Are you "snooze-ing" His reminders?; 24 Desember 2019
بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ
In the name of Allah, the most Gracious, the most Merciful
 |
| Foto oleh Miriam Alonso |
One of the mornings last week, I woke up with a sudden jolt from the alarm that was blaring. It was either coming from K’s phone or mine and K, almost intuitively, “snoozed” the alarm and went back straight to sleep. So did I.
This pattern then repeated itself, with K and I taking turns to flick the almost desperate cries of the alarms off. Before we knew it, an hour has elapsed, and thus it began: our frantic morning.
Unfortunately, this scenario is not just a one-off event, and from speaking to some of my closest ones, it’s something that a lot of us struggle with: this negotiation process that you have within yourself, the all too familiar “just 5 minutes more” tug of war between your good conscience and your cheekier counterpart.
The funny (or sad?) thing is, we actually know that we will be hitting those “snooze” buttons, which is why we often set our alarms every 5 minutes, like this:
 |
| This is my 'actual' alarms look like on my phone 😉 |
-
Regretting the hour that I've just wasted, I sat silently while eating my breakfast and wondered about this far-fetched idea of anyone ever being able to just spring or jump out of bed. "Doesn't this just happen in the overly orchestrated morning routine YouTube videos or self-help books?", I asked out loud. And within a split second, Allah placed something in my heart which reminded me of the time where I actually did roll out of bed without the need of an alarm. The times where I actually took extra care to make sure I got my sacred one on one time with Him. The times where I felt excited to sit at my desk and just, write. The times where I use the blessed hours of the morning not being on my phone, but to just... be.
But what happened?
I could give a million reasons, and "snooze" my way out of this too, but who am I kidding? I know that these "reasons" are just excuses, as the truth of the matter is I've just been lazy, and laziness is a disease of the heart.
With that realisation, I exhaled sharply and made the intention to begin and seize my day. I wanted to acknowledge this deafening "alarm" that Allah has sent me this morning, the one that reminded me of my laziness, and I made a promise to myself to not live my life in a slumber anymore.
-
Lucky for us, our Rabb knows just how sorely we need constant "signs" and "reminders" like the ones I just had so that we can be, and do, better. He will continue to send us regular and periodic "alerts" to snap us out of heedlessness and oblivion out of His Love for us.
But...
If we have been stubbornly "snoozing" His alarms, then chances are, we will not only be wasting hours and hours of our lives "sleeping", but far worse than that, on the Day of Reckoning when we are finally awakened and summoned out of our graves, that frantic panic we will feel will be a million times worse than the frantic morning I just had.
And I pray none of us will ever be in that state.
-
With every reminder or alarm that Allah sends us, it should stir something in us to promptly spring into action. And it's that immediacy in taking action that will actually ensure us to win in this life and the next, In Sha Allah. Because like they say, "when you snooze, you lose."
One of the best stories that I can share with you about the power of taking immediate action upon Allah evoking something in our hearts, is of Sayyidina Umar RA (and it's one of my personal favourites). His conversion story is a beautiful one, so if you have time, please do read up about it - but here's the gist:
Before Sayyidina Umar RA embraced Islam, he was actually against Rasulullah SAW and had a deep hatred for the message that Rasulullah was trying to spread. He was even on his way to kill Rasulullah SAW when he ran into Na'im ibn Abdullah, who upon knowing Sayyidina Umar RA's intention, said to him, “By Allah, you have been overcome with anger to the extent that you cannot think properly. Oh Umar! Do you think Banu Abd-Manaf will let you remain on this earth if you kill Muhammed?! Why do you not return to your family and arrange your own affairs instead?”
So Sayyidina Umar asked, “What is the matter with my family?”
Na’im ibn Abdullah said, “Your sister’s husband, i.e. your brother-in-law, the son of your uncle Said ibn Zayd, and your sister Fatima, by Allah, they have embraced Islam and they follow Muhammed and his religion.”
Fuming, and feeling extremely betrayed (because he loves his sister a whole lot!), he stormed to his sister's home and upon entering, heard the recitation of the Quran.
He then asked his sister and her husband Said ibn Zaid RA, “Have you left the faith of your forefathers?” And enraged, he then began attacking his sister and her husband. But when he saw the blood on her sister because of the hurt he had inflicted, he began feeling guilty. He then apologized to his sister and requested to read the words of the Qur’an. His sister then told him to clean himself (as he was going to read the sacred words of God!) and when he was reading the first few verses of Surah Taha, calm descended upon him, and Islam began to enter his heart.
When that happened, Sayyidina Umar RA immediately went to Rasulullah SAW, but now with a grander intention of proclaiming his faith to Islam, instead of his initial plan of actually killing Rasulullah SAW. What a complete 180!
The immediacy that Sayyidina Umar RA had, upon receiving this "alarm" or this reminder from Allah when He first read the verses from Surah Taha, is what inspires me. Imagine if he were to take his time to embrace Islam (i.e. "snoozed")?
-
I pray that may we lose the complacency of delaying our intentions of coming back to Him. I pray that we recognise what immense blessing it is for Allah to consistently send us signs and reminders, because He does this from a place of Love, Mercy and Guidance. And I pray that may we not be from those who turn a blind eye to these signs, nor of the "snoozers", but of the winners, and the early risers, amin.
Love and prayers always,
A
.jpg)
Tidak ada komentar
Posting Komentar