Ramadan 2015 – Day 28 – Balancing Our Life
Jul 16, 2015
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as a part of our own reflections. One of the most beautiful things that we can learn from the month of Ramadan itself
is that the month of Ramadan teaches us
how to balance ourselves properly
as Muslims. This is one thing that is taught to us again and again by the Quran and by the prophets that Allahu alayhi wa sallam directly
that everything in life should have a balance. never become overly obsessed with any one thing. Anything you do, make sure you balance it. Three companions, they came to the wife of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and they said, describe to us the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, when she described the prophets that Allahu Allah will send them to a Baba and his devotion to them. The three of them took three different oaths. One of them said, I will never sleep with my wife again. The other one said, From now on, I will fast every day. And the third one said after today, from correctives, I will stand during the night I won't sleep during the night I will spend the
entire night standing and praying in front of Allah subhanho wa Taala.
The province that a lot Hollywood said, when he came home, the wife told him regarding these three people and the three old they took the province that along Hollywood set them call them back and said to them, you wish to copy me and be more be like me in terms of your good deeds. But don't you realize that I fast one day and I eat one day? Don't you realize that I get married. And don't you realize that I spent a portion during my night also to rest and spend some time with the family. Islam teaches us a very beautiful balance and everything.
Now, the reason why I bring this up is because as an Imam, there have been many, many incidents where a husband and wife walk into the door, and they have an issue marital problems. And when you deal with his marital problems, the reality is that most marital problems boil down to just a few things. It's a few major points that cause problems within marriages. If you learn how to deal with those few points, you can kind of control now if I would say over 75% of the marriage issues, I wouldn't be wrong. Now one of the things that I find as a common problem within marriages is that people, the husband and wife alike, they don't know how to balance themselves in their marriages.
They become obsessed with a particular aspect of their life, which ends up resulting in neglect to the other part of their life, which then results in problems within the household. For example, husband and wife walk into the door. And the wife complains that my husband is doing been doing this. He's doing this. He's doing this. How long have these things been happening for for five years now? So why didn't you leave them five years ago? Why are you leaving them? Now? If you had marriage counseling five years ago, you've been having these issues for five years? Why didn't you leave them three years ago? Why not two years ago? Why are you coming today? So the common answer that most
people give is that the only reason I wanted this marriage to last was because of the
because the kids heard that one before, right. So when someone says to you, the only reason why I want my marriage to last is because of the kids. Is that good or bad?
That's not good for the marriage. That's a horrible answer. Because you forgot about your spouse, which is the other half of your marriage. Okay, in a marriage, you have to learn to distribute your responsibilities and balance yourself properly. My teacher used to always say that you as a husband need to know that you have to distribute your time and as a wife, also, distribute your responsibilities in three in three parts. The first is between you and your child. Every person must have personal time with their children. No matter how many hours you work, no matter how many shifts, you work, a lot of how many jobs you take on, you have a responsibility and those
responsibility are your kids. You need to make sure you give time to them. How many times has it happened that parents walk in through the mom's door and they say, dear mom, my son doesn't talk to me. And when you turn to the son and say, Why don't you talk to your father. He says, I would have loved to talk with my father. But I just you know, when I was young, my dad didn't talk to me either. When I was young, my dad didn't sit down and talk with me. The only time he ever talked to me is if we needed to have a talk. Like I was in trouble. Beyond that my dad never wanted to talk to me. And today when I don't want to sit down and talk with him, he has a problem with that, you know
not to be to say come out to dinner today. What you do, that's exactly what you're going to get in return. If you don't speak to your children islamically you have a right to demand to speak with them for them to speak to you. But if you didn't give them those Heart to Heart talks when they were younger. How can we explain
For them to sit next to us for hours and hours and speak to us, when we become old. You guys understand that what we do to them is we're training them to do, we're training them through our own actions as we deal with them when they are younger. So the first thing that's very important is that we as parents should make sure that we give time to our kids. You know, studies show that most kids in America actually can no longer communicate with their parents after the age of 14. Because parents stopped competing with kidding with their kids a lot earlier. And the only communication most parents have with their kids is when they're reprimanding them, that you did something wrong,
you're in trouble. That's the only communication many parents actually have with their kids. Or when they're telling them to do something, go and cut the grass, go and do your homework, but they never sit down and just talk with their children. We have to sit down and learn to play with our kids, to talk with our kids, to socialize with our kids. If we can do these things with our kids when they are young, then trust me, they would be fools to leave us. But if we only showed them harshness, while they were growing up, then how can we expect them to be nice to us in return? How could we expect them to have a heart full of mercy in return? Sometimes fathers think that their
responsibility towards their children is to provide for them financially. And we pay the bills and say I did my job as a father. And we keep throwing this in our kids faces, that, you know, I pay for the bills, and I made sure I did this for you. I paid for your college. And if it wasn't me, you couldn't have done this. You couldn't have done that. It's a big favor. And as kids, we should always think our parents, and particularly our fathers for being the ones who provided for the finances of the family. But that isn't enough. It's a very big thing. I don't want to take away from any of the fathers here. It's a very big thing. But that's not enough. It's about being there for
your children at every single step. I think I talked about this earlier. But I just want to bring this up again. Mr. Duffy wrote a very, very beautiful book medeor wallet minishift.
