If You Are Thankful : I will Increase You

I wanna tell you about a personal incident that happened to me. I was on an airplane flight and we were arriving, coming towards Jeddah, and so most of the people on the flight were actually going for hajj. Now as this airplane was flying and the food was being distributed on the plane, all of a sudden the airplane just fell out of the sky! You know, literally it just fell out of the sky and dropped. The food trays that we had in front of us had hit the ceiling and initially everybody was just a little shocked, and there was like some screams going out, but the second time that airplane did that, everybody just started shouting out on the airplane, 'AllahuAkbar - Ya Allah' and started calling to Allah subhanahu wata'ala. Everybody getting ready to die.

Now that was a very intense incident for me and when I landed, Alhamdulillah and Allah subhanahuwata'ala saved us and I'm here with you today, I opened up my journal and I learned a valuable lesson. I looked in my journal and I noticed that the last time I had opened up my journal was the last time something painful had happened to me, and then there were many blank pages and then now this incident happened and then I realized at that point that I'm only turning to Allah subhanahu wata'ala when something painful comes upon me. Hmmm...

And [remember] when your Lord proclaimed, 'If you are grateful, I will surely increase you [in favor]; but if you deny, indeed, My punishment is severe.' (Sahih International)

Allah subhanahu wata'ala says in the Quran...'And remember, when you Lord proclaimed that if you are thankful, I will increase you.' Now see, I understood from this airplane, and realizing that I was only turning back to Allah subhanahu wata'ala during pain; that I needed to be more thankful. See there's two schools. There is the school of pain and that brings people back to Allah subhanahu wata'ala, but there is also the school of thankfulness. Meaning, when the good times come, if you are thankful to Allah subhanahu wata'ala, you can actually have more good things coming in to your life, because that is the promise of Allah subhanahu wata'ala for those who are thankful.

 - Sheikh Muhammad Alshareef