If you want the love of the people, stop running after it. The more you chase it, the more it escapes you. Love doesn’t come from the people. It comes from God.
In his mercy, He sent the storm itself to make us seek help. And then knowing that we’re likely to get the wrong answer, He gives us a multiple choice exam with only one option to choose from: the correct answer. The hardship itself is ease.
This is the one and only reason why I was created. And this is the most essential realization, as it defines everything else I do or believe. It defines all things around me, and everything I experience in life.
I think we all carry within us different versions of ourselves. Our true, greatest, most honest versions of ourselves can either be developed and nourished, or it can remain dead from neglect.
For a wound to heal, you have to clean it out. Again, and again, and again. And this cleaning process stings. The cleaning of a wound hurts. Yes. Healing takes so much work.
So often we think that Allah only tests us with hardships, but this isn’t true. Allah also tests with ease. He tests us with na’im (blessings) and with the things we love, and it is often in these tests that so many of us fail.
This world isn’t perfect. That means it isn’t perfectly good; but it isn’t perfectly bad, either. The ease comes with the hardship. Shift the focus of what you see, and your experience of this life will change.
My worth as a human being is measured on a higher scale: a scale of righteousness and piety. And my purpose in life-despite what fashion magazines say-is something more sublime than just looking good for men.
You’ve been given status today, but never forget where you came from. You came from dirt and will return to dirt. You will be on that day as you began: just you and Him.
We will be asked, “what did you love most in this world? What did you spend life doing? What did you run after? Will it last? The things that you chased, will they last? Will they help you, or will they hurt you when the illusion of this life has passed?”
We cannot tolerate one mistake from others, and yet God tolerates a planet covered with His own creation that live their entire lives sinning and denying Him, and yet continues to feed, clothe and protect them.
