Being Grateful to God

Being Grateful to God

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1994 10 October 9 Being Grateful to God (259)

Man must become not just God’s servant but God’s grateful servant, for gratitude is the bedrock of religion. Repeatedly enjoined in the scriptures, it is extolled as the secret of wisdom: ‘We bestowed wisdom on Luqman: “Show gratitude to Allah. He that gives thanks has much to gain, but if anyone denies His favours, God is self-sufficient and glorious” (31: 12).

Everything touching man’s existence is bestowed on him by God: his physique, his mental capabilities, the world’s natural resources, the solar system, the universe – in short, from a minutest particle to the brightest star, all things are God’s gifts.

Seeing this great multitude of blessings make us conscious of God’s greatness, and overwhelms us with gratitude for the plenitude of His bounty, unable as we are to reproduce the necessities and comforts of life without divine intervention. So intense are these feelings of awe at God’s magnanimity, that words of gratitude spring spontaneously to our lips. That is being truly thankful.

According to Abu Hurayrah, the Prophet once said: ‘One who is not thankful to man cannot be thankful to God either.’

This hadith intended to make us understand what is meant by gratitude through an examination of our own feelings in a human situation. In that way, we can gauge our capacity for gratitude, we can know whether it exists or not.

That is to say that if man is grateful to man, it can safely be concluded that he will also be genuinely grateful to God. Conversely, the human ingrate will likewise be ungrateful to God.