How to Press the Reset Button on Faith

She didn’t know why.

I remember a young lady who had been fairly close to me growing up. She was Palestinian, Muslim and amazingly intelligent. We shared a love for Lupe Fiasco and Drake in his initial days of coming into the rap scene. In those days I was wearing an Allah chain and attempting to learn more about a faith I had little knowledge about except via short documentaries and a few books. I remember once feeling the resolve to ask her about prayer and why I had never seen her prostrating to her Lord. She replied to me, “Because I don’t feel anything when doing it.”

At the time, I agreed with her. Why do something that doesn’t spiritually sustain you? However, now I would ask the question, “Do you worship for the feeling or do you worship because the One who gave you life calls you to do so? This is where having the proper affirmations transform your worship. This is why I sought out guides to show me this path of truly cultivating my belief in the Divine.

I began to understand why so many around me could find no benefit in fasting, or waking up in the early hours to pray, or to wear certain types of clothing that hid the beauty that God fashioned them in: None of it made sense, and all of the rituals in the world would seem superficial if the person’s understanding of God was superficial.

I call you to better your relationship with God by knowing Him. The understanding of who your Lord is will have a direct impact on your worship, but that knowledge takes work. It takes finding a teacher and sitting at their feet. It takes conquering the ego and instructing it to understand that it is God who sustains it, not itself. And, it takes realizing when you may need to start back again from zero so that you can finally see God through the lens you were meant to see him through.

On the authority of Abu Hurayrah (may God be pleased with him), who said that the Prophet (ﷺ) said:

God the Almighty said: I am as My servant thinks I am (1). I am with him when he makes mention of Me. If he makes mention of Me to himself, I make mention of him to Myself; and if he makes mention of Me in an assembly, I make mention of him in an assembly better than it. And if he draws near to Me an arm’s length, I draw near to him a cubit, and if he draws near to Me a cubit, I draw near to him a fathom. And if he comes to Me walking, I go to him at speed.

Arthur Richards is a father, writer, and student of the Islamic Sciences. Currently living in Cairo, Egypt he studies at Al-Azhar University. He is an avid storyteller. Arthur is Altmuslim’s newest columnist. His column, “Tapestry of Faith,” is published in the first week of every month. Instagram: @AuthorKRichards_ Facebook: ArthurkRichards