“You risk losing your blessings when you don’t thank Him for them, and you tie them to you firmly when you do.
And if you don’t advance towards him by doing excellent deeds, He will pull you towards Him with the chains of tests.”
So one of the universal laws of Allah Almighty that we are talking about is that if you thank Allah, He will multiply your blessings, or replace your blessings with even better blessings. Allah says:
If you are grateful to Me, then I will certainly give you more. And if you deny my blessings, then My punishment is severe. (14:7)
This is the verse that inspired this maxim, this word of wisdom that’s given by the sheikh here. And every believer should know that thankfulness to Allah Almighty is opposite to kufr.
Kufr is not only disbelief, kufr is also denying the bounties or not being grateful enough to Allah Almighty.
And that kind of kufr is at the heart of disbelief. The disbeliever is a disbeliever because they don’t really thank Allah for giving them life and giving them what they have in the world. And the heart of the disbelief is actually ungratefulness to their creator and Lord.
But if you thank Allah Almighty, then you tie the bounties and the blessings to you firmly.
More Than Words
Thanking Allah is not limited to saying ‘Alhamdulillah’, or ‘I thank you God’. Thanking Allah is most importantly by working good deeds, by action. Allah said:
Do good deeds in gratitude towards Me, O family of David. (34:13)
The family of Prophet David were grateful to Allah not just by thanking Him, but by doing good deeds.
And not doing good deeds is a form of ungratefulness to Allah Almighty. And therefore you advance yourself towards Allah by thanking Him in words and in actions.
If you don’t do that, Allah will test you so that ‘He will pull you towards Him with the chains of tests.’
If you are supposed to thank Allah, and you thank Him; and you’re grateful, and you worship, then you will continue with feeling of ease.
And if you fall short from thanking Him, you should know that He will test you so that you turn back to Him. He said that in the Quran:
We have indeed tested them with suffering so that they would return to us and humble themselves to us. (23:76)
Wisdom Behind Tests
So there is a wisdom here behind tests sometimes, is to humble yourself to Allah; because you are not really thankful enough.
Allah Almighty also mentioned:
Haven’t they seen that they are tested once or twice every year but they never repent and they never thank Allah, they never rethink what they do. (9:126)
It’s very important that you know that thanking Allah is an important step in your journey and to continue to thank Him so that He blesses your life to be amongst the thankful ones.
This is the stage that we ask Allah Almighty to take us to.