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He encourages me every morning to keep hitting the snooze button and just get a little more sleep. Sometimes, I fall victim to his whispers, hit that snooze button one too many times, and end up missing prayer. And then, rather than just sincerely repenting and moving on, Satan makes me feel paralyzing guilt. The devil wants me to think that life is so busy it’s too hard to make time for meditation and reading the Quran. Satan is constantly in my ear, you have to go to work to make money to provide, you have to help cook and clean, you need to work on the house or cars. He wants me to spend all my time engaged in the physical world around me. He encourages me to believe I have obligations for everyone around me rather than focus on growing my own soul. It’s okay to enjoy things of this world, but I must keep the focus of worship God alone. Then there are times when I think I am on the right path, there he is trying to get me to adorn my works, and focus on the works, rather than worshiping God. The devil will pull out every trick in the bag to get me to slip away from worshiping God alone.
God already knows we are going to fall off the path or become stagnant with our worship. Actually, He designed humans with unrighteous traits. The Quran says humans are selfish, despondent, unappreciative, transgressing,
impatient, stingy, argumentative, ignorant, anxious, and utterly lost. God created us with all these traits and we must recognize this, so we know what we are up against. In competition, when opponents face each other, they try to watch films of their adversaries to exploit their weaknesses. Medical professionals observe viruses and infections to expose weaknesses, then implement other chemicals in the form of medicine to defeat them. To overcome our human unrighteous traits, we have to acknowledge and recognize them.
Our souls must battle our own human existence to grow. God tells us to kill our ego and the ego is actually a part of our own selves. This war against ourselves makes me think of how an immune system works. Something disruptive enters your body then it becomes part of your physical existence in a harmful way. In our immune system, our blood cells must locate and fight off what entered our body to prevent infection or possibly death. Think of the blood cells as the soul which must locate our unrighteous traits and fight them off to achieve the success of worshiping God alone. This personal battle against our own selves is a reflection of the soul versus the ego. The soul wants us to evaluate every situation to determine if we are being prevented from worshiping God alone. The ego wants us to say and do things to protect human pride. This is where we need God to strengthen our souls to fight the ego. We pray that God supports our souls to win against our unrighteous traits.
[7:200] When the devil whispers to you any whisper, seek refuge in GOD; He is Hearer, Omniscient.
[23:97] Say, “My Lord, I seek refuge in You from the whispers of the devils. [23:98] “And I seek refuge in You, my Lord, lest they come near me.”
Just because you made an error doesn’t mean you must live in error. We’re human, we make mistakes. We may miss a prayer, but that doesn’t mean stop praying. We might feed into gossip, but that doesn’t mean whenever we talk to someone we engage in gossip. We may be a glutton with food at times, but we don’t have to be a glutton every time. We don’t have to continue to live in error. We all make mistakes, but don’t let those errors define who you are.
Every day and every minute is a new day and a new minute. We must take our opportunities to worship God whenever we can. There is an old saying that goes like this, “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift from God, which is why we call it the ‘present’.” I should live in the present to make every second a new second that I can take the opportunity to be appreciative, patient, unselfish, ask for forgiveness and worship God alone.
[39:66] Therefore, you shall worship GOD alone, and be appreciative.