Finding Time

Many a times when people are suggested to read and understand their religious scriptures, they explain that they are unable to do so because they cannot find enough time. Especially in the busy life of today it is becoming more and more difficult to find time for such activities and a part of it is understandable.

But at the same time, it seems that part of this feeling is exaggerated more than it is worth. In the circle of life that is followed, one sees that they are raised up to study only those fields that make a difference to their life in this world. One's schooling, about forty hours a week, is completely focused in fields such as languages, mathematics, sciences and arts, but hardly any in the study of religions and God. Same is the case in the college and the university and this circle of life continues to go on. At least forty hours a week – and usually sixty to eighty hours – and at least sixteen years of one's life are spent preparing for the world here; the world where we think that one small mistake and our life could be wasted – even thought that may not be true at all. But this is the perception behind which we struggle here.

The sense of balance is so distorted that we do not usually find even one hour a day to understand what God wants from us. We do not find that time to struggle and get prepared for the Hereafter, and we do not find that time to implement whatever we learn in our lives. Let alone an hour a day, we cannot even devote half of that. There are two plausible explanations that one can come across in such situations. Firstly, the lack of sincerity in spending that time for religious struggle. It is easy to see that given any other activity, such as sports or watching television, one can readily find the time in their life. They can usually cut their work life or go through some extra effort to accommodate such an activity. However when it comes to the study of Quran for instance, the same time is so little and constrained that one cannot spend it this way!

The second situation is where an individual is really short of this time. The solution in such a case is fairly simple and straight forward: one must honestly pray to God to show them the path of His liking, and give them enough time so they are able to attain the knowledge and the prerequisites for success in the Hereafter. Persistent and honest prayer to the Almighty for this cause should definitely be helpful.

I feel compelled to iterate the importance of finding and understanding the truth – what God wants from us in this world – for that is the key to success in the Hereafter. If one is not aware of the law, one cannot be prepared to act accordingly and stand as a successful person in front of the supreme Judge on the Day of Judgment. Knowing the law is a duty of every citizen and there is nothing that can be used as an excuse if the effort is not there. God after all knows who amongst his creation is not making the effort to find the truth, especially when most of the religious scriptures lie within the bounds of one's home.

From another aspect, it is also seen that many spend a lot of time reading scholars, books on religion and so forth, but no one actually makes an attempt to understand the Quran. It is true that scholars do help us understand various aspects of the religion; nonetheless they are of secondary importance to the word of God. How can it be accepted that one read everything related to religion but not the word of God itself? It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of understanding what God wants from us as opposed to anything else.

And He also knows how much effort we could spend for His path in this world if we really wanted to. The difficult question is then will one not be asked all these questions when they are standing in front of God on the Day of Judgment?

So little a life do we have to prepare for the Hereafter and we cannot find any time whatsoever in our lives. And all the time we have seems to be going somewhere else!