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to the illusion of this life. Just play your part in this world gracefully and go back to God’s kingdom with great triumph. May He admit us into His kingdom out of His mercy.
A Great Triumph
[3:185] Every person tastes death, then you receive your recompense on the Day of Resurrection. Whoever misses Hell, barely, and makes it to Paradise, has attained a great triumph. The life of this world is no more than an illusion.
The Inevitable Test*
[3:186] You will certainly be tested, through your money and your lives, and you will hear from those who received the scripture, and from the idol worshipers, a lot of insult. If you steadfastly persevere and lead a righteous life, this will prove the strength of your faith.
*3:186 After passing the admission tests, the proven worshipers of God ALONE enjoy a perfect life, now and forever. See 10:62, 24:55, and 29:2-3.
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One of the big struggles in this world is not for money, but for attention. Your attention is worth money, so much so that we have people bidding on our attention actively as we speak and putting a price on it. Ever wonder why so many online services are free? It’s the ads: “If you give your attention to this ad, it will let you get what you want.”
It’s an ongoing challenge – people are actively fighting for our attention in this world. Distractions are everywhere and are endless. You can spend your whole life distracted, and unfortunately many people do, may God protect us.
“My Distraction Sickness — and Yours” by Andrew Sullivan. This article appears in the September 19, 2016, issue of New York Magazine:
“The roar and disruption of the Industrial Revolution violated what quiet still remained until modern capitalism made business central to our culture and the ever-more efficient meeting of needs and wants our primary collective goal. We became a civilization of getting things done — with the development of America, in some ways, as its crowning achievement. Silence in modernity became, over the centuries, an anachronism, even a symbol of the useless superstitions we had left behind. The smartphone revolution of the past decade can be seen in some ways simply as the final twist of this ratchet, in which those few remaining redoubts of quiet — the tiny cracks of inactivity in our lives — are being methodically filled with more stimulus and noise.
“And yet our need for quiet has never fully gone away, because our practical achievements, however spectacular, never quite fulfill us. They are always giving way to new wants and needs, always requiring updating or repairing, always falling short….
“But this new epidemic of distraction is our civilization’s specific weakness. And its threat is not so much to our minds, even as they shape-shift under the pressure. The threat is to our souls. At this rate, if the noise does not relent, we might even forget we have any.”
We can forget who we are as individuals, what makes us motivated, the good that we should bring to the world. Instead, it only becomes a projection of what others define as “good”, which is a dangerous pit to fall into.
How can we counter this? We need to reinforce the good that God tells us to do, the deeds that are going to go with us. Positive reinforcement. Reinforce the reality, and the reality is God knows everything we do. The reality is that we get rewarded for our good deeds:
[10:61] You do not get into any situation, nor do you recite any Quran, nor do you do anything, without us being witnesses thereof as you do it. Not even an atom’s weight is out of your Lord’s control, be it in the heavens or the earth. Nor is there anything smaller than an atom, or larger, that is not recorded in a profound record.
Use this record. We know about it, but do we take advantage of it? Is it something that we have to wait for on the day it is given to us? Are we not aware of what we are doing? Take advantage of this knowledge. Be mindful of doing good and repent for the bad.
[69:18] On that day, you will be exposed, nothing of you can be hidden. [69:19] As for the one who receives his record with his right hand, he will say, “Come read my record. [69:20] “I did believe that I was going to be held accountable.” [69:21] He has deserved a happy life. [69:22] In an exalted Paradise. [69:23] Its fruits are within reach. [69:24] Eat and drink happily in return for your works in days past.
[69:25] As for him who is given his record in his left hand, he will say, “Oh, I wish I never received my record. [69:26] “I wish I never knew my account. [69:27] “I wish my death was eternal. [69:28] “My money cannot help me. [69:29] “All my power is gone.” [69:30] Take him and shackle him. [69:31] Burn him in Hell.
Let us day in, day out positively reinforce this record. Acknowledge the good that we do and write it to our own record, by God’s grace. It is true that only God knows the final record, but we know what we do day in and day out. We can acknowledge the good works, thank God for being able to do them, and get a sense of how much awareness we have of the Hereafter.
Acknowledgment of this record helps our minds focus on the true life and filter out the distractions. We can concentrate on the truth: The fact that God is holding us accountable for our deeds. The fact that whatever we do to advance
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