Choices

Bismillah al Rahman al Rahim al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil alameen wa Salatu was Salam ala MV mursaleen Muhammad Rasul Allah is Allah Allah Adi Riley, he was me wasallam does anyone Kaziranga theory, or mavado? My dear brothers and sisters.

Life is the name of a series of choices.

every choice leads to another.

not choosing is also a choice.

There are no Abstainers in the theater of life. Everyone must choose.

Some choices are made for us. But even the when it comes to our personal involvement, if the event touches us in any way, we must choose. People ask whatever political events, wars, for example, I didn't declare war, I can't stop it. But what will you do when it comes to helping victims of wars? That is a choice. I didn't have a choice in declaring or stopping the war, but I have a choice in whether I want to help refugees or not.

Then there is the choice to raise your voice against one.

And against all that leads towards

to choose to do that? Or do we choose to only complain?

Let me give you another simple example. You are in a gathering and someone is speaking, someone is speaking ill of a person that you also dislike.

What do you do?

Do you join in

and add your own condiments to the curry?

Or do you

tell the speaker that cannibalism is haram in Islam? Because doing Riba backbiting is equal to eating the flesh of your dead brother, and this is what Allah subhanaw taala said in the Quran is.

So tell them stop doing this. And the tragedy is that when you do that, not only are you committing Haram, but your good deeds get transferred to the account or the person that you are managing.

Now,

why would you give your good deeds to somebody you dislike? That's not very smart.

To do remind people of that, or do you just simply walk up?

Each one is a choice. Each one has consequences, positive or negative. They're there

and we get to choose what we want.

Which brings me to another thing about choices. In life, we are presented with choices, as I said in the beginning of my hotbar and we must choose, we are not compelled to choose any particular thing. But we are compelled to make a choice. not choosing is also a choice. There are no Abstainers in the theater of life. Everyone must choose.

We are free to choose. We are free to choose what every choice comes with a price tag. Now this is where people go wrong. And when the time comes to check out they find themselves in trouble.

Allah, Allah Serrano dalla does not even compare us to worship Him. He leaves us free to choose. We can choose to worship Allah or we can choose to worship anything else, or we can choose to worship nothing.

Each is a choice and each has a price tag. Allah subhanaw taala said very clearly in the Quran about this work only Lacombe Rob become Pawan Shah for looming woman for the airport in Altadena Liz volley me in the heart of the hymns, Radhika. Allah said and say, the truth is from Europe. Then, whosoever wills let him believe that whosoever wills that MDS believe

warily, we have prepared for design a boon for the oppressors for the disbelievers. A fire whose walls will surround them.

That's the price tag. But you're free to believe or not to believe. Another thing about price tags. The moment you make a choice, the price is automatically charged.

People are very amazed

when Amazon publish those videos, about their AI stores, ai aided stores where you can simply walk in pick up whatever you want, and walk out. There are no checkout counters nothing and whatever you picked up, we are

automatically gets charged to your card. Now people were very amazed watching this video this is Wow, fantastic. Look at this better. Why is that amazing?

We do that every waking moment of our lives, we make a choice, and it is automatically charged to our account.

Amazon only made it possible for us to physically see that in a store.

All choices have two effects, one in this life and one in the next. One physical effect restricted to this life. The other a spiritual effect that influences this life and has its reward in the afterlife in the hereafter. We are free to eat or drink, anything we like, what I eat may have a positive or a negative physical effect on me.

If I'm diabetic and I eat a lot of sugar, I might enjoy it, but then I might go into a diabetic coma.

If I have a cholesterol problem and I want to eat these fantastic barbecued prawns, I can eat two dozen of them might be absolutely fantastic, lovely. And then after that, I wake up in hospital

there is a choice and there is a price tag.

Similarly,

whatever I eat, as I said, may have a physical or will will have a physical negative or positive effect.

But depending on whether it was earned in the hallway

and was itself halaal it also has a spiritual effect.

So if those barbeque prawns came out of harmony, there is also a physical effect.

It is also a spiritual effect.

This spiritual effect is felt also in this world, the heart becomes hard

eyes dry up, the tears which are shed for the glory and magnificence of almost ran otara dry up

it has a spiritual effect felt in this world

and its reward

will be in the next.

Similarly, we are free to go to any gathering have any relationship with anyone, buy or sell anything, in short, engage in all that the live of this world has to offer.

But everything we choose to do, we must pay for

there are no exceptions to this rule. This is a universal constant like any other law of physics that operates in this world. Thirdly, every time you choose something, remember that you are opting out of something else, every time you choose to do something, you are choosing not to do something else. After all the number of hours in a day are fixed, when we choose to spend time in one activity with one person in one place, we are automatically choosing not to do it somewhere else in some other activity or with someone else. It bears reflection before we choose to ask, What am I opting out of when I choose this? Why must you do that, because that is the principle of smart investment,

maximize ROI, maximize return on investment, the best investment is the one which gives the best or highest return. So before investing, we must check the different options we have to see which will yield the highest return. This is especially important because our currency is time and energy which are both non renewable.

If for example, I choose to spend most of my time most of my time earning money to provide my family with a good high standard of living materially, I am opting out of spending time with them. mentoring, guiding bonding, building trust and so on.

