How did we get here?

You don’t wake up one day and find yourself in a state of spiritual poverty out of nowhere; it builds up over time. Imagine if you dropped one rock into a bucket every day, at first the bucket is still light but eventually it will become heavy and overwhelming.

We see some Muslims that are riding high, performing so many voluntary acts and pushing themselves.

This isn’t necessarily bad, but when it becomes too much, it will be overwhelming and not sustainable.

Burning ourselves out by having these extreme highs will push us into lower lows. 

It is better to have a steady and moderate level of religiousness, avoiding extremes on the left and the right to keep ourselves balanced. 

We can see a lot of wisdom here when we remember that we were warned to be moderate.

“Religion is very easy and whoever overburdens himself in his religion will not be able to continue in that way…”[Al-Bukhari]

How to improve our spiritual wealth

I can sit here and delve into the issue all day, but if I don’t promote ways to uplift your iman and help you, then I am just complaining.

I have to begin this by mentioning Shaykh Omar Suleiman and a recent podcast he released called “How to Avoid Spiritual Numbness”. He spoke about diversifying your acts of worship; this made a lot of sense to me.

Reading the Quran is essential, but it should not be the only thing in your spiritual toolbox.

From a psychological standpoint, this is great advice. When we don’t always follow the same routine, we will be less on auto-pilot and more engaged.

Think about how you focus the first time you are driving in a new neighborhood versus how you focus while driving in your own neighborhood.

Take time for dhikr, spend time with an orphan, help clean the masjid, visit the homeless etc. There are many forms of worship.

To continue

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This article was first published at Muslimmatters.org. It’s republished here with a kind permission from the author.