Saturday, November 1, 2008

hope/lessness?

So, we live today in a society of hopelessness. People are just so fed up with their plate, that they can no longer move on. The economy is falling, wars are never ending, racism/ethnocentricism is flourishing, and people are desensitizing. This all stems from hopelessness.
But God says in the Quran, telling the story of Jacob who commands his sons while seeking out their brother:
"and do not lose hope of God's life-giving mercy, verily, none but people who deny the truth can ever lost hope of God's life-giving mercy" (12:87)
Clearly we're missing out on something with the concept of hope... hope in what? life? the world? change? success? What are we supposed to hope for? We're supposed to have hope in God... yet, nowadays, we're so quick to accuse God for abandoning us, but we never see the bigger picture. God has a plan, why do we forget that? The chaotic tendencies in the world are not randomness, something is happening, but we're only living in this moment of time, whereas God is beyond this concept of time (well God created time, so He's not subject to it's laws).. So, we need to get over ourselves and truly sincerely have hope.
The beauty of Islam is that we're supposed to act and then hope. We can't just sit on the sidelines crying out 'woe is me... God! what's going on?'... No, you're supposed to do as much as you can, and then after putting in all your efforts, you need to turn to God and have hope that He'll make it all a success, and if not in this life, then He guarantees you to be rewarded for your efforts in the hereafter.
So, why are you stagnant? why am I stagnant? Is it because we've slipped into hopelessness, in these crazy times? We need to reclaim hope, bring hope to the masses, and that is done through (and yes, my last post said this) faith and action! they reciprocate one another, therefore losing faith/hope in God, causes inaction and inaction causes a greater loss in hope and faith.
The prophet (s) told us to 'i'kal wa tawakul', which means 'tie your camel and then pray to God that it's kept safe'... meaning, you need to act. In order to have true hope, you need to act!!
So, get over your self-pity, we're in harsh times, but you need to have hope in God, and in order to adequately express faith and hope, you need to do your part: So march on young soldier: organize soup kitchens, start up interest-free loans, build your economy, help your neighbors, do whatever you are capable of doing, even if it's as simple as donating old clothes... but do something!! because inaction reciprocates into hopelessness..

- yet another random person

5 comments:

Farnnay said...

Thank you so much for posting this. I totally needed someone to basically tell me to get off my butt and stop wallowing in self pity and take action for things I'm worried about/things that I think need to improve.

And this hadith:"tie your camel and then pray to God that it's kept safe", is one of my favorite hadiths and something that we all need to remember, and be reminded of.Because things will not fall into our laps if we just sit around and twiddle our thumbs (as you stated in your previous post) and "hope" that Allah (SWT) will grant all of our du'as without doing/taking some action first.

supreem said...

i need to figure out everyone on this blog... lol

Artistic Logic said...

so mysterious... i wanna know who you are lol

i really like that bear, its so sad =\

Mrs. Cullen said...

ur mean.

MarjnHomer said...

i totally needed to read this right now..jazakallah khair