What did he write he wrote a book and what is it called? Many wanted mentorship, I have a shift to you know, everyone says I have a shift, I have a shift. He said I have a shift too. But guess what my shift is my father. He taught me everything in life. If there's one person I can say, who sat down and talked with me, it was my father Rahim, Allah tala Rama tomasa. So this is one thing that we have to keep in mind. Now, once you fulfill your responsibility, so what they say actually, in counseling, they say that fathers and mothers in particular fathers and particularly mothers as well, they should have consistent positive communication with their children. So daily positive
communication, talk about good things, praise them, talk about their day, let them speak, don't always lecture them, let them talk, let them take the initiative. You know, in our scholars always talk about a daily tally that should take place in the house, and educational circle where the kids conduct, you know, a little holiday for the family. This is the first thing. The second thing that we should remember is that once we fulfilled our responsibility towards our kids, after we put them to sleep in the afternoon, or in the evening, when we do put them to rest, we should remember that now we have another responsibility. And that responsibility is between us and our, our spouse, many
people they put their kids to sleep. And right after the kids two kids go to sleep, what happens to the parents,
they're gone to sleep, or sometimes the parents are sleeping even before the kids. So where's the time on where the husband and wife get to spend together where they can just sit together Talk, talk about things, you know, have their pillow talk or just, you know, do something together and do some fun craft together or something, cook a big cup, bake some cookies together anything, you have to have positive communication with your spouse as well. There has to be time where it's just you and your spouse, where you guys can go for a walk together or do something in the house together, be creative together. You have to always have that love there. The problem is that a lot of Hollywood
cinemas loves his love with his wives was no secret. He was such a loving man that he was a true gentleman. I shut the alarm that says that when he would eat we would eat from one plate. And we our shoulders will be touching each other while we were eating kind of like slugging against each other while we were eating. He will put a morsel in my mouth, I would put a morsel in his mouth. Where do we find like where do we find this in our community? Now? When's the last time we saw our parents snugging into each other and we have and having a meal showing some love showing some affection as As parents, we need to make sure we show our children that we love each other. If our children
experience that their parents marriage was slavery, do you think they're gonna wake up tomorrow as adults and be excited for marriage? Yes or no? No, they're gonna be terrified of marriage because this our marriage was slavery with their parents. But if they see their parents had a very lovable environment, it was such a joyful environment. When they go up, they will also have a desire that I wish to be married as well. I wish to be a family man like the Habib said a long line. And the third thing is that after you have time between you and your spouse, now you have a third responsibility. And this third responsibility is where most people lose out. And the third responsibility is after
you've taken care of your kids, after you've taken
care of your family, it could be daily, it could be every other day, it could be weekly, however you'd like to give it. Now it's time for you to allocate some time for yourself.
