lessons gum

Lessons from Gum: The Reality of This World

Opening of Khutbah

"Peace, mercy, and blessings of Allah be upon you."

"All praise is due to Allah, and peace be upon His chosen servants. I seek refuge in Allah from the accursed Satan. In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful."

"Say, 'The enjoyment of this world is little.'"

"Glorified is your Lord, the Lord of might, above what they describe. And peace be upon the messengers. And praise to Allah, Lord of the worlds."

"O Allah, send blessings upon our master Muhammad and upon the family of our master Muhammad, and grant them peace."

Introduction: Lessons from Children

When you interact with children, the lessons that you can learn from them, they're very deep. Because children, they have this inherent nature about them that when you look at them, they're very simple in the way in which they behave. So I was recently thinking about something, although my daughter is very grown up now, relatively speaking, I was thinking about something that she used to do when she was little.

And subhanAllah, it just tied in so beautifully to our understanding of the life of this world. So when she was little, and she would have a piece of gum, then sometimes either I would ask her for a piece of gum, or some other kids would ask her for a piece of gum. So here she has this one stick of gum, it's probably what, I don't know, four or five inches, right? And then when someone would ask her for a piece of gum, she would tear off just a little corner of that gum and she would give it to you.

So for example, I'm sitting there, I ask her, oh, you have gum, can I have some? So she'd tear off this tiny little corner, right, and then she would give it to me. Now, you look at that tiny little corner, you think, what am I supposed to do with this? You can't even chew this, this is worthless. But this is the way kids, they often, when you ask them if they have a piece of gum, if you can have a little bit, this is the way in which they interact with you.

The Metaphor: Life as a Corner of Gum

So although it's somewhat funny, it actually is a very, very deep lesson about the reality of this world. Because what Allah did was He created us. And then He created spans of time for us.

So for example, there's a period of time in which we live in the womb of the mother, there's a period of time in which we'll live in this life, there's a period of time in which we'll live in our grave, there's a period of time in which we'll exist on the day of judgment, awaiting judgment, and then subsequently the occurrence of judgment, and then subsequently Jannah or Jahannam. Now if you take this whole life, and you just make it one, you take all of the time that will be in existence, and you make it one stick of gum, then really this life is just that little piece that the child gives you when you ask for a stick of gum. You can't do anything with this, you know, like they give you that gum and you're sitting there, even if you tried to chew it, you can't, you end up biting on your own teeth.

Because there's no substance to it, you need the whole stick, or at least you need the majority of the stick in order to really be able to enjoy it. So in the same way, Allah, if you just assume that all of our existence is like a stick of gum, here Allah in this life, He just gives us just a little corner of that stick of gum. There's no reality to this life, there's no substance to this life, there's not that much you're able to achieve in this life, and in fact you're not put here to be able to achieve too much in this life.

All the purpose of this life is, is to merely ascertain which person is focused on Allah, and which focus, which person will turn away from Allah. That's basically the purpose of this life, and there isn't much more that we're going to achieve.

Children's Acceptance vs. Mature Understanding

Now the irony of it is that, you know, if you give that little itty-bitty piece of gum to a child, they get happy. Like for example, when she, if she was six, and then let's say some three-year-old child would ask her for some gum, and she would tear off a little corner and give it, they'd be very accepting of it.

They'd be happy, they'd start trying to chew it, right? Because they're kids, they don't understand that this, there really isn't much to this, they're happy with even that little bit. But once someone matures, then they recognize that this is worthless. What are you doing? If you're going to give me gum, then give me some, give me a piece, don't just give me this little corner.

So sometimes we are very immature in our understanding, and we make the assumption that this corner that we've been given, that there's some sort of reality to it. Why? Because you can actually count it, right? So you have 60 years, some people have 70 years, and you see people achieve things in that period of time. But the reality is, is that that time is actually extremely limited.

The Reality of Our Limited Time

Just think about it. So let's say that you're going to live 60 years, right? Of that 60 years, you can pretty much assume the first 20, you're not going to really be able to do much. Yes, very, very rare circumstances, somebody achieves something by the time they're 20.

But for the most part, the first 20 years, 17 years, 16 years, unless your parents guide you to do Hifz, or unless your parents guide you to something good, there's really nothing tangible or any substance that you're going to gain from that, right? Then beyond that, even in the time that you do have, which is like the most efficient time, or let's say the time in which you're able to produce something, so much of time goes into sleeping, right? You wake up, then you've slept the whole day, then you wake up, then you have breakfast. What does breakfast produce? Nothing, it's just food, right? Then you have a couple hours, all of a sudden lunch comes up, you have a few more hours, all of a sudden dinner comes up, you have a few more hours, all of a sudden it's time to go back to bed. So how much time is there really to be able to achieve anything? Now, if you add into that your prayer times, which is actually the key part of life, right? Then you put Fajr, Asr, Maghrib, Isha in, and there's very little time left.

There's very little time left. By that time, 40, 50, by the time you're 50, then things start moving downhill again, right? You start entering old age, you start getting a little bit older, you're not able to do as much, you're not able to be as productive, and then slowly your life is gone. So how much were we really supposed to achieve in this life? Not too much, or at least not more than what Allah wrote for us to achieve.

