Renewing our hearts

02/04/2009| IslamWeb

BY SAHAR KASSAIMAH

Do you feel overwhelmed by the many chores you have? Do you feel that you don’t have a minute to spare during your busy life? Do you long for the days when you were performing your worship with a much softer heart and more tearful eyes?

If your answer is yes, don't worry and don’t ever think that you are the only one who is short of time and who feels a great need to renew his heart and get closer to Allah.

Amidst daily busy schedules, we all go through the ups and downs of Eemaan (faith). Sometimes we catch up quickly and sometimes it takes us a little longer. But when the downs get prolonged, we might need to start worrying. The worst-case scenario is when we get used to having no time for worship. Subsequently, we stop blaming ourselves for not doing better and we don’t try to get closer to Allah.

Everywhere we go we might meet many moms complaining about the lack of time and plenty of responsibilities. Some of them could be working moms who never return home before 6:00 or 7:00 p.m. They might feel guilty for leaving kids at Daycare and not spending enough time with them. They return dead tired from work and sometimes in bad moods so that they don’t feel like they want to play or talk to their youngsters about religion. Other moms might be undergraduate or graduate students who feel broken between schoolwork and home responsibilities. Staying at home moms could also be among those who complain about not being able to distribute their time between shopping, cooking, children’s homework and carpools.

These complaining moms could have different ways of life and different excuses for not performing their worship as they used to, but they all agree that something needs to be done to renew their hearts and get closer to Allah. But the questions here are: Could getting busy be a good excuse for us to neglect our religious duties and responsibilities?

Is it really the lack of time and plenty of responsibilities that should be blamed in this regard or is it rather the shortness of Iman (faith) and persistence?

If we honestly think about it, we will notice that our excuses only or mostly shown up in times of worship. There could be enough time to go to work, take new courses, study, get extra work, shop around, socialize or sleep. But when it is Prayer or Quran time, plenty of chores and daily responsibilities jump up to the front. It is the ‘Oops’ time when we start hearing, “Oops, I forgot to change my baby’s diaper. Oops, I didn’t put the food in the oven, or I didn't pick up my son from soccer practice.” Our kids’ needs and requests will never stop and our houses’ chores and daily responsibilities are always on the rise. But we need to ask ourselves how much time it will take us to make Prayer? Five to ten minutes? What ill happen if we pray on time and then go back to what we were doing? How much time could it take us to read some Quran? Fifteen to thirty minutes?

Why are these ‘Oops’ and these excuses not there with the boss at work or the professor at college? Simply because they won’t accept our excuses and they won’t allow us to skip our homework or responsibilities. With life matters, we never exceed the limits because we know there are some red lines that no one should cross, otherwise we will be kicked out of the game.

Then, let’s agree that despite the busy schedules we all have, we will always have enough time for our worship.

Let's prioritize our chores

 

All that we need is to go over our priorities to find out where our worship are exactly from our priorities. We need to prioritize our chores and responsibilities. If offering Prayer on time is one of our top priorities, we will never delay our Prayer. If satisfying Allah comes before satisfying ourselves, kids and husbands, we will find a lot of time for our worship. We need not to blame it on time, for if we intend to be better about worship, we will be surprised by how much time we could have between our chores and daily responsibilities.

A friend of mine was always complaining about not making Prayer on time. She was always offering Prayer at the last moment, believing she is so busy and has no choice in changing that. Once she noticed that her 12 year-old is doing much better than her in Prayer. He keeps a Prayer time schedule on his desk to perform it on time. Although she felt proud of him, she felt ashamed of herself for not being able to be like him, it was like a message from Allah to remind her of what she taught her son. He didn't forget her first lessons to him on how important it is to perform Prayer on time. So he prioritized his schedule and his Prayers were in the first level. She asked herself, ‘How could I forget what I taught my son to do? How can I be a role model for him if I am not doing what I say? What can I tell Allah when He asks me about that?” So, sometimes unexpected inspirations come through unexpected people to help us in renewing our hearts.

But making Prayer on time is not enough. We also need not rush in our Prayer. For offering Prayer without khushoo’ is another face of delinquency. It happens sometimes that we remember all of our chores while starting our Prayer. It is when we raise our hands to say Allahu Akbar that we remember where we have hidden the key, how to solve the math problem or what to cook fur our guests tomorrow. If we don’t pay attention and realize that it is not the right time to think of these things, all of our problems and challenges will jump in front of our eyes to rob us of our khusoo’.

Why do we have to remember all of our chores at this particular moment? It is just because we forget to renew our heart and intention before we enter into Prayer. If we take a few seconds before starting Prayer to remember that we are talking to Allah, we will remember that there is nothing in this life that deserves our attention during these precious few moments. If we intend to purely save these few minutes in our Hereafter’s account, we will try our best to focus on our Prayer. One day, we will all be in need of these savings.

 

Easy-to-do worship

 

But what else besides performing our Prayer and reading our Quran could get us closer to Allah? There are some easy- to do Prayer that won’t take any time or effort, but would bring us a lot of reward. It is the contemplation time. Have you ever tried to look around while you drive your car or wait out side for your kids? I am sure we all do because the world around us is so beautiful that we enjoy looking at it. It is a great pleasure to look at Allah's creations and enjoy the great mountains, the green colored trees, the blue sky and the beautiful birds. Sometimes this beautiful gallery around us makes us feel as if the whole world is making tasbeeh with us or chanting a thankful song to Allah. Watching and thinking of Allah's wonders is one of the great worship that could get us much closer to Allah.

Let’s be specific

 

On our way back to Allah, it is helpful to be specific in determining what our problem is. If we put our finger directly on what really needs to he changed, we won't lose our time with empty excuses and false statements. We need to specify whether our problem is with obligatory worship or Sunah and whether it is with our performance, sincerity or intentions. It will help us in determining which area we should work on first. And of course obligatory worship always comes before the Sunah since we will first be asked about the obligatory. So we shouldn’t be as worried about not offering Sunah Prayer if we have problems with the obligatory Prayers.

There is much we could do that will help us in renewing our hearts. And the more hopeful we are, the more likely we will achieve our goals. Sincerity with Allah is the first step towards changing ourselves and Du'aa will help us stay in the right path.

One of the things that could be of help as well is to go step by step in our way to changing ourselves. For no one can change in one day. We need to agive time a chance to play its role. And after all, we should never give up and keep trying to get closer to Allah for renewing our hearts is a great goal that deserves a lot of our effort and times to achieve it.