Have you stopped trying to look good for your spouse? It's common for people to get into a place in their relationship where they just get really comfortable and they stop caring so much and part of that is with the way they dress, and the way they look, the way they put themselves together. Especially after, like the honeymoon phase or whatever, where you get into a groove with the relationship, it's easy to kinda let go.
And subahaanAllah, one of the rights that our spouse has upon us is that we dress up and we look good for them, we look good so that we are pleasing to them, so they like looking at us and they like being around us. And subahaanAllah, one of the companions, Ibn Abbas (RA), he would actually say...
He said, 'I love to beautify myself for my wife just as I love for my wife to beautify herself for me.'
Meaning just like you would like this from your spouse, likewise you would like it from yourself. And subahaanAllah, sometimes when people are having problems in their relationships, just making an effort to look nice, and dress well and take care of yourself, sometime that's all it takes to push the relationship in a positive direction. And subahaanAllah, the more you love someone actually, the more you should care about the way you look. The closer you are to someone, the longer the relationship goes on, the harder you should be trying to look good for your spouse. And Allah SWT knows best.
You live in a drama. We need to start living in reality. What do I mean by this? Our drama, brothers and sisters and friends, is our previous experiences, our limited perspectives, ideas, interactions with others and we take all of that and we super impose it on to reality, on to the present. We are always living in the past from that perspective because we are so attached, our egos become so attached to, 'but he did that before' and 'she's always been like that!' etc. etc... And you superimpose that onto reality. So as if we have three filing cabinets in life - the filing cabinet of the past, the filing cabinet of the present, and the filing cabinet of the future and we take the files from the past and we are always putting it into the future, so we are never living the present and our whole life and the rest of our life is just one big retake of our past. This is ridiculous! This drama and reality is not the same thing. And the reason we think it is the same thing is because of the ego.
And [mention, O Muhammad], when your Lord said to the angels, "Indeed, I will make upon the earth a successive authority." They said, "Will You place upon it one who causes corruption therein and sheds blood, while we declare Your praise and sanctify You?" Allah said, "Indeed, I know that which you do not know." (Sahih International)
When we reflect upon the Quran, Sura Baqara, Chapter 2, verse 30, we can really derive this knowledge. Allah says to the angels. He announces that He is gonna send down a vicegerent on earth and the angels reply, 'are you gonna send someone down to create bloodshed, calamity while we sing Your praises?' What does Allah say, 'I know that which you do not know.' Ibn Kathir, the classical commentator, essentially says that, 'God has a totality of wisdom and knowledge, we have its particular.' God has the picture, we have the pixel. So, this should really teach us about our own lives! Are we gonna live in our own drama, our limited experiences? Just like what the angels said! 'Before Adam, before this man you are gonna send down this vicegerent on earth, there was bloodshed! So therefore, what are you going to do now, is going to be the same.' But Allah says, 'Don't think like this! Don't be like this! Don't be in a state of being that you are always living on your own ego.' Your own interpretation of the past! Your limited experiences of the past, super imposing on everybody else, on yourself, your family and the entire world! This is why you are living a circle! Your whole life is a one big circle. But Allah says, He knows that which we don't!
So if we truly rely on Allah and His wisdom and we understand that my previous experiences just like the angels, my previous understanding, my limited ideas, thoughts and perspectives are not reality and I can't super impose them on the present, or on the future all the time because they are not reality. I rely on God's wisdom and plan. Then it creates a new realm of possibility for us to do what we can to interact with others in a positive way and the past is just the past, meaningless! Absolutely meaningless from this perspective! So just by reflecting on one small verse in the Quran, it enables you to have a new realm of possibilities with other people. So divorce your drama from reality! It's meaningless! Be a black canvas and connect with people in ways that they should be connected with. Not via the lenses and prism of your limited experiences and perspectives.
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.