The Futility of Stretching This Life

So sometimes we try to stretch this little corner of gum into a long piece, but the reality is that there isn't any substance to this. We're just biting on our own teeth. People who try to make this life the permanent life, they're just biting on their own teeth.

There is no substance to this life. No matter how much you achieve, there is no permanence in it. You can build yourself a beautiful mansion.

There is nothing permanent there. You'll eventually pass away, and actually by the time you're done building the mansion and paying it off, it'll be time for you to go anywhere. That's the way this works.

People, they spend their whole lives for what? What's the major possession that they own? Their home. And people finish paying off their home, you know, they get involved in these crazy debt situations. They buy a home for $500,000.

In the end, they're going to pay $1.5 million, because by the time you add in all the interest, it's tripled the price. And then, you know, when they're 60, they're done paying off their home. Now what was it? So now we're 60,

we just finished off paying our home.

Well, now this home is too big for us, honey. So you sell it, right? Then they move down into something smaller. So what was the benefit? They spent their whole life trying to pay off something which they weren't going to live in in the end anyway.

That's just life. There isn't much you're going to be able to achieve. So really, the reality of this life is to not try to stretch this little corner into a piece of gum, but to recognize that we've just been given this little corner, and the purpose of this corner is to make sure that we are deserving of the piece of gum, which is the hereafter.

The Hereafter: The Real Piece of Gum

The hereafter is permanent. It's much bigger than any stick of gum anybody can imagine. It's permanent.

Everything there is far beyond what we can imagine. But we have to pass this short test. The other way to look at it is we're just basically at the airport, right? When you're at the airport, you're just waiting for your flight.

That's what everyone here is doing. Everyone here is just basically waiting for their flight. Now some people, they have a 60 year, you know, at the age of 60 their flight comes.

Some people have a flight at the age of 40. Some people have a flight at the age of 10. But these things are all just one big waiting room, and everybody's basically taking their flight, and their flight is to the grave.

So the whole judgment is based on how we act in the waiting room. While we're in the waiting room, do we share? Do we remember the purpose of our existence? Do we remember where we're actually headed? So we're all headed to the grave, and we're all headed to the hereafter, and that's actually what is permanent.

Getting Caught Up in Each Decade

Now it's so easy, and everyone gets caught up in a different stage in their life, right? The 10 year old is caught up in some video game.

The 20 year old is caught up in their college degree. The 30 year old is caught up in their first home. The 40 year old is caught up in the next promotion, you know, their next job.

The 50 year old is caught up in their kid's college education. Every decade is defined by being caught up in some sort of web or another, and each web looks more real than the one before. When you're 40, then you go back and say, you know, it didn't really matter where we lived.

We could have lived here, we could have lived there. We made such a big deal out of it, it didn't matter. When you're 20 or 30, then you look back and say, well, you know, I wasted 10 years of my life playing these video

games.

What was the benefit there? So each decade redefines the focus, and then it makes clear to us that the previous decade was a waste. Now what happens? We're 60, 70, then we finally wake up. Then we recognize, oh, I should have been praying.

I should have been focusing on Allah. I had all this energy. That was a time to work to establish the deen, because that was what was going to earn me a reward in the hereafter.

How Much Can We Really Hold?

So we should be very, very careful. You can only grab as much as you can hold. You have two hands.

How much are you going to be able to hold? It's very limited what you can actually hold in your hand. So what's the purpose of trying to collect more than you can save? You know, that's the way Allah created it. It's like the earth is like, the dunya is like water.

You can only grasp so much. Although you feel like there's so much around you, and you can just keep grabbing, you're only able to hold so much. It's liquid.

It just flows. So you can grab as much as you want. There's only so much you can carry.

Doesn't matter who you are. There's only so much you can carry. And when you go around the world, nobody owns the world.

Which person, individual, can you point to who owns the world? Even the richest person in the world still has to live in a house, right? And the house can only be so big before it becomes even, you know, unreasonable for him to live in it, because it just doesn't make sense to try to be able to maintain that size of a house. So we're very limited in what we can achieve. But the hereafter is far beyond anyone's comprehension.

Not only does Allah provide wealth on that day for the one who deserves it, but he provides that individual with the ability to use it. You know, even if we had billions of dollars, he wouldn't be able to use it. You can only spend so much in one day.

Wealth and Ability in Jannah

You can only wear one pair of clothes a day. But in Jannah, the person will be provided with wealth plus the ability to use that wealth. So our focus should be the hereafter.

That's the focus of each individual. When we make decisions, we make decisions based on the hereafter. When we decide how we're going to allocate our time, we allocate our time looking forward to the hereafter.

When we choose how we're going to use our energy, we use our energy in order to earn something in the hereafter. So it makes sense. We spend our time in prayer.

We spend our time with recitation of the Qur'an. Spend our time perfecting the relationships that exist within our families. Making sure that we reconnect with those people that we are disconnected with.

Each individual act for us is a means of putting the pieces together for the hereafter. And that's what we're actually trying to build. We're trying to build the hereafter.

Closing Du'a

So may Allah give us the tawfiq to not be deceived by the glamour and glitter of this life. And may He give us the tawfiq to be able to focus our eyes and our vision on the hereafter.