaitans who take them out of the light into the darkness; they are the inmates of the fire, in it they shall abide. Have you not considered him (Namrud) who disputed with Ibrahim about his Lord, because Allah had given him the kingdom? When Ibrahim said: My Lord is He who gives life and causes to die, he said: I give life and cause death. Ibrahim said: So surely Allah causes the sun to rise from the east, then make it rise from the west; thus he who disbelieved was confounded; and Allah does not guide aright the unjust people." Qur'an Al-Baqarah 2:257-258
May Allah make us among the thankful and the grateful. Ameen. Please don't forget me in your night prayers. Jazakallahu khairan.
And Allah knows best.
Wassalaam
