Revive Your Heart: Putting Life in Perspective

dīn
when
you give 
ṣadaqah
, for example to someone begging outside, you give charity;
you have not helped them, the fact of the matter is they have helped you. They

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become testimony for you on Judgement Day. They become a forgiveness of
your sins. You’ve helped them only in the 
dunyā
, which is nothing to Allah, but
they have helped you in 
ākhirah
, which is everything. This is the change of
attitude. This is: 
Rabbī innī limā anzalta ilayya min khayrin faqīr
.
But also in this 
duʿā’
, the final and equally important piece is that when he
makes this 
duʿā’
, 
Mūsā
(
ʿalayhi al-salām
) is acknowledging that whatever he
has, he has to be grateful for. But at the same time, 
Mūsā
(
ʿalayhi al-salām
)
knows better than any of us—because we’re not in the middle of the desert dying
—that he is in need of food, he is in need of shelter, he is in need of protection,
he is in need of a job, he is in need of these things, but the interesting thing is he
doesn’t ask Allah for any of them. We should ask Allah for everything. Why
doesn’t he ask Allah?, ‘
Yā Allāh
feed me, 
yā Allāh
give me more, 
yā Allāh
provide me a house, y
ā Allāh
fix my life up; I’ve got a problem’. Why doesn’t
he ask for any of it? You see, in saying to Allah that whatever you have given
me, I desperately needed it; he has actually asked Allah. Please try to understand
the subtlety of this statement.
I’ll give you this example to help you understand this concept, because it’s a
very profound concept in our religion. Our children sometimes they are picky
and fussy about what they want to eat, you put vegetables on the dinner table and
say to your son sitting there: ‘eat your carrots’. He responds: ‘No, I don’t want to
eat carrots, I want chocolate’. So he doesn’t want the carrots, he wants
chocolate; he doesn’t want to drink the water, he wants juice; he doesn’t want to
finish the food, he wants ice-cream first. In other words what you give him, he
doesn’t want and what he doesn’t have, he wants. And do you get upset or not?
You get a bit: ‘Why don’t you appreciate what I have done? You need this food.
You’re going to get sick, you need this medicine. You need this dinner. Finish
your food, that’s not good for you’, but he wants what’s not good for him and he
doesn’t care for what is in front of him.
The believer recognizes that whatever Allah gives you, whatever food He put
on the table, whatever job you found, whatever business your doing—not only is
it good enough; you desperately needed it. You don’t get to be fussy with Allah
and tell him, ‘
Yā Allāh
, I don’t know if I want this one’. You don’t get to tell
Allah, ‘I know You provided me this rock or this tree to sit under but if You
could provide me some kind of bedding, it would be better’. ‘I know You gave
me this water over here but maybe some coconuts might help’. No, no, no.
Whatever You have given me, is exactly what I needed and I desperately needed
it. I desperately needed it. What word does he use to describe himself? He uses

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the word ‘
faqīr
’—
innī limā anzalta ilayya min khayrin faqīr
. Do you know the
difference between 
faqīr
and 
miskīn
? Another word in the Qur’an for someone
who is bankrupt, someone who can’t help themselves is 
miskīn
. Allah says:
The alms are meant only for the poor and the needy...
(Al-Tawbah 9: 60)
Allah put those two together, meaning you’re supposed to give