TOOLS IN OUR TOOLBOX

[Ed. note: This is a summary with excerpts from an article in Submitter’s Perspective March 2015. It’s always helpful to consider the tools God gives us in our toolbox to help fight Satan’s influence.]

A good carpenter or mechanic will have a box full of good tools perfect for any job he might need to perform. A good submitter needs a toolbox as well, and God has provided us with the tools we need to keep in there. Our number one priority here is to remember God. GOD ALONE. Everything else will fall in place. Everything is about God; everything belongs to God; is controlled by God. Only God guides, provides, protects and heals. God is Omnipotent.

• Remember God. Whatever occupies your mind most of the time is your god (33:41, 7:205).
• Wake up praising God. Say, “Bismillah” whenever you eat or drink. Thank Him for subduing your car as you drive to work.
• Appreciate the beauty around you and thank God for His creations. Everything we see, hear, smell, taste and feel should instantly remind us of God, our Creator.

• Be thankful for your practices. Salat prayer pulls us away from this world and brings our focus back on God; Zakat charity reminds us that what we have is a gift from God and is meant to be shared; Fasting makes us appreciative of His blessings of food and water and inspires us to remember God frequently.
• Seek forgiveness.  [3:133-36] You should eagerly race towards forgiveness from your Lord and a Paradise whose width encompasses the heavens and the earth; it awaits the righteous, who give to charity during the good times, as well as the bad times. They are suppressors of anger, and pardoners of the people. GOD loves the charitable. If they fall in sin or wrong their souls, they remember GOD and ask forgiveness for their sins―and who forgives the sins except GOD―and they do not persist in sins, knowingly. Their recompense is forgiveness from their Lord, and gardens with flowing streams; they abide therein forever. What a blessed reward for the workers!
• Be appreciative.  [14:7] Your Lord has decreed: “The more you thank Me, the more I give you.” But if you turn unappreciative, then My retribution is severe.

• Find the best tools for your own journey. The tools in your toolbox can come from many places, whatever you find that works for your soul. We need to depend totally on God (22:15), remembering that this life is an illusion (57:20) and that we will be tested (2:214, 3:186), but that God never burdens any soul beyond what it can handle (2:286).

With the subtitle: Conditions for Staying Within God’s Protection, 5:12 makes it clear what we need to do to earn God’s support and favor. [5:12] GOD had taken a covenant from the Children of Israel, and we raised among them twelve patriarchs. And GOD said, “I am with you, so long as you observe the Contact Prayers (Salat), give the obligatory charity (Zakat), and believe in My messengers and respect them, and continue to lend GOD a loan of righteousness. I will then remit your sins, and admit you into gardens with flowing streams. Anyone who disbelieves after this, has indeed strayed off the right path.”

When we do the things we need to do, then God puts a protective force field around believers. We have to keep the field fully charged by using the tools in our toolbox. Satan will try to weaken the force field and slip in through the smallest crack.

Use the tools in your toolbox regularly. They will never break or wear out. With use, they become increasingly more useful. 

Mike