Who comes first?

I recently received an e-mail asking “who comes first in your life, if it Allah stop what you are doing immediately and forward this e-mail to twelve people”, I was highly motivated to prove to myself that Allah does come first in my life, and I will forward this e-mail to twelve people, but for now I will have to settle on marking it as unread (I’ll get back to it later) and tackle the mound of work that my ‘colleague’ aka boss is busy raising on my desk.

I have also come across such a question on one of my friend’s Facebook status. ‘Does God come first in your life?’ For some people the answer is instantaneous, a bold YES. Hence again I was tempted and highly motivated to also type a bold YES. As my fingers approached the keyboard I was forced to control that knee-jerk reaction and think, no matter how much we may lie, this was no lie to tell myself or put on Facebook. I really just sat and pondered about the question, looking into my life and daily activities. Other than the allocated prayer time, do my other actions really speak to God?

Every day I wake up pray, then start with the usual, shower, get dressed, prepare the lunchbox, off to work. When I get to work, well I work the pile on my desk, break for prayer & lunch, and get back to work. In this time I have already prayed twice but where does God fit into all this work? Did I even pray when I was praying or was I thinking of the work I have to return to, to complete.

Each passing day we run through this routine like programmed robots, even though we start and end our days with prayer but are our actions in-between God related? Is He really a priority in your life? Let me ask myself... “Sakina, would you resign today from your job to serve God?” “Well, it’s not really ok to just leave work, I need the money for the blender, my savings and of course I do my share towards charity (the I do good justification), ummm come on I really need the money right now, and besides you don’t have to be drastic to be God conscious(more justification),” blah blah blah Sakina!

Well yes, you do not have to travel miles and miles to be God conscious, but we have to examine our daily action on how they relate us to The Almighty so that even when you are working, He is your priority and you are serving Him while offering a service to others, while accumulating wealth, while eating etc.

Just sit and ponder for a while, take time and look into your daily activities and ask yourself “Who comes first?”

PS I will not be forwarding the e-mail until I feel that fully Allah comes first.

Peace.