WE WILL TEST YOU WITH GOOD AND EVIL

 

 

{ وَنَبۡلُوكُم بِٱلشَّرِّ وَٱلۡخَیۡرِ فِتۡنَةࣰۖ وَإِلَیۡنَا تُرۡجَعُونَ }

 

[Surah Al-Anbiyāʾ: 35]

 

WE WILL TEST YOU WITH GOOD AND EVIL

 

Yousuf AS was incredibly good looking. Musa AS was unusually strong.

 

Yousuf’s gift was turned against him. It became the reason for so much grief in his life. Musa AS s strength became a great trial and brought him so much pain.

 

What Allah has gifted you and me with can be the source of a lot of good in our lives. But it may also be connected to our greatest turmoil. May be that’s what Allah will test us with most. But there’s more.

 

The devil knows your gifts too. And he wants to use people around you to turn those gifts and make them feel like a curse. Allah hasn’t just blessed you with outwardly goodness like looks, bodily strength, wealth or intellect. Sometimes He’s given you qualities like empathy or patience or kindness or a giving nature or a love of spreading goodness or an ability to be good counsel etc. The devil observes these qualities in you and he wants to rob you of them. How does he do it?

 

If you’re kind, the devil might incite some people in your life who you’ve been nothing but kind to, to be the worst towards you. If you’re a helper he may incite some you helped to strike at you as if you’re an enemy. If you’re a giver the devil might use someone you gave to accuse you of being greedy. If you’re a teacher he might use a student to call you ignorant. The bottom line is, he might use those you served or were good to in some way and get them to be bad to you. Our prophet SAW came with the message that binds hearts together and strengthens the bonds of kinship and family. Those closest to him in his family accused him of breaking families apart.

 

And why does the devil do this? So those gifts Allah gave you...the gift of giving or teaching or helping or being merciful or empathetic or caring or patient etc. that you say to yourself that those aren’t gifts. They’re just something people take advantage of. They’re a curse instead. You should stop wasting your time and just care about yourself. Live your own life.

 

And in doing so he robs you of the gifts Allah gave you that you were supposed to use to please Him. Remember that those gifts are there so YOU find purpose. He wants to see how much you cherish these gifts. They’re not cheap and they’re not free.

 

What pain caused by people are you willing to overcome to not let go of what Allah gave you? That will show to you and to your God what value His gifts hold in your heart. Don’t let the compassion that drives you to serve people be poisoned by their lack of appreciation or even their unjustified venom.

 

Don’t let your mind be overrun by those who hurt you. Let them be a dot in your rear-view mirror that keeps getting smaller. You have much bigger things to do in life than letting the devil preoccupy you with those who tried robbing you of your gifts.

 

Your best response to them is to ignore them and to do better than you ever did before. Nothing burns them, and the devil, more.

 

Shaykh  -Nouman Ali Khan