The 2022 World Cup begins this month, and the fact that the Qatar tournament has been pushed into the (northern hemisphere) winter means that this is the longest the planet has waited to witness one since 1950.
Have you ever watched a football game where the better team lost? I have. It’s one of the most frustrating things to witness. Yet, it’s not as frustrating as going through it yourself, you do your best and you still lose, it’s terrible.
Life is like that, it’s unfair, and unlike what self-help gurus might tell you, hard work doesn’t always bear fruit. Sometimes you’re just struck by sheer bad luck or lose something that you worked your face off for, by an inch or two. let alone that people weren’t born equal in terms of their inherent privileges, and natural talents.
Life isn’t fair, but Allah is.
Allah rewards you for the effort, not the result.
In Islam, you are required to do your best and strive for perfection knowing that even when you fall short, Allah will reward you for trying.
For example: Have you ever had the following thought?
“I wish I was super rich to give poor people a lot of money and try to solve world hunger” or “I wish I had enough money to house all these homeless people”
In Islam, you will be rewarded for the intention of doing good. If you used to do a specific good deed, then you were struck by an illness for example that rendered you incapable of continuing your habitual act of kindness, you will be rewarded for it daily. Was it your fault that you got corona? No. Would you have continued doing what you were doing if you are healthy? Yes. Then it would be unfair to stop the “reward counter” for something that was completely out of your control. That’s how merciful Allah is.
I always felt a little frustrated that ‘possession’ doesn’t matter in soccer, neither do shots on target, shots that bounced off the post or how many miles the players sprinted. When 90% of the ball crosses the goal, it counts for nothing. ONLY GOALS MATTER. Because it’s the only thing that we can accurately measure.
But Allah can measure everything, and a day would come when fairness would be the name of the game. It’s called the day of judgement, be ready for it.