You have to learn to live for yourself as well. Because if you stop living for yourself, even in your after you're married, then you're going to end up going,
you're gonna go crazy. You have to have time for yourself, what is time for yourself mean? Your own education, your own, you know, physical development, you should, you should continuously can go on to be healthy as long as you live. And what I wanted to talk about today, and this is where it all links in is you must have time for your own spiritual development as well. And this is what teaches us the practice of law on a with some as a family, man, we all know that. But even then the prophets that along with them regularly took outside for his own spiritual development. And the last 10 days of Ramadan are witness to that. Is that true or false? And that, okay, so keep in mind that the
concept of seclusion for the last 10 days, and on the other hand, we find this hobbit saying that if there was anyone who was loving to his family, who was a family, man, who was it, the profits that allowed him so but him being a family, man, did that mean that he couldn't give time to the budget? Yes or no? No, he still gave time to the budget. And him giving time to the budget did not detract from the fact that he was a good family man. Not at all. The province that allowed he was sort of had a balanced life. And this is something that we find hard to find in our day and age, people, either they are in their business, and they're absolutely gone there. Some people are in their
education. And once they're, you know, they tell you straight, a lot of kids that shift I'm in med school right now. So please don't call me to any Islamic gatherings. It's like, as if that's some kind of token to say that I'm, you know, absolved of all of my religious responsibilities. And then some people they're so involved with their families that they say, I don't have time to come to the machine. And at the same time, I'll be honest, some people are so involved with the budget that on the other hand, what's happening to their kids. No one's looking after them. This happens in Chicago, I have seen this. There was a person from our community, his wife came to me she was
crying. She says my husband spends so much time outside the house, you know, serving the dean, that our children no one provides for our family. We're all living off government financial aid. And not only that, but no one watches over my kids. My kids are not going for to school anymore. There's no father watching over them. And I called the brother and I said to him, brother, you have to know that there's a balance in everything. You have to balance your family balanced your religion as well. And he got angry at me. He would often me Oh, what are you talking about? I'm giving him money for the D and I'm getting sacrificed for the deen and this out on the other. I said brother I
understand but you have to balance it. One lady, she came to me and she said to me, Chef, you know that her brother was gone in the path of Allah subhana wa Tada. He was serving the dean, Mashallah. And his father passed away. He refused to come in as fathers and as a prayer. He said, I'm, you know, I'm serving the dean right now. And the whole family was upset. They said, what kind of Deen is this, that he's serving that he doesn't come to his own father's and so I called him I said, well, the way you're doing this, he said, just don't get between me and my service of the dean. I said, God community, you guys enjoy your Okay, there's a balance in everything. That's all I'm
trying to say. Okay, so we're there's a balance that we have to make sure we give time to the budget from these things. We have to also give time to our families from these things as well. And the month of Ramadan shows us that how the profits that allamani was an unbalanced everything.
And in particular, what went one other thing that we learned from the month of Ramadan is that sometimes the profits that allow it was settlement allocate, allocate certain days or certain parts, certain days of the year or a month of the year, to give more attention to a particular thing. So the progress that along with it was seven the last 10 days in Amman altogether he gave more attention to his religion, you know, it was a Baba he would access it. And when the last 10 days give came the progress that alone while he was saddam went right into it. He cut himself off from the house, no communication with anyone outside the budget. Obviously, they had no cell phones, no
tablets, no internet, so there was no need to worry about that. That 10 days The Prophet said alone while he was still on, he spent in the day and night the prophets of the law audios from crying to Allah begging from Allah. And this shows us the virtue of spending these 10 days inside the machine as well. So in summary, I think if I would, kind of, in a nutshell explain to you what Today's reflection is about. It's about today, what we are here to discuss and what we're here to try to understand. Is that in our Deen there's a balance for everything. Our Deen is a balanced faith allows it just says nothing on what ah Banita
that you know this whole, what do you call this? What's the word for it?
No, there's a word for
Ravana. But there's a word for an English I'm looking for
asceticism Actually, it's actually encouraged into the so the Rania, this, this idea of you know, excluding yourself in the community falling out of the community and going into seclusion and living inside the mountains. This whole concept allows Oh, it says, if that are law, that was their beta, they innovated it, we didn't tell them to you know,
Leave, they're really not to get married and to go live into mountains, we didn't tell them to do this. We want you to live a balanced life. But a part of balancing your life is knowing that there are certain times in the year where you need to give extra focus to a thing. Sometimes you give extra focus to your business, because that's your business season. Sometimes you give extra focus to your family, because that's a time where your family summer break, they're off, you need to give extra time to them there and someone comes that's where you need to get extra time to your religion now, then there's for whatever the whatever the occasion is, you should know that as a balanced
Muslim, you need to make sure you give extra time to those things. There is some sort of difficulty that happens in the community, you know, and there's a need for food drive. Now it's time for us to be involved with the food drive, there's a good opportunity for doing our there's a big bike, you know, convention biking convention taking place in Wisconsin. Now that's a good opportunity for us to be involved in dallah sure, good character. So that's what I'm trying to say. So we pray that Allah subhanaw taala gives us an ability to understand the importance of balancing our life and that allows us to just accept all of our devices of the month of Ramadan Subhan Allah behind the use of
Hanukkah, lahoma behind the shadow Allah, Allah, Allah and Mr. Malik after the
ceremony, money
Ramadan 2015 – Day 28 – Balancing Our Life
Jul 16, 2015