Finding The Courage To Believe

Previously in Surah Yunus, Allah subhanho wa Taala reminded us about his invitation that all his guidance, all his legislation, all of his rules and restrictions, they are not meant to make life difficult for us.

They aren't meant to punish us. No, they are meant to bring us peace in this life, and in the hereafter. Allah azza wa jal calls us to the home of everlasting peace, through tell feed through the core and through the thick of through the *ty, this is the way to peace. But some people are hesitant. Some people are holding out, they're not convinced they believe in Allah.

But this dunya is to sweets for them.

The parties, the substances, life in the fast lane, as we say, they've got a sweet tooth for it.

For such a person, prayer and piety, the restraint makes them feel like they're missing out.

They would prefer if at all possible, to get to how to the house of eternal peace but

by living any way that they want to, as we say they want to have their cake and eat it too. Allah subhanho wa Taala addresses these people in excellent Surah Yunus and because Allah subhanho wa Taala is on ramen Rahim otherwise known as Karim, he does not condemn them. He tries to reason with them. Who may have Zuko, comida sama you will out and a young Nico seminar will have a sauna with a youth which will hide them and my et or your fridge will make you eat I mean and Haley will make you definitely will. Mm hmm say oh Luna Hola. Hola, goon, say who provides for you from heaven and from the earth? Or who controls hearing and sight? And who brings the living out from the dead and brings

the dead out from the living? And who arranges every single issue? They will say Allah, so say to them, then why don't you fear them? Why don't you fear Allah, Allah azza wa jal brings us back to our indebtedness to him, which we freely admit, who provides for you, from the heaven and from the earth. All the food you've ever eaten in your life would never exist. If it weren't for sunshine, rain, and soil who made those

who allowed us to benefit from it. Of course, it can only be alone.

Now we're no longer a nation of farmers. So that example might feel a little distant. Let's talk about our truckers in our taxi drivers are Uber and Lyft. Drivers. If Allah subhanho wa Taala wanted, he could make the roads impassable boom, you're out of work.

Just this week, we received six inches of snow. in Utica, every time a snow storm blows through the meteorologists, they gather and they get paid over time for all the work that they do, making models and maps and predictions and forecasts. Color Coded every few hours that predictions changed. First, we're in the dark blue, then we're in the light blue, all of a sudden we're pink on the map, then the snow actually comes down and our laws will is done. And sometimes it's more or less like they predicted and sometimes it's completely different. We joke about this all the time, all our technology, all our knowledge and we still don't really know how much snow is going to fall until it

actually happens. Allah subhana is in control. That 22 inches of snowfall, Allah subhanho wa Taala decides whether it comes down on you and puts you out of work or if it comes down from somewhere else.

In the era of COVID We should get this lesson right away how many jobs have been lost, made remotes or fundamentally changed because of the pandemic Allah subhanho wa Taala is in control. He allows entire

industries to rise and thrive.

And he can bring them to a screeching halt. In an instant. It's all from Allah.

Some of us own gas stations. Gasoline is now about 350 a gallon. What happens when it becomes so expensive that someone invents a mode of transportation that doesn't need gasoline anymore? Or what will happen when the gasoline runs out? Who decides when that invention will happen? Who decides when the gasoline runs out? And you have to find a new way to make a living.

Allah knows

that Allah subhanho wa Taala approaches the issue from another angle who controls hearing and sight.

These are automatic things that make life possible that give us a sense of independence. We take them for granted until they're gone. Who controls them? Only Allah azza wa jal, when my mother in law was a little girl, she mysteriously went blind for several days. This was true. She was admitted into a hospital. Her parents were worried sick, all sorts of doctors came and visited her. They ran every test they could think to run, no one could figure out why her vision had suddenly and completely left her.

They were terrified. They thought she was going to be blind for the rest of her life.

Then one day, as suddenly as her vision had left, it came back. No one could figure out why. Allah subhanahu wa Tada is in control, he decides.

Allah Allah asks, Who Controls death?

Our doctors know this better than anyone. Statistics are statistics. But sometimes you will find someone who has the least healthy lifestyle. They smoke they drink, they eat garbage, junk food, and and yet they end up living longer than anybody imagined longer even than some people who exercise and lead a healthy lifestyle. Who's keeping them alive?

Genetics, okay, maybe Allah. Of course, Allah subhanho wa Taala decides when we die, He is in control.

