Is that all?
Whenever I come across something we’re encouraged to do as part of getting closer to God, or getting rewarded in the hereafter, there’s always a part inside me that wonders; is that really all? I mean, we pray 12 rakahs of sunnah a day, then get a house in Jannah just for that? We say alhamdulillah after eating, then have all our sins forgiven because of a single line of duaa? We make istighfar before Fajr, and are guaranteed an answer to whatever our heart desires just like that? How is that even possible? I get that we’re dealing with the Most Merciful of all, and yet something always doesn’t add up inside my head. The reward is never in line with the actual weight of the act.
Only recently have I realized it’s never about how ‘simple’ an act of worship is, but rather about the actual effort God knows shaytan will exert to stop a person from doing it. It’s not so much about the deed itself, as much as it’s about fighting back the forces that try to stop it from happening. Shaytan will distract us so bad, we’ll end up unconsciously forgetting to say that simple alhamdulillah. He’ll keep us on our phones late into the night, that we never even make it to a single rakah of Fajr. He’ll make sure to have us choose dunya over anything else, that the reward rather ends up being for making a conscious decision to always choose God over that. And how very comforting it is, to realize He’ll always be on our side as we fight against all that. 💕
