Tom Facchine – Minute with a Muslim #307 – Relationships With Intention

			Most people, they do not live their relationships in an intentional way.
		

			They are just on autopilot. And that's the mistake. That's the spiritual mistake that's being made.
Because if you start to live through your relationships intentionally, than if you believe in a
creator, if you believe in Allah, then your relationships become
		

			a field or an area of your life, where you can put yourself in the service of Allah, where you can
do righteous deeds, where you can accrue benefit, purify your soul, secure your spot in paradise,
all these sorts of things. Right. And so we see it a lot of times with our friends.
		

			Most people are just friends with out of habit out of history, somebody knows your secrets,
somebody, you know, went to the same school happened to be the same age as you common interest,
right? Do things together, you have a lot in common.
		

			And it's just kind of this automatic process. And people don't necessarily think about, well, what
can I do for my soul? In my relationship with this person? How can I be in this relationship in a
way that's actually worship, and worshiping Allah worshiping the Creator. Now, with friends, it
might be a little bit easier. Because once you're kind of aware of it, then you can, you can get in
the game. And it's easier with friends, because there's a little bit of a distance, it's hardest to
do that with the people who are closest to you, you know, your spouse, your parents, your kids. And
there's a lot of delusion that goes on, and self kind of deception, about what our motives are.
		

			Right? Every parent, for example, wants to be obeyed by their kids. But a lot of parents aren't
willing to lead the type of life that deserves a certain type of obedience. And a lot of children
want to be understood by their parents, yet, they adopt maybe too confrontational of a posture or
they don't put in the work to be understood by their parents. And so things need to come together
from both sides, right. And it's all made easier if each side is actually in the relationship,
acting or choosing to do this or not choosing to do that based off of trying to worship the Creator,
and not just do whatever occurs to them to do automatically, or something that's going to just work
		

			in in their favor or in their interests. So once you bring any act, but especially your
relationships out of the realm of heedlessness, right and into the realm of intentionality, right
and awareness, then your relationship is entirely different. Right? You come home at night and your
spouse didn't do the dishes and there's a sink full of dishes and your spouse, you know that they
want you to do the dishes. Maybe you wait until they ask you maybe you grow and and say, Okay, I'll
do it. You're doing it as a transaction. Right? You're doing it because you don't want that person
to be angry at you. Are you doing I mean, because you feel bad because you know, they had a hard
		

			day, or you're worried about, you know, maybe you want to ask them for for something and you're
trying to you know, build up your credit.
		

			That's a whole different, a lowly state of affairs, right? To get home, and to observe and see the
thing and before having to be asked to go ahead and do it. Not because you're trying to get
something out of the other person, but because you're trying to please your Creator, because you
know that your Creator has given you and gifted you this relationship
		

			so that you may be thankful and so that you may be in that relationship in a way that pleases Him.
Now that's an that's a whole other level.