Tom Facchine – How To Bounce Back From a Faith Crisis

			Yeah, I mean, it's gonna be a little bit different for every person, depending on their history
depending on their makeup. But one of the things that I come back to the Hadith of the Prophet
Mohammed slay Saddam that everybody would be,
		

			you know, guided or in paradise Elam and ever, except for the one who refused, right? So you've got,
you've got different types of people and different types of personalities, like there's some people
that are so hard headed that they need to be shaken awake, right? Like, they're confident that
whatever they do is right, and you know, somebody who just needs to kind of knock them down and be
like, Yo, like, pump the brakes on this. But then there's other people who are the opposite, that
are so sensitive, and that are so self critical that they really need to be encouraged. And in my
personal experience, that's the type of person that usually goes through the type of crisis that
		

			you're talking about. Or they go all the way down the bottom, they've despaired of the Mercy of
Allah, and that's something a lot tells us in the Quran to never do. That don't despair, the Mercy
of Allah.
		

			So, I think people need encouragement. And I think people need time, and they need to surround
themselves with people who understand that who are willing to encourage them and willing to give
them time. We deal with this with converts all the time. Right? If you become a Muslim, you can't do
everything at once. That wasn't the way that Allah treated the companions. Right? The first
generation of Muslims. Isha herself, wrote the Allahu anhu, has said that if the first thing that
had been revealed was to stop drinking alcohol and to stop fornicating, we would have never become
Muslims. And you and me are no better than Aisha. And nobody is, right. So you have to take it easy
		

			with people and people need to be given time. And people need to break it down into baby steps, one
step at a time. You know, and that's going to look different depending on who we're talking about,
if it's talking about prayer, you know, having a connection with the lost pounds oughta. Again, my
personal observation is that a lot of these issues come from having a distorted idea of who Allah
is, like a lot of people come into a slum, but they've got baggage from whatever they were doing
before. They think that Allah is a lot more cruel, and judgmental and mean, than he really is.
Right. And usually, that comes from people with a Christian background, but it can come from other
		

			other directions, too. So focusing on developing your relationship with Allah subhanaw taala,
trusting Allah, right, we say it and it's become like a cliche, but like, actually actually trusting
him, right, is that he's not going to be unfair. He's not going to be cruel. He's not going to be
arbitrary, right? And if you are sincere, and you can reasonably go to bed at night, and put your
head on your pillow, and sleep soundly, knowing that you're trying, right, then you shouldn't really
		

			you should have a, you should be hopeful, you should be hopeful that Allah is going to continue to
guide you and not to worry about the end game, because this is what the devil tries to do to us. The
devil tries to psych us out by getting us to focus on how long the journey is, look at how far I
have to go.
		

			Right? Whereas that's not relevant. What what's irrelevant, it's what's the next step right in front
of you. And if you can just manage to focus on what's the next step. People, you know, they make
this sort of plan for their financial security all the time. What's my budget? What am I spending?
Where am I at this year from my savings? Or do I want to be next year? Okay, do the same thing with
your faith. Right? You think that you're going to be able to do the same things every single year
and your faith is just going to keep on growing doesn't make any sense? You've got to make a plan.
Right now, how much do you know about a lot? You know, how, you know how many of His Names Do you
		

			know? Like, do you really? How many of the ones that you know, do you actually feel? Do you actually
look around to hear a chickity right now it's like wow, a lot is like the holodeck Halak. Rahim is
the Most Merciful. Look at this beauty that he he's a Jimmy and he created such beauty. Right? If
you're not moving around in the dunya, and remembering the laws names, and feeling them experiencing
the world through them, then that's where you should put your effort into. Because you're not going
to develop in your faith until you're experiencing the world through that. And there's a lot of that
there's a lot of other things that could be said but that's a start.