As a Muslim, I try my best to put God my number one priority of worship. But frankly, I never find this easy. It is a constant struggle. The rivers of life have strong currents, and I often get drowned or washed away to places where I’m not supposed to be.
A Muslim’s basic belief is that there is nothing worthy of worship but God. Every Muslim knows this. But many, like myself, struggle to implement this consistently with no compromise in their actions.
Idolatry, the worship of anything other than God, is prohibited in Islam. It is usually understood as direct worship, in the traditional sense, when a person prays or conducts religious rituals for pleasing a deity. However, worshiping other than God has many different levels and forms. In a general sense, it can mean prioritizing anything other than God.
We put things ahead of God all of the time. We put work ahead of God. We put people ahead of God. We put fame ahead of God. We put wealth ahead of God. We even put play ahead of God. The most subtle, but equally dangerous is putting our ego and desires ahead of God. We put in so much dedication to those things as if we worship them.
In the end, we are all worshipers of something, at many different levels. We decide what we choose to worship, and is something that we need to think deeply about. We need to be critical of ourselves. Forget about judging others, as everyone is struggling with different issues. Life is short, and we are responsible to to make sense of it as best as we can. What is our purpose? What is our end game? We need to strive and put in the effort to answer these difficult questions. And we should do so before our time runs out.
God knows best.
Reflection of An Nisa verse 116
#quran #worship #idolatry #struggle #islam
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