Being Giants.......

Haha, yes thats strange coming from me..........But no we're not talking physical giants here. We're talking think big, aim high and be the best.
And who else but could inspire me like that.......Yes you faithful Al maghribers, no one but our dear think tank of a teacher Muhammad al shareef, masha'Allah. SubhanAllah i've had this lecture of his 'On The Shoulders of Giants' for ages on my comp but never actually heard it. But Alhamdulillah, with a bit of spare time i had at 2am last night i downloaded it on to my MP3 (Ipod what?!). And subhanAllah, listening to it on the bus this morning, made me want to somersaults on the bus, or rather my eeman was doing somersaults, Alhamdulillah, made me realise i still have my companion - eeman. Now to nurture it...........

Anyway, the audio basically was saying that we should not be afraid or hinder our potential. You want your son to be the next imam of Makkah, you go for it. You want to be a scholaress, girl we're waiting for you!! In fact we could be anything we want as long as it is something pleasing to Allah and we are sincere in our intention and action. And this point he said towards the end really hit home. He said in Cananda there was a stall selling T-shirts and it had splattered over it AIM LOW.....THEN YOU'LL NEVER BE DISAPPOINTED.
And subhanAllah i myself have thought that and i've definitely have been advised to be like that numerous times by different individuals. Or the 'don't get your hopes up that way you won't get disappointed.' Granted we should be realistic and not live in some fantasy world. But indeed the person who has no hope or ambition must live a sad and miserable life. Its like vowing not to love in case you get hurt. And what miss out on all the opportunities of Mercy Allah has blessed us with. Same priniciple. Such people are miserly with their time, energy and abilities. If you don't achieve it; try again. Big deal, we fail right. Oh did that really hurt your ego? So we stop ourself from doing something we can do but refuse to do because we don't want to fail...again.

I speak to myself, because in my head im counting the things that i've refrained from doing because i don't want to fail or feel miserable over. We have to handle our failures and mistakes, its all part of being human. Hence the du'aa in Surah Al Baqarah 'O our Lord forgive us if we forget or fall into error.' Our Lord knows us better than we do. And He, subhana wa Ta'ala knows our capabilities. So if we have an idea bring it into existence, because Allah put it their in the first place (Still being realistic with oneself though). And don't burden yourself more then you can bear because Allah, the Most Merciful does not task us more than we can take on.

At the end of it, and this is how our dear brother Muhammad al Shareef concludes, we will only fly high if our worship of Allah is the dominating force in our life. We must have that connection with our Lord, the stronger the connection the higher we go. He gave an example of a kite. The longer the string, the higher it will fly. The string is our eeman. The kite is our ability.
You know when you're on eeman high you feel like you're walking on air. But as for many of us we have our sins dragging us down to earth. SubhanAllah we have so much of ourselves to deal with. Starting with repentance because as Adam (Alayhi salam) knew it was the only way forward and our Merciful Lord accepted his words of repentance. So he still saved himself a place in Jannah. We can aswell, bi tawfique Allah.
Aim high, aim for the highest place in Paradise. Insha'Allah.