When Your Faith (Iman) Takes You Down

It should be.  If two people are equal, lets say for example, in a boxing match.  A match in which one is his physical power, emotional state, intellectual sharpness, and is equal to his opponent.  Then it should be your "heart", your faith (Iman) should help you gain that one extra ounce of advantage that is needed to win.

This should be the very least of the positive results of Iman.

However, strangely enough, Many times our faith (iman), our heart works against us.  We believe in the unseen, however instead of the unseen giving us a positive response, we start thinking the unseen wants to give a negative response.  The modern man is built to see the unseen as a negative reality.  The reason is,  we see the world in our control as positive and a world not in our control as a negative.  This is exactly modern mans' or post modern mans' dilemma.  We feel if this world is not giving us any good, why would the unseen world?  Conversely, as Surah Kahf points out, if everything seems perfect in this life, we expect, the unseen world to be helping us. This is exactly the problem.  We subconsciously believe my state in this life is representative of my state in the unseen world.

We justify our negative feels with the unseen world by thoughts like, I have sinned so much, that I do not deserve unseen help.  So, instead of our faith helping us, our faith defeats us, and the boxer in our example starts to think, maybe its not in my fate to win, maybe I do not deserve it.

This problem occurs because we think we get what we deserve from Allah.  While this is not the case.  Allah does not provide, give, help, etc, because anyone deserves it.  He is Generous, because he is generous, He creates because He creates.  He gives Help, because He is The Helper.  He answers prayers because that is what He does, not because someone deserves it.  Do you think from a Godly perspective a person praying to God in a sinking boat, and in that desperation he calls out to God, while all his life s/he remained oblivious from even thinking much about God , deserves to be heard?  Yet He listens and responds as indicated in the Quran.

If you believe in Him, even for a moment, He will respond positively.

Another modern mans' and especially even more so the post modern mans' problem is his or her uncomfort with waiting, patience (sabr) and not getting instant gratification,  The relationship with the unseen is built on sabr.  Prayers will always be finally answered in the positive especially for a good cause.

Does your faith give you strength or does it help you sabotage yourself ?

Would you think.  This is hard match, I am in pain, maybe its not meant to be.  Or would you say i need to have sabr , need to be steadfast, stick to my guns, and help will come.