Expensive or Valuable

Scylla Ravana Rahim Al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen wa Salatu was Salam ala sherfield Ambia even more serene Mohammadu Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa ala he was salam does live on cathedra and Cassia, Hama Babu, my brothers and sisters,

there are two

words in the language in English language, which we conflate and confuse ourselves with one is the word expensive and the other one is the word valuable.

I want to propose to you that these are two completely different things expensive and valuable.

So what is expensive and what is valuable? My definition of something that is expensive

Is that

what you pay for it, and what you get from it,

you pay more than you can then you get so when the return is less than the investment that is expensive.

But where the return is more than the investment and that is valuable, that's not expensive.

Do you have an example

now even though the actual some that you spend I'm looking just now we'll we'll come we'll come back to the issue of money or no money with or just how to sum it you spend

even though you may be spending more money on something that thing will be

can can be more valuable. Whereas something on which you spend less money

can be expensive. For example,

a compare two cars

compare a cheap car say for example,

a TATA indica

and compare that with

a beer BMW.

If you have the money, will you buy

for that 90 cars? Or will you buy one BMW,

you will buy one BMW because the money you spend on that BMW gives you far more joy and far more value than the money that you will spend on the Tara indica, although the money that you spend on the data integral is much less, because the joy and the pleasure and the and what you get for that money is much less than what you would like to have got.

Take another example now we come to this issue of

which has nothing to do with money.

The amazing thing is that as human beings have

grown, and

I hit us over develop, but in this case, because I don't think it's development, but anyway,

as human beings have grown, and, you know, we have we think that we have now we are at the peak of civilization and so forth. And we tend to

look at it purely from a materialistic point of view. And we say we think of it and say that we're what is

ours are superior, our civilization is superior to how things were in the past, well, we don't walk to a place anymore. We don't write an animal to that place. We don't ride a donkey or a horse. We don't go in a horse or a donkey drawn carriage we drive a nice car, which has

you know, lots of stuff on board. It has an onboard computer, the car is smarter than us mostly most of the time, and so forth. We fly in planes we we go on fast boats on

on peaceful oceans and make a lot of noise and create a lot of pollution. But anyway, so we do all this and we think this is fantastic. We say we have the ability to communicate across the world. And of course, like just now this

reminder, I'm recording is on a regular Android phone.

And it goes across the world thanks to the technology that is involved, which is simple, but it which is powerful has a lot of reach.

However, one of the things that for example, this technology of the telephone and so on is supposed to do is to help us to communicate better. The question I want to ask myself is are we really communicating better? Are we really communicating better because we now have the ability to make International Telephone calls free because if you use any of the chats, programs, now whether it's telegram or signal or WhatsApp or whatever,

When the call is free,

does it mean therefore that you are calling for example, people living away from their parents? Does it mean that you are now therefore it can be taken for granted that you will talk to your parents FaceTime or video, Whatsapp Video or whatnot? Every day? You can, and it costs you nothing? Are you doing it?

That is the question. So this technology of smartphones, I always say smartphones do with people.

This technology is taking us closer to our loved ones, dear ones, or is it has it actually produced more distance. Because the days when we live together, we talk to people face to face. When we made a telephone call, we it took us a lot of time and energy took us

costs money. We had to go stand in a line sometimes in the night. And then we talked, you have to yell. And that's why people are by generation, even today, when we talk on trunk calls, we yell.

And then we had to, you know, we got some very

mixed kind of

mixed kind of responses. So we did all that. Now, the point is that,

but we did communicate. When we wrote letters, it took us time and energy to sit down and think, conceptualize and reflect and put all of that down on paper. And we also learned therefore to communicate better because we had more words. We didn't begin every sentence with soy, or like or, you know, all the rest of the stuff. We actually had a vocabulary. Now, I'm again, I'm not against technology, believe me, I'm using it myself. But I'm saying think about it from the concept of what is it doing. And again, these two words expensive, and valuable. I say to especially by young friends,

young male friends who spent a lot of time texting you I know you shouldn't be doing that, especially as Muslim, but you know what you what you do, and I unfortunately, also know what you do.

You spend a lot of time texting, and messaging your

those girls, we will think you know who you think you love and who you want to love you.

I ask you a question, how many of you

send one text message. One really, from the heart, sincere message of love and gratitude to your grandmother

or to your mother.

In that space of time, you would have sent 10 text messages to this other young lady who if she had any sense, she will keep you exactly where you are, which is at the end of a very long fishing rod with a long line and hook and the hook just out of your reach. So that you spend all your time tried to catch up, catch on to that hook. And she has any sense you level that you do that.

Right. But instead of that if you sent one sincere, heartfelt message of gratitude, and respect to your grandmother, believe me

the response that you will get, first of all, you will get an immediate response. And secondly, you will be in her door. She will give you advice you talk to her you build a bond. And that will be far far more valuable than whatever this other person can give you.

Do you do that? Your phones give you the ability to do that. We'll do that from today.

Inshallah, communicate with your elders, communicate with people who you have not communicated for or communicated with for a long time. communicated with with those who helped you. Believe me, not one single one of us is standing where we are standing today without the help of others. And I'm hugely conscious of all the people who helped me and I'm delighted by you know, I make dua for them in the hydrogen sujood everyday Hamdulillah. My point is, do we do that?

Because we conflate these two things, the same. To conclude I want to say one very simple thing, which is that the truly valuable things in life are free.

The Truly Valuable Things that really have value in life are free cost you nothing except a little bit of effort. Take for example, I mean to give you some basic examples, clean air, what does it cost? Nothing. Clean water, what does it cost? Nothing. We pollute it and then we have to spend money to clean it. But it costs nothing. The love of your parents.

What it cost you. How much did you pay your mom to love you? How much did you pay your father?

The love of your siblings. What does it cost you?

You know the way to check this out? If you don't have this love?

How can you buy? What does it cost to buy this love? Can you buy this love?

If your brother or sister doesn't love you? Can you buy their love?

I know there are parents who don't love their children, if that happens, can you buy that love? So, if you have this, what is the value we are placing on it? The the love and affection of your teachers who know you owe you nothing. And you owe them everything, if you know something today is because of the people who took the time and I will teach you formally informally, conversations whatever

do we value that

it is valuable, immensely valuable, immeasurably valuable, and completely free.

Totally free, you can buy it,

you cannot buy it.

So I remind myself when you let us learn to value the truly valuable things in life. Finally, and most importantly,

can you buy the forgiveness of Allah?

Can you buy the mercy and grace of Allah? Can you buy the namah the blessings that Allah subhanaw taala has blessed us with?

And what does it take?

All that it takes us to say Alhamdulillah is to think of each of these things and say Al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen.

I'm sitting here on the little Jetty on the side, kind of a little island on one side is the Gulf of Mexico and the other side is a little lagoon.

And there are birds all around and I'm sitting in this on this branch of this tree and in the shade. So Allah Alhamdulillah Manolos around that has given me the ability and the time and the resources and the support and the help of other people that I can do this.

My brother and sisters truly, truly, truly think of the things that are valuable in your life and learn to appreciate them. And thank Allah subhanaw taala for them. It begins with Allah subhanaw taala himself.

It begins with the Rasulillah Salam SallAllahu Sallam who taught us how to live this in this world. And it goes on to our parents and our siblings and our friends and our teachers and all those in our life. Thanks to whom we are today where we are. Masala Nabil Karim Allah Allah He was a member