What Did God Promise Me?

June 15, 2022

God has created us in this world so that we obey His commands and worship Him. During the journey of life, we are dependent on His love and mercy, and through His grace, He manifests these qualities upon us in numerous different ways. God has made it an obligation upon Himself to be merciful to us. He states, “Your Lord has decreed for Himself to be All-Merciful.”1 Out of His incredible grace, he has promised us many things in the Holy Quran, many of which He does not have to gift us, as He is the Creator and One to which we are in a mandatory state of obedience. Upon reflection of God’s promises to us, we are immediately moved to recognizing and appreciating just how incredible our Lord is and why we should love being obedient to Him.

Call on Him, and He Will Respond to You

As human beings in this world, it is natural for us to want and need certain things in different stages of our lives. For example, when we are very young, we want an endless number of toys, games, and other objects that make us happy. As we grow older, our desires and needs change, so we want things like fancy cars and money. As adults, we want financial stability, a good spouse, children, and good health. When we go through hardships and calamities, we need help to overcome these trials. In every stage of our lives, we are in a state of need. When we find ourselves in these situations, there is only one place where we can look to find what we are looking for. God states, “Pray to Me for I shall answer your prayers.”2 We must always remember to ask God for anything that we need or want, big or small. He is the ultimate provider and has promised to answer us. All we have to do is turn to Him and ask.

If We are Grateful, He will Give More

If we look around us, everything we have is a blessing from God. From the second we were placed in the womb of our mothers until this very day, God has made sure we have everything we need to survive and find success. When we were born, we cried because we came into an uncertain world, but He blessed us with parents who took care of us. He gave us air to breathe, food to eat, the warmth of the sun, and beautiful sunrises and sunsets to gaze upon. These are all gifts from our Creator for which we should be ever so thankful. God promises that “If you give thanks, I shall give you greater (favors).”3 If we are sincerely thankful for all that we have, God promises to increase our blessings for showing gratitude for that which He has already blessed us. If we show thankfulness to Him for our wealth, He will give us even more. If we are thankful for our health, He may keep illnesses away from us. Thinking about how much God has already blessed us with allows us to remain humble and in a constant state of gratitude.

Remember Him, and He Will Remember You

It is very easy to forget God on a day-to-day basis with all the distractions around us. Often, we only remember Him during the difficult times when we feel hopeless, and we know we are unable to get out of our calamities without His help. However, it is critical that we always remember Him, including the good times. God states, “Remember Me and I will remember you.”4 God promises that He will be there for us if we do the bare minimum of remembering Him. Some ways to remember God is by reciting His praises, appreciating His blessings, and contemplating His beautiful creation.

He Will Not Punish if We Seek Forgiveness

As human beings, we were not born perfect. We go through certain experiences in our lives where we fall into sin and make mistakes. When we realize that we have transgressed, we should not fall into a state of despair. We should not think that we have disobeyed God to the point where forgiveness is impossible and that we will be punished anyways, which leads us to making the same mistakes. God says to Prophet Muhammad (pbuh&hp), “God would not punish them while you were among them nor while they were asking for forgiveness.”5 God, out of His love and mercy, does not want to punish His creation, but rather supports our growth and success. He keeps the doors of repentance open, and we should turn to Him when we fall into transgressions. If we sincerely repent for our disobediences, He has promised to not punish us. Again, all we must do is ask Him, and turn to Him sincerely.

Bits of Advice:

1. Ask God anything and everything: there are no limitations in what we can and cannot ask. He is the ultimate provider of all our needs, so don’t limit your supplication to things in this world, nor the next world. Let us ask and recognize that God wants to provide for us.

2. Be thankful: all that we have in our lives is a blessing from God. It is important to always be thankful for all these gifts and spend some time in reflection for that which we may have taken for granted.

3. Ask for forgiveness: if we didn’t have the door of forgiveness open, we would consistently live a life of misery and regret. Let us continue to turn back to God sincerely, at every juncture, every obstacle we hit on our spiritual journey, to be closer to Him.

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1. The Holy Quran 6:54
2. The Holy Quran 40:60
3. The Holy Quran 14:7
4. The Holy Quran 2:152
5. The Holy Quran 8:33

۱. قال الله تعالى: ((كَتَبَ رَبُّكُمْ عَلَىٰ نَفْسِهِ الرَّحْمَةَ ۖ))
٢. قال الله تعالى: ((وَقَالَ رَبُّكُمُ ادْعُونِي أَسْتَجِبْ لَكُمْ))
٣. قال الله تعالى: ((لَئِن شَكَرْتُمْ لَأَزِيدَنَّكُمْ))
٤. قال الله تعالى: ((فَاذْكُرُونِي أَذْكُرْكُمْ))
٥. قال الله تعالى: ((وَمَا كَانَ اللَّهُ لِيُعَذِّبَهُمْ وَأَنتَ فِيهِمْ ۚ وَمَا كَانَ اللَّهُ مُعَذِّبَهُمْ وَهُمْ يَسْتَغْفِرُونَ))