Tipping the Tower

While playing the classic nerve-wracking game Jenga, a player’s main objective is to keep building a taller tower of blocks by removing pieces from the bottom and setting them at the top. But with each piece that’s removed from the stack, the structure becomes more and more unstable, until eventually, it collapses.

“Those of you who believe, enter into complete submission (to Allah) and do not follow the footsteps of Shaytan. He’s definitely an open enemy to you.” (2:208)

There are always at least two choices in front of us at any given time, and one of them is usually more pleasing to Allah than the other. When we’re first starting to go down a certain path, though, it seems like either choice is fine. Yeah, maybe one of them isn’t “super halal,” but what difference does it make? It’s not a big deal. But before we know it, it does become a big deal, because we chose a wrong fork in the road, then another, then another, and went down a path we shouldn’t even have approached. We took out one piece from the stack at a time, thinking it’s not going to make a difference, until it finally tipped over.

It’s easy to delude ourselves into thinking that what we’re doing won’t have long-term consequences, but each small action, each footstep that we follow, adds up. We end up at a place we didn’t think we could possibly reach. We do what we hadn’t imagined we were capable of. We tip our own tower over, thinking we’re reaching great heights, when in reality, we’ve reached our lowest states.

It’s easy to delude ourselves into thinking that what we’re doing won’t have long-term consequences, but each small action, each footstep that we follow, adds up.

May Allah (swt) protect us from the weaknesses within ourselves, and may He help us stay far away from even the faintest footsteps of Shaytan. Ameen.