Saif Morad – SINCERITY Leads To Greater Rewards and Better Emotional Well Being
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AI: Transcript ©
Dear brothers and sisters, what's going on?
May Allah
bless us with the best in this world
and the next.
Today, we'll be talking about how if we
have the sincere intention to do something,
even though we don't accomplish that task, Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala will still write the reward
for us,
and also how working on our intention
can lead to better mental and emotional well-being.
The prophet
told us that this world has 4 types
of people.
1 who Allah
has blessed with wealth and with knowledge,
and he utilizes his wealth
and his knowledge to fear Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala, to protect himself from the punishment of
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, and to gain his
mercy. He maintains the ties of kinship,
and he knows that Allah
has a right over him,
and he utilizes these things to draw closer
to Allah
This person might have he spends for the
sake of Allah
And this person does good and he teaches
and he does this and he has this
project and that project and utilize all these
things to draw closer to Allah
Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala. Another person who Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala has blessed with knowledge,
but didn't bless with wealth.
But this person has the intention,
and he has the sincere intention
that if Allah
blessed them with wealth,
like he did to the other person,
they would do the exact same thing.
They would also strive to develop these projects
and to spend for the sake of Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, to take care of the
poor, to take care of orphans, and other
things.
Just by the intention,
these two people are the same. The reward
for them is the same.
A third person who Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
blessed with wealth,
but did not bless with knowledge.
And this person uses his wealth to disobey
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
This person spends their wealth in the disobedience
of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, does not maintain
ties of kinship, doesn't realize that Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala has a right over his wealth,
doesn't spend for the sake of Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala.
So this person is going down a very
dangerous path.
And the 4th person who Allah
did not bless neither with wealth
nor with knowledge,
but this person has the intention
that if
Allah blessed him with wealth or blessed her
with wealth
that they would be doing, they would be
spending it just like the way the person
who's spending it
in the disobedience of Allah
in haram investments, in spending on alcohol
and drugs and these other things,
that if I could live that lifestyle, if
I had the money, I would be living
the same lifestyle as this person.
So we see how important the intention is,
That if a person is truly sincere to
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala,
they make the intention that if Allah if
I had
the resources that this person has,
I would be doing the same thing
or I would be doing similar things to
this person.
And the person makes the intention, and they
actually try to do things.
A person might have the intention to
develop a community center, for example, that this
community center
would help the Muslims, would help the youth,
would help keep people off the streets.
And they actually go out and they try
their best, they form a team, and they
try to gather money,
and they try their best to get this
project off the ground. And by the will
of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, it was not
meant for it to happen.
These people will get the reward as if
they actually accomplished the task,
if they were sincere.
So this inspires us to have big intentions,
big aspirations,
and then at the same time we actually
try to do something about it.
And if a person passes away before the
completion of this project or before accomplishing that
goal, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala by his mercy
will write it as if this person actually
achieved that goal.
By working on our intention,
this leads to
better mental and emotional well-being,
how we process information, how we express our
feelings
based on what's happening around us.
How you might
ask? For example, a person does a lot
for other people, for their parents, for their
siblings, for their kids, for their spouse,
for their relatives,
but they are unappreciated for their effort.
And part of human nature is that we
like to feel appreciated.
Anyone who puts forth some effort
wants to get recognized as part of our
natural disposition,
and they feel unappreciated
and maybe even stop doing those things
because there's no reward for it. That I'm
struggling, I'm striving, I'm trying to make everything
enjoyable and good for other people, but they
don't do anything in return for me.
But if we work on our intention,
that could change.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tells us in the
Quran,
That they feed other people in spite of
their love for it. They feed the orphans,
the poor people,
the captives.
And what's the reason behind them doing this?
Do they wanna compliment? Do they want something
in return?
Allah tells us the only reason we're feeding
you
is for the sake of Allah
to earn his pleasure, to get the reward
from him,
that we don't want any reward from you
and nor do we want any appreciation from
you. So if a person keeps working on
their intention
and they get to this level,
and this is not easy, you don't get
to this level in one day, but if
we're to work on our intention,
that anything we do we seek Allah's pleasure
behind it. And we know that when we
do something for the sake of Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala, Allah will always accept it from
us. The reward that he has saved for
us, we can't even imagine.
So if person keeps working on their
sincerity to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, doesn't matter
what happens,
they know that their reward
is set with Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. It's
there for them, waiting for them.
And if we find that we're not doing
it for the sake of Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala, it's natural that we're gonna get upset.
We're gonna feel unappreciated.
We're gonna feel hurt.
But if we work on our intention and
we rectified and we change it, we're not
gonna care what other people think.
So today's exercise is the steps that we
can take to change our state when we
feel
upset, down, etcetera.
That one of the techniques that helps is
to change your thoughts. So when we get
these thoughts,
the first thing we need to do is
to acknowledge them.
Acknowledge the fact that they're there and to
lean into it and to accept it. We're
all human beings. We all have these feelings,
and we wanna get through them.
Number 2 is to seek refuge in Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala from them. To
say
and to really mean it that I seek
refuge. I turn to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
I depend on Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and
I seek refuge in him from the shaitan,
from the accursed shaitan, from his thoughts, from
his whispers,
from him
doing his dirty work.
And number 3 is to remind ourselves,
to ask ourselves the question that why am
I doing this? For who am I doing
it for? To remind ourselves
that we're doing this for the sake of
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
And number 4, to remember
that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala will never let
any good deed go to waste.
So when we get these feelings,
we turn our thoughts towards Allah
to remind ourselves why we're doing it and
to turn our thoughts towards the reward that
Allah
has waiting for us.
But once again, it's not easy.
It takes time,
it takes constant effort,
and Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala will make it
possible. And to ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
and to continuously make dua to Allah Subhanahu
to grant us sincerity in our actions,
sincerity in everything that we do.
So may Allah
bless us with sincere hearts
and bless us with happiness in this world
and the next. Till next time.