Why cannot I worship Allah properly and be a good servant to Allah?

Why cannot I worship Allah properly and be a good servant to Allah? I always ask this question to myself but I cannot answer it. Thanks...

Dear Brother / Sister,

Having so much knowledge about faith does not mean having faith. Prayer becomes habitual by performing it, not by reading many books about prayer. Our grandmothers who are illiterate do not miss even a single tahajjud prayer, but we, who have read all kinds of books about prayer, cannot perform tahajjud prayers anyhow. Practicing consistently is very important in this sense.

One must put religion in the first place  his life. We must adapt the world to our religion, not the religion to the world. Everything is solved here.

One of the important issues that we must pay attention to in this sense is sins. The more a person commits sins, the more he gets bored of prayers and other kinds of worship. If a person cannot perform prayers properly, it means that there must be a sin which hinders him from worshipping. Sins cause weakness in faith. Faith is strengthened with taqwa. Above all, we must revise our lives and find out where we do wrong, what sins we have got to hinder us from worshipping and we must try to have them redeemed by repenting.

Another issue is the environment. One must form his environment in a way that will enable him to take his religious life under self-control. If there are people with high ethics around him, it will earn him moral power. If there are people who are away from ethics around him, it will cause him to grow away from worshipping. That issue is very important. While people of taqwa strengthen one’s faith, sinful people weaken his faith. It is like a veiled suggestion.

Another issue is the fact that one must not forget suggesting goodness besides worshipping. A person’s duty has got two sides. One is about saintliness and the other is about mission. Saintliness is one’s taqwa and prayers. Mission is suggesting goodness. If one of them is absent, the other one drops behind, too. One must both be a servant to Allah and invite people to conscious servitude to Allah. In this way, we can save ourselves while trying to save others as well.

The most important issue is the strengthening of faith. The reason for any weakness is the weakness in faith. The greatest illness of our century is the weakness in faith. Unfortunately, sins committed publicly around us affect us deeply. We are unconsciously imposed to suggestions of infidelity.

"In every sin committed, there is a way to infidelity." One who commits sins finds it unbearable that Allah and angels see him. He ignores the existence of Allah and angels temporarily. As he continues to do so, the seed of infidelity sprouts. It is a very dangerous state and if not wiped out through repentance right away, it continues to darken his heart until he becomes infidel.

A person who commits sins publicly both damages himself and others around him. Sins committed freely and shamelessly suggest infidelity to the environment. People become subject to this suggestion the whole day. In order to escape the damages of that suggestion, it must be responded with suggestion of faith. We can both protect ourselves from the dangerous suggestions around and suggest people faith by reading works which strengthens one’s faith very often and by inviting people to the religion.
May Allah bestow upon all of us endurance for taqwa.

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