Who can bring the living from the dead, who can take a dry, barren field and bring rain and turn it into lush greenery. Who can take space dust, and form it into planets who can take carbon and turn it into a conscious human being? Only Allah subhanho wa taala. And if he can do that, how easy is it for him to take the people, the inhabitants of their graves and resurrect them for judgment?

Notice the progression of examples Allah gives here. Allah starts with something that's very close, very immediate to our worldly life, our livelihood, our hearing our vision.

And then he ends up talking about the soul.

The lesson is simple. Who's Who's in control?

Everyone knows the answer. It's Allah. Allah controls all of this. But Allah has purpose in bringing this up is not theoretical. It's not about belief. In the Western or English sense of the word where belief is a sense, or a set of propositions that we think are true, that's not Amen. That's not belief. In Islam. That's not belief in the Arabic language. Belief in Islam is about action. Letting the decisions that you make and the lifestyle that you lead, prove the things that you profess with your tongue. Actions, as we say, speak louder than words.

Allah subhanho wa Taala is alerting us to an inconsistency that exists in all of us to some degree.

You readily and freely admit that Allah controls all of this everything. No one here denies that. It's from Allah. Then why don't we listen to him?

Why don't we obey Him?

In the salata, kanatal Not me, Nina keytab him no Pooja when Allah subhanaw taala commands us to pray at specific times we say, but I have work, but I have school. I'll make them up at the end of the day.

My dear brother who gave you work, who gave you school who lets you get a good job of who lets you pass your exams, it's a law

that he can be at home for you in elevator and he told me about Will I hand them off as they are I have one I believe that when Allah subhanaw taala commands us to avoid riba we say, but I need it. Everyone else is doing it. I need to get ahead in life dear brother, who decides whether you get ahead in life or not?

Allah does. So why would you disobey Him?

Yeah, you Latina Avenue layers are called on me a common asset in a criminal Kira Minho.

When Allah commands us to be united, and not to fall into tribalism, or tribalistic thinking, we say,

but that group of people over there is no good.

They're lazy.

You can't trust them.

I would rather die than marry my daughter, to someone from that part of the world, or someone with that skin color.

That's what we say. Do we really have to think very hard as to why the Muslims are oppressed and humiliated all over the world? Look at us. We have the truth. We know the truth, but we have lost the courage to follow the truth.

We are just like the people in this verse. The only difference being that we have not taken statues of wood or stone as our idols but rather we serve whatever is convenient. We serve whatever everyone else is doing. We serve whatever we think will bring us wealth, status and honor in this world.

That joke is on us, man uncanny

valley is a to Jimmy on

enduring wealth, legitimate status, and real honor our only from Allah subhanahu wa Tada and only through Islam.

We can't be content with a knockoff or a counterfeit. We need the real thing. A fanatic taboo.

The only way to get the real thing is through tequila. Then Allah subhana wa Tada says, for that he can Allahu Ronkonkoma will help. The murder that they'll have to kill them

to throw food for that as Allah your Lord, the truth and what's can be beyond the truth except for error and falsehood.

So why or how are you diverted? This is a black and white issue. This is a metaphysical truth with no killer, no difference of opinion. You can't get ahead by disobeying Allah

not going to happen. obeying Allah subhana wa Tada is the way to the eternal home of peace and anything outside this simple truth is simply false that women probably have a lot of stuff in law Hollywood or comedy certainly Muslim in America First of all fill in the hole full Rahim.

Have to be lucky either episode, worship Allahu Allah to feel the heat on wanted. It was

a lot of work that would actually get a hotel room and he showed me what I should be and I was saying Eden and Mohammed in Abu Rasulullah

sallallahu alayhi wa early he was happy he was suddenly able to see men cathedral.

Next Allah subhanahu wata auto tells us the consequences of regular, persistent defiance

can that he can help us get a mentor Rebecca Anna Lavina. Fess up and let you know.

Thus the word of your Lord has come into effect upon those who defiantly disobeyed that they will not believe.

If belief and action are not separable, so that belief is not really belief, unless it is proven by your actions. And Allah Subhana Allah to Allah is telling us here that it works in the opposite direction as well. If you regularly do

fie Allah subhanho wa Tada. Without a valid excuse, you're not ignorance. You're not a new Muslim, whose faith is still kind of under construction. If you regularly defy Allah subhanahu wa taala

at a certain point your hearts we will not be able to believe there will be no room left in your hearts for belief it will be to fool from whatever else you're after in life.

