Revive Your Heart: Putting Life in Perspective

Mūsā
(
ʿalayhi al-salām
), not too long ago, accidentally killed
somebody. He punched someone while he was defending another man, and the
Coptic soldier of 
Firʿawn
(Pharaoh) die. And so he’s run from this and, by the
way, he felt guilty about what happened. He made 
duʿā’
to Allah to forgive him
for what happened, but he still feels guilt inside of him. When you feel guilty
inside of you, what should you do? This is a lesson about making mistakes, all of
us have made mistakes in our lives; all of us pretty much have done things that
aren’t exactly what Allah expected us to do. What do you do after you make a
mistake? And by the way, some of our mistakes are small and some of our
mistakes are very big. The mistake that 
Mūsā
(
ʿalayhi al-salām
) made is to take
another person’s life; that is not a small mistake. If you or I made that kind of a
mistake, we would have a hard time sleeping for the rest of our lives. If you have
any conscience, this would be the kind of thing that could haunt you for the rest
of your life; you would not be able to get over it. It’s not something you would

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just forget about.
Say you spoke ill of someone, or you lost your temper, or maybe you forgot
at the time and you did some backbiting or whatever, these are mistakes; but you
forget about them. You don’t remember what you did two years ago, you forget.
But if you accidentally killed someone, that’s serious business. So what I am
trying to tell you is that we, you and I, have made mistakes in our past; but for
some of us those mistakes are so big in our mind, we are never able to move on
with life. We are never able to think past that mistake— we’re constantly
thinking about that mistake. This 
duʿā’
is teaching us that if you have a mistake
in your past, if you’ve done something really bad in your past—and I’m pretty
confident that it’s not the same as the mistake of 
Mūsā
(
ʿalayhi al-salām
); I’m
pretty sure that the police aren’t out looking for you for murder—anything short
of that you should be covered. Allah gave us this extreme example, so that we
could understand, if Allah will cover that one; then I’m covered, I’m okay, mine
is not as bad. So now, what is the lesson here? The lesson here is that if you have
made a mistake then you should be desperate to find opportunities to do good
things for people.
Mūsā
(
ʿalayhi al-salām
) is almost dead from dehydration and starvation, he’s
barely surviving, and he sees two women in need of help. What does he do? He
gets up and helps them. Why in the world would he get up and—they didn’t ask
for help; he just sees this opportunity. He didn’t say: ‘Okay, let me just get a
little bit of a rest and then maybe I will figure out what is going on over there’;
or he could have just assumed on his own: they are waiting for these men to
finish. He’s a smart man, he could figure all of this out himself. But the fact that
he felt the urge to go and help them is because he is desperate to help. If you
have any mistakes in your past there should be a fire inside of you to want to do
good things. Every time there is an opportunity, no matter how tired you are, no
matter how exhausted you are, no matter how unmotivated you are, you motivate
yourself. And what should motivate you? The mistake of your past.
So one of the meanings of this 
duʿā’
is: ‘
Yā Allāh
, I’ve made a pretty bad
mistake in my past so whatever opportunity you give me to make up for it, I will
take it. I could desperately use that. So thank you so much for giving me the
chance, the honour of helping these women’. Please listen to that again, ‘Thank
you for giving me the honour of helping these women’. When you help
someone, you are not honouring them; they are honouring you. In our