Consistency is important in all our good deeds

[strivingobserver98]

I was cleaning a hard-to-reach corner of a shower glass enclosure at my father's house yesterday, and it was the mission of missions. Tiny little area and it took ages. Don't want to sound like a wuss, but it was really difficult cos' it hadn't been done for ages.

I then thought of the same area of the shower in my own house and realised that it only takes a few seconds because we do it ourselves every week without fail.

Two lessons came to mind:

1. Got to get my Dad a cleaner! ;)

2. Our hearts are like these surfaces, except that dhikr is the cleanser: reading the Qur'an, studying the deen of Allah, attaching yourself to the Masjid, always keeping good company who remind you of your Lord etc.

We have to do this every day. Seriously. A little bit only, nothing too strenuous, and you will keep your heart clean, and requiring only little iman boosts each time for a great effect on your heart.

But if you don't then the heart becomes darker and darker and then it becomes sealed, and then we get desperate. We turn into a Laylat'l-Qadr Muslim where we place all our best hopes on the 27th night doing some incredible one-off cleansing job, or a Hajj Muslim where we hope it can undo the pollution of years of heedlessness.

The Hajj and Laylat'l-Qadr are indeed the King of all Cleaners, but your heart was not designed to be cleansed like this. Just once a year and then let it get black again? They will polish and give it a sheen but you have a deep-rooted problem, a dirt which becomes ingrained and part of the actual heart itself just like you see some surfaces where the stain becomes one with the substance itself and will not leave whatever you try and do.

Your heart starts to seal up if you miss three Jumu'ahs on the run. What then of someone who misses three obligatory prayers in a day, or ten in a week at the Masjid, or looks at the Book of Allah once a month, and so on?

That is why the Prophet (sallallahu 'alayhi wa sallam) told us that the best of actions are the continuous ones, even if they are little. Because cleaning regularly, saves you from not being able to clean it at all one day.

- Abu Eesa