Allah subhanaw taala tries to bring us back to his unique power and give us perspective. Next, he says please help me I'm sure I can equal

may Yeah, but that will help don't let your ego Bonilla

Bonilla whoever that would have told me or either move to say I can edit of your partner's begin creation and then repeat it say to them a lot of against creation and then repeats it. So how are you so diluted?

In times of all, it was the statutes. These days the idols are different approval, status, popularity, likes followers,

wealth, comfort, convenience, my ego.

Have any of these things created anything?

Then why would you serve them instead of a loss of power?

Well, Halloween should occur in May Yes, the Cordilla who have been in

FMA yesterday, you know, have the I have got a

malaria hit the elder a young man a concave attack Moon say Can any of your partners that you worship, can they guide you to the truth?

Tell them Allah guides to the truth. So is the one who guides to the truth more worthy to be followed? Or the one who can't guide anyone? Unless he himself is guided first, then what's wrong with you? How is it that you judge

all of your role models and your influencers? Even entire cultures and societies if they tell you something is okay. And that seems to go against what ALLAH SubhanA wa Tada is telling you, which one deserves to be followed?

Who is the one who guides and who's the one who needs guidance.

You have Muslim youth on Tik Tok on Instagram on Snapchat, doing whatever they can do to get other people to look at them, beautifying themselves dancing, both young men and young women, Allah told us to look away from the opposite sex.

And these so called influencers that many of us let our children watch with no restrictions or limits.

They're telling everyone to look at them, and telling your children that this type of behavior is acceptable.

Who was the one who dies? And who is the one in need of guidance? You have Muslim majority countries, changing their inheritance laws to aid and mimic the inheritance laws of Western Europe and North America.

Times have changed, they claim Things are different now. So we need to make things more equal.

There are many things in the city that Allah azza wa jal left deliberately vague enough so that they could be changed depending on culture depending on circumstance. inheritance law is not one of them. Allah subhanho wa Taala dedicated several pages of the Quran to spelling out inheritance law in fine detail. Then after it he says immediately after to the castle doodle law.

These are Allah's limits. And then in the very next verse, what may Yasi law what a similar

way it's hard to harder with you the hitter who now call it and fee him what a more Maheen and whoever disobeyed Allah and His messenger and transgressors these limits, he will put him into the fire forever and he will have a humiliating punishment. Do you think Allah subhana wa Tada would put such a warning there if inheritance law wasn't supposed to be applicable to everyone for all times? have entire pages of the Quran just become obsolete so easily?

Why is Allah's Wisdom, the first to be questioned? Instead of the modern inheritance system that treats everyone just as mere individuals

With no relationship, no duty and no responsibility toward one another,

who is the one who guides and who is in need of guidance? No, the problem is that we do not have the courage to follow the truth that is right in front of us.

If we have started to feel like it's not as a burden, if we have started to feel like Islam is backwards and not relevant anymore, then we need to consider the possibility that the problem is not Islam.

But the states of our hearts.

Allah subhana wa Tada told us, if our lives are built upon knowing disobedience to Allah subhanaw taala there will come a point when the hearts can no longer believe

a child who has too many sweets, will not be able to eat his or her vegetables.

Adults who are addicted to fulfilling every single whim and fancy and desire that passes through them will find it very difficult to kneel before the Creator of the heavens and the earth. Which is why Allah subhanho wa Taala praises those who give something away despite their need for it. So you're turning on a time other other have been miskeen and we achievement what see it all. They feed despite their love of food, they're feeding other people, the orphans, the prisoners the poor,

while you feed on forcing him one Oh, can I be hidden for salsa? Well, maybe I should have actually he felt when he got home and MFI home. They give others preference over themselves, even though they themselves are in need. And whoever is protected from the stinginess of their own soul, it is they who are successful,

taming the soul, disciplining it from what it wants. This frees up room in the hearts for belief.

indulging the soul giving it everything that it asks for, makes it weak

and easily led astray by the influencers and the conventional wisdom that are ready to tell you that you shouldn't have any limits that you should have whatever you want right now. That's why Allah subhanaw taala says in the next verse will may tell the Federal Home in law one in the law, the law of the minute how cliche in Allah Allah be Mallya following, and most of them they don't follow anything except for conjecture. Indeed, conjecture is no substitute for the truth. Indeed, Allah subhanaw taala is knowing of what they do. Assumptions conjecture, speculation. The undisciplined the soul will gravitate towards it, but it's never a substitute for the sober truth. If we want to

hold on to our belief, if we want to guard our capacity and ability to believe we have to tame the soul and discipline it with the obedience to Allah