May the peace, mercy, and blessings of Allah be upon you.
May the peace, mercy, and blessings of Allah be upon you.
The Prophet taught us that all of our deeds are in essence based on the Qur'an.
And that we get rewarded in accordance with that intention.
So let's say you had planned to read a certain amount of Qur'an at a certain part of the day, and you got stuck in traffic coming home from work, and it just kind of got out from under you. So what do you do? Just remember that Allah still rewarded you because this was your intention.
And as long as we keep making sincere intentions, we just move forward. And we haven't lost anything, and it's not a reason to despair or become hopeless or give up on being able to move forward from here.
The second practical tip is the greatest reset button that Allah has given us, which is that is to make istighfar, it's tawbah.
We're weak, and we say we're not going to lose our cool, we're going to be patient, but somebody cuts you off in line, or there's a little argument that becomes a little more than it should.
SubhanAllah, this is what happens to many of us, and we regret it and we feel guilty. But this is not a reason to give up and think that your Ramadan is ruined.
Just simply restore that relationship with Allah subhanAllah with sincere istighfar, and fix it, make the intention to correct it going forward,
correct it with the people involved, if necessary, and inshallah, you will be turning that into something positive, into reward and motivation again, that all is not lost, so I can continue forward strong.
Third practical tip I have is how to use your time to work for you. So making time work for you. This is the biggest reason many times that we do lose track of our list of goals.
We feel that we just don't have enough time in the day because life goes on, work goes on, school goes on, parenting has to go on. And so we get overwhelmed easily, particularly when we're trying to add on things that we want to be able to do in Ramadan.
The simple way to look at this is a shift in perspective, that every moment is actually an opportunity to be in the service to Allah subhanAllah,
and to His creation, and this becomes reward. So making the intention to be in something that would be pleasing to Allah subhanAllah,
that would bring reward to us, just in our everyday tasks and chores that we know we have to do, like preparing a meal for the family or dropping the kids off to school, this can easily be turned into something that's rewardable.
And using that time, really squeezing every minute you can, so maybe listening to Quran in the car on your way to work. So these are ways that we can continue to build and not feel like we've lost anything.
And the final point is perhaps one of the most important for us to remember is that my Ramadan is not your Ramadan. This is personal to each of us, and it's our one-on-one connection with Allah subhanAllah that we're really working to build this month.
So we're each of us on our own spiritual journey, and it's really about focusing on one thing that you want to improve this Ramadan.
Maybe it's just the way you speak, maybe it's the connection to Quran that you want to develop a little better in understanding.
And so looking at Ramadan through that perspective of just wanting to better yourself and to be able to build new habits in Ramadan
and continue them forward afterwards rather than comparing yourself to that person who maybe seems to be able to get it all done during Ramadan. So I pray that Allah subhanAllah accepts all of our fasting and our good deeds and our sincere duas this month.
Jazakumullahu khairan for watching. Assalamu alaikum.