Now ask which is more important. What is the price tag? Maybe if you are gadgets for your Amazon deliveries, less fancy car, but more companionship, more conversation, more sharing of interests, more poetry, fishing, hiking outings to museums or galleries bring together the masjid I will let you finish this and complete this list. Now ask which is more valuable as a return

which is therefore the better investment

what is the alternative? I

spend most of my productive time earning money telling myself that it is for my family, but in the process, I have no time to spend in the tarbiyah. listening to them, helping them learn how to solve problems, emotionally supporting them, teaching them manners, connecting them to Allah subhanaw taala. teaching them the love of rosewood was a solemn study in Quran, Sera history with them and so on. Therefore, what have I and they lost? And what did we gain? What is the benefit in this life? And what is the payoff in the archive? As are such children likely to wake up in the night and pray for my forgiveness in tahajud? into God?

Did you do that for your parents today? Did you do that for your grandparents today?

So how do you expect your children to do that for you?

Children are supposed to be our saga terjadi. Right. But what kind of children?

This is our chance. It won't happen after we are dead.

If we want children who will make dua for us after we die, we must grow children who know Allah and who know how to ask him.

Let me tell you about two things that happened to me this week. First, I learned that in the psychiatric ward to treat potential suicides in a very famous specialist hospital here.

There are eight year olds, eight year old children.

I don't know if you're shocked, but I was

it blew my mind.

If I didn't respect and trust the person who told me this I would not have believed

at or or chill in a psychiatric Suicide Squad.

attempting suicide.

Second, I overheard a conversation between a four year old boy and his young sister who are we there aren't and mother and other siblings all trying to catch little fish minerals.

The little girl saw two flies in a compromising position and called out, see those lines? See those flies? What are they doing?

back like a shot? Her four year old brother

says they're making babies.

Where did he learn that?

He didn't learn it on that day.

When did you learn that?

Finally, we all heard or read about the case a few months ago of two teenage boys Muslims in Texas

who are both brilliant, academically

brilliant enough to get into Ivy League colleges on their own scholarships.

Yet, yes, one day, the board decided to kill the whole family and themselves. And they did it.

I read the blog post of the younger boy.

I couldn't sleep for days after.

Maybe some of you are saying all this can happen. Why chill?

Let me assure you, the parents of all those children who are screaming fire

are saying the same thing. It can't happen to my children.

That's why they cannot hear the scream.

They have no time. They have no skill. They've lost the skill because they never listened to their children.

They thought that raising children was only about food and clothing and gadgets.

It isn't it isn't. And some people discover that too late.

There are success stories of course, plenty of them. stories of children who went on to become world class professionals in their chosen fields, Islamic scholars of international repute.

though that's not a criterion to judge, a scholar, international review.

Children have went on to become caring, responsible and honorable adults, parents and community members.

The reason is the same

time devoted to their upbringing by their parents.

That is why I call it an investment. It gives her a job in this world and an even bigger and better one in the afra

do we think it is worth our while

COVID provided us the ideal opportunity by giving us time at home with our families.

The question is how we use that time

That is why we must live thoughtfully, not by default, merely breathing, eating steaming, but consciously and deliberately weighing our options and choosing the one which gives the best return.

Do this experiment as the first person you meet when you leave here? Do you want to be a successful person or a failure?

What do you think they will say?

No brainer, right?

Maybe someone is I want to say to you, I want to be the greatest failure the world has ever seen. But that is also success. He doesn't want to be an hour, dollar store variety video, he wants to be a grand, gold plated glorious failure.

Now ask yourself, given that everyone wants to be a success, how many great successes Can you name in your immediate circle?

Whatever. How is it that everyone wants to succeed, but very few making.

The reason is not that they don't want success, but that they don't know what it costs.

They never thought about it in terms of cost, and so they are not prepared to pay for it. at checkout.

The reality is that if you want it, you must be prepared to pay for it.

Preparation cannot be done at demand time.

Someone told me a story about his grandfather who landed at Ellis Island in New York, near the Statue of Liberty. And after you had gone through customs and immigration, you went into the restaurant, and sat at a table very hungry and wanting to order some lunch. You sat there for a long time and nothing happened. Then a man came with a tray full of food

and sat down opposite.

The man has a watch.

You look lost. The grandfather said I'm hungry, but nobody comes to this table. Man laughed and said, This is America.

Here you go to the end of that buffet, become a tray, then pick up whatever you want. carried to the end of the buffet and pay for it. You can have whatever you pay for

that is the reality not only in America, but about life itself.

You can have whatever you pay for

you must be nothing is free, neither lunch or dinner, you must pay one way or another. But if you pay, you can have whatever you want,

once again, a matter of choice.

Now some questions to ask yourself, what is my definition of success? What does it cost? What will I have to give up to get this? Is it worth it? Ask yourself these questions

and then commit

to paying for your success.

It is in this context, the context of choices that we are compelled to make that Islam is such a treasure because it reduces the variables which make choosing difficult. In Islam, there's only one criterion to fulfill and that is, does it please Allah subhana wa tada that is the criterion for every choice. Nothing else matters.

The beauty is that if we live our lives by this principle, and take all decisions based on this criteria, does it please Allah, then we will become the most popular and influential people in society. And Allah subhanho wa Taala is pleasure in the ACA.

This is the single most powerful switch that resource center made in the thinking of the Sahaba that is to choose based on what pleases Allah that changed their lives and took them from being powerless people nobody cared about to becoming the rulers of their world.

Choose wisely because we must pay for our choices.

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