Tom Facchine – Allah Does Not Owe You Anything

Next hadith of prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam he

said

It's a longer hadith. It's got a couple

different parts to it, but it's extremely, extremely

important. The first part, the prophet said that

the strong believer is

vahir, the apparent part. Sorry, guys. This isn't

about gym selfies or but but your biceps

or your gains. The vahir, the the apparent

meaning of the hadith is that the khayr

we're talking about here or the sorry, the

qua, the strength

has to do with your belief, your faith.

How strong is your belief that

a strong believer is better than a weak

believer. The person who has Yaqeen,

who has certain faith,

who understands what they're doing in this world,

who understands who their Lord is, who understands

everything.

This person is better than somebody who's weak

in their faith and better than somebody who,

you know, yeah, okay, they're Alhamdulillah, they

they know the Shahada, they believe the Shahada

sort of loosely. They don't know the details.

They pray 5 times a day, you know,

hijab and salah and beard and whatever,

but they don't have absolute strong faith, absolute

certain faith, absolute unshakable faith,

like the type of person who's going to

do amazing things when nobody's looking or when

it actually contradicts their interest.

There's no doubt that the person with strong

faith

is better than the person with weak faith,

although there's good in both. Right?

This is a very hopeful hadith because sometimes

some of us some of us who skew

sort of, like, very self critical,

we can actually get discouraged

when we see sort of the heights that

are available to us. Right, when it comes

to piety and righteousness and all these sorts

of things. It can become very discouraging because

we have a very honest assessment of ourselves,

and we know that we're nowhere close. And

so we can, you know, be liable to

despair and to give up, and, of course,

the shaitan would love us to give up.

So the prophet, salallahu alaihi wa sallam, gives

us hope here because he says there's good

in both.

Even if you're not the strongest believer, they're

still they're still good in you. You still

belong. You're still one of us.

But but

we can't compare the 2.

The one who has strong faith is better

than the one who has weak faith, and

so there's that aspirational element that you should

try to strengthen your faith.

If you're somebody who has weak faith, you're

not useless. You know, you're

you're good, but you can be better.

And so we have a hope and an

aspiration, something to work towards that we want

to strengthen our faith. Then the prophet, salallahu

alayhi wasalam, he said,

be keen on what benefits you. Okay? First

part.

Then seek refuge in Allah,

seek Allah's help, what attaches,

and don't give up or don't be weak

or don't sort of be

enable.

This is a formula for success that the

prophet is giving

every single Muslim.

Pay attention to what benefits you.

Okay? And that's said in a very general

way. So it has to do with this

dunya. It has to do, of course, with

the afterlife.

But there's gonna be a lot of distractions.

Of that's sort of the, the implicit sort

of statement of the prophet here is that

there's gonna be things in Dunia that benefit

you, and there's other things that are gonna

be of no benefit to you. Distractions,

entertainment,

diversion,

forget all of that. Focus on what benefits

you and rely upon Allah, ask Allah for

help,

and don't fail. Don't be

incapacitated.

Don't be lazy.

So we see here that we share responsibility,

but also we depend upon Allah subhanahu wa

ta'ala. It's not all up to us.

We have to focus on what benefits us.

We have to work. We have to have

a sense of urgency, and we have to

take the means, but at the end of

the day, we also have to rely on

Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, which is why the

next thing the prophet says

is that if something afflicts you don't like,

it's a bad thing, a calamity, something you

don't like, don't say, if only

if only I did this or if only

this had happened or this or this or

this.

We start to think about other possibilities,

but instead say Allah

decided it or willed it or apportioned it

and he does what he wants.

If you don't do this, meaning if you

don't stop yourself and correct yourself, then you're

going to open up a door to the

devil's work, and that is something that all

of us want to avoid. So we have

here again the balance between what's in our

control and what's outside of our control.

There are things, our attitude, our intention, taking

the means that are inside of our control,

but then when it comes to producing the

results and the consequences,

it's up to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.

And if we've done our due diligence and

we have a strong relationship with Allah Subhanahu

Wa Ta'ala and we pray istikhara, and we

take the memes, and we have a clean

lifestyle, halal lifestyle,

and you still don't get the result that

you were after,

you have to trust Allah.

You can't question Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala and

assume that what you want is the best

thing. Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala told us it

doesn't work like that.

There are things that you want that are

bad for you, there are things that you

don't want that are actually good for you.

Medicine

is bitter,

even though it's necessary.

And so we can't turn our desires into

a god that we worship,

even though we say that we're Muslim and

we say that we're, you know, we're praying,

we're doing all this other stuff, but really

we're worshiping our desires,

because we're not gonna question them, and we're

gonna say that, you know, if I don't

get what I want, then I'm gonna question

Allah.

Why? Why me? Why didn't it happen this

way? I did everything right. I deserve this.

I deserve that. That's not the attitude of

a believer.

You question yourself first. You question your desires

first, what you want first, and you trust

Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. If you know that

you have done no wrong,

meaning that you have a good intention and

that you took the means and that you

prayed istikhara and you asked Allah Subhanahu Wa

Ta'ala for his help, and if he didn't

allow it to happen, then you have to

trust that it's good for you and that's

better for you. And as we live and

we live longer and the years go by,

this is something that is Musahed. It's something

that just look back on your life.

That thing that you wanted, whether it was

a house, whether it was a car, or

there's a spouse, or there's a degree or

a program or whatever, a job,

you wanted it so bad at the time

with what you knew, you thought that this

was gonna be the game changer, you thought

that this was gonna be the best thing

for you.

And then just a year later, 2 years

later, whatever, you come to see, oh, wow,

I'm so happy that Allah

prevented that from me and didn't let me

get that. Allah knew what he was doing

the whole time.

So if you're straight, if you're right with

Allah,

you have to trust Allah

and don't get caught up with

what if, what if, what if, because the

devil's waiting for you to do that, and

he's waiting to lead you astray.