Use blessings and hardships to grow
“Every moment you spend in trial, every moment you spend in difficulty, it's a mercy from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.”
A believer should use intellect to recognize blessings and understand hardships as opportunities for gratitude, patience, purification, and spiritual growth.
The khutbah in 6 steps
- The believer benefits from both blessings through gratitude and hardships through patience.
- Everyday work, family, health, and mobility are blessings requiring deliberate reflection.
- Hardships may lead to growth or protect believers from greater trials.
- Trials can cultivate recognition of Allah’s power, sincerity, humility, patience, purification, and gratitude.
- Listeners receive practical instructions to pause before reacting and reflect daily.
- The khutbah closes with supplication for gratitude, wisdom, and beneficial use of intellect.
In the khateeb's words
“How wonderful is the case of a believer! There is good for him in everything. And this applies only to the believer.”
“In order to actually understand and appreciate the blessings we have been given, the hardships that we are put through, we have to use our intellect.”
“Every moment you spend in trial, every moment you spend in difficulty, it's a mercy from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. He is purifying you.”
“Five minutes a day, every single day, can turn you into a completely different believer within just a few months or a year.”
For the dinner table
The khateeb reminded us that a believer can find good in both blessings and hardships: blessings invite gratitude, and hardships invite patience. Ordinary things such as work, children, a spouse, health, and mobility are gifts we should notice before we lose sight of them. Difficult experiences may also protect us from a greater trial and can lead us toward humility, sincerity, patience, purification, and gratitude. This week, we can pause for five seconds before reacting and pause again to name the blessings behind an ordinary moment. He also encouraged five minutes of daily reflection on the Qur'an, a hadith, or the events of the day.
- What blessing in our family do you sometimes overlook, and how could you thank Allah for it?
- When something frustrates you, what might a five-second pause help you notice before you respond?
- What would you like to reflect on during five minutes each day: the Qur'an, a hadith, or your day?
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