Ingrid Mattson – So Many Troubles, What’s There to Be Grateful For
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SubhanAllah.
I mean, there's so many things to be
grateful for but as Allah says,
very few among my servants are grateful.
So few of my servants
of us are grateful.
And really, it is such a habit to
fall into grumbling, to grumble about our children,
about our families, about our spouses,
how quickly we grumble about our spouses.
And we'll talk a little bit,
later tonight before, Tara, we have prayer about
about marriage and gratitude, and that's gonna be
be part of our the
the story that we'll,
talk about the Puranic stories,
when we talk about the Quran tonight.
But the question is, alright, here you are,
you
know, telling
I'm telling you about
how difficult it is for so many people
in the world. Why shouldn't we
just feel sad about that? Why shouldn't we
complain? Why shouldn't we just say,
look at what's
how horrible it is?
There's a few things
that we need to think of.
First of all,
we
if we focus completely on the external, we
will never
have take that opportunity to be grateful and
thankful for what we have. And all of
this is by the cauldron of the law.
We do not deserve it.
It's not that we deserve to eat and
other people in the world do not deserve
to eat. It's not that we deserve to
be safe and other people do not deserve
it. We're not better than other people. That's
not why we have this.
Poverty is a test. Wealth is a test.
War is a test. Peace is a test.
Abundance is a test as lack,
of what you have for sufficiency is a
test. Each of those
deficiency,
not having enough, is a test of patience.
Having a lot is a test of gratitude.
So we have to be grateful, 1st and
foremost, to be grateful for what we have.
When we are grateful to for what we
have then, at the same time, we hold
in our heart
that we love for our brother what we
love for our for ourselves.
If we feel
grateful for these things, if we enjoy the
benefits, then we want it for other people.
That is true faith, that is true belief,
our beloved messenger of Allah
taught us that.
So
now we want it for others and here
is the motivation
factor
that we are motivated
to do something
about
those
who don't have so that
so that now because we are grateful for
what we have and we want for others
to have those things, now we will be
motivated to act.
We can't solve all those problems as individuals.
Even a community together can't solve all of
them but we all have both individual
and collective obligations
to work towards alleviating suffering
And as we so that rather than putting
energy into complaining,
which allows us to and brings us
an a state of dismotivation
and and and demotivates
the people around us, makes them feel demoralized
and lacking in energy.
Instead, we will be energized to do something,
to try to feed the poor, to try
to improve,
the laws
so that,
other people will have what all of the
things that we have.
And this in itself
creates motivation. Anyone who does this work knows
that it
it provides as you work towards this, it
also provides you with energy. It's like exercise.
You know, when you don't exercise for a
while, you feel so lazy, you have no
physical energy, you're all like I can't do
that
and then you start enter you start exercising
and subhanAllah even though you've you're using energy
to exercise,
now you're in a a better, more fit
state, so you have physical energy to get
up and do other things. Right? So this
is spiritual energy. Gratitude
creates spiritual energy.
It creates a spiritual energy that will then
motivate us to go on and do other
things.
And SubhanAllah,
one of the things that you find is
that, you know,
it's very interesting because the biggest complainers really
are the people who have the most.
If you go
and spend time with people who have very
little, you will find them to be the
most grateful.
What a bizarre paradox.
But any of you who have spent time
with people who are really in need will
find them constantly in a state of gratitude
for what the little they have. When they
get something, they are so grateful. They are
so thankful.
This is why I feel so blessed that
Allah
allowed me to spend some time,
with refugees
because
what I saw there every day were people
who were kicked out of their country, homeless,
not having enough to eat,
in in places of severe hardship,
in a constant state of saying Alhamdulillah
and gratitude for every small thing they had
because relatively,
if they got something that improved their situation,
it was so enormous.
And so they were in such a state
of shukr.
Whereas for us, we're so blase. We have
so much. We get another, oh, another present,
another gift, another meal. I'm bored of this
food. We become bored of it, SubhanAllah, like
Bani Israel.
We we think that's only for Bani Israel,
but we are in the we
every people in the Quran reflects a state
that we can be in at some point
in our life,
And we certainly
and I will be the first one to,
you know, to confess that I'm I'm
like those people that we who live in
affluent societies
reflect that state of Banu Israel who even
though they're given manna and salwa from heaven
still are complaining, well, you know, we'd like
we want it to taste better so we'd
like some onions or this or that.
We we say that.
So let's try to use this opportunity in
Ramadan,
this time when we feel deeply the sense
of,
you know, we get a little taste of
what it what it feels like to not
have something that we want.
Let's
use that to create the spiritual energy of
shukr that when we say Alhamdulillah, I don't
like Alhamdulillah.
Alhamdulillah.
Alhamdulillah.
We should be people who are in this,
this state of joy.
And the the in to the to end
because then we're going to break our fast
soon. I would say that
the
for me in my life, the the
most powerful reminder
is the statement of the prophet Muhammad sallallahu
alaihi wasallam
when he said
when you see someone who has more, look
to someone who has less
because this really is the the kind of
double movement that needs to happen.
We live in this society, and there's lots
of, you know, studies,
and and and you could read about the
marketing techniques that are all about creating a
sense of need, that we need something. Right?
Marketing is all about
make convincing you that you are not going
to be
healthy, beautiful,
successful,
whatever without this product.
So we live in the society
that that
is a a capitalist consumer society that's constantly
creating within us the sense
of want, of lacking,
that other people have more than we have.
This is one of the biggest fitness of
our of our time and has leads to
consumerism that's destroying the whole world
and greed and,
a a complete
lack of disregard for the needs of any
of other people's,
needs other than our own our own wants.
So prophet Muhammad said when you see someone
who has more,
look to someone who has less,
and that really is the key. Whenever you
see in yourself,
oh oh, this person, they have a nicer
car.
Oh, this person, they have a nicer house.
They have more money. Oh, I really like
their kitchen.
It also can be, look at this person.
They're so healthy.
Look at this person, why do I have
sickness? Look at this person, oh, that there's
a beautiful,
their husband's beautiful or their wife's beautiful.
Or look at that family. They're so happy.
Why haven't I been able to find someone
to marry? Or this couple,
and they have so many beautiful children. Why
haven't I been able to have children?
Right? So there are so many things where
we feel people have more
or they have they have children that respect
them, my children don't respect me.
That so it's not just about things, it's
also about human relationships
and the things that we truly deeply want
within ourselves and we we turn away from
them. But sometimes,
you know, sometimes
these
states of where we feel deprived, this is
where we have to say alhamdulillah because every
deprivation is an opportunity from Allah
And the one who may not have children,
for example,
is like, you know, when I when a
woman comes to me and says, well, I
we can't have children, I say,
you are in the station of Aisha
SubhanAllah, Allah chose that state for her of
childless
childlessness so that she could provide
so much to the whole world that we
benefit from till today. So this is what
Shukr is. We thank Allah
for our state, whatever it is, even if
we assess it to be negative, even we
assess it to be less than others because
then it is an opportunity.
And when we have this, this, state of
shukr,
then we will see that opportunity
and be among the
the the people who are happy and joyful.
And I ask Allah
to give you that joy, to to open
our eyes, to see all of
all of the blessings that he has, to
make us reminders for each other and good
role models for each other, and to allow
us to to be those people who have
spiritual energy to lift up all of those
who are in need in the world.