Monday, February 21, 2011

Disavowing Your Own Promises (2nd Chapter - The Consequences)

Dear Reader,

The second post will about the consequences when we disavowing our own promise to God from my own experience. The story that i am about to tell you is true, quite funny but at the same time, this story once again proven God's capability to control and punish us for what we do in this world. So here we go..

After i had dramatically feel God presence in my life (Read my first post), i was really afraid to do anything that hated by God. For example: in Islam, we are not allowed to drink something that will make you drunk which is in my opinion one of them is alcohol. The reason behind this restriction is quite logic, ones you get drunk you are not conscious enough to control your self which leads to many foul attitudes even murderer or any other great sins.

So one day, i got to hang out with my old friends. Not one of them believe that i had change.. since i was very close to them before i got myself "slapped" by God. So in some expensive club we hung out and of course, they all ordered liquor, wine etc while i was just simply ordered soft drink. For quite some time they don't realized what i was having so we were just having fun like the old times, until one of my friends realized that i was drinking soft drink. Thus she started to told every one there that i am not respecting them by not drinking what they ordered.. I kept rejecting until the situation makes me feel uncomfortable and the words "C'mon!! for the old time sake! Please" was over and over poking my ears, so i gave up and my defense was gone, and so i did it.  Well to tell you the truth.. for a person that already stop drinking alcohol for like a year at that time, of course it felt so good, i enjoyed it very much.

Before i drank the wine and liquor i said to God, "Dear Allah, i am really sorry for drinking this.. i have to honor my friends.. this situation is forcing me, so please forgive me.. " then there it goes, the forbidden fluid flowing inside my throat.. .That night i was unconscious, and had fun like we were used to, without knowing the consequences.

Next day morning, around 07.00 AM ( I didn't even do Sholat Shubuh - it is a morning prayer for a moslem in like between 04.00 -05.00 AM depends on the location), with the head felt so heavy i forced my self to the bath room, took a shower as i need to go to college by 08.30 morning. So this is where the consequences begun.

I didn't feel comfortable that morning but still i had a class to attend, so after everything was ready i took my car key and drove off. To redeem last night sins i did istigfar dzikir ( Is a moslem prayer for asking God forgiveness) while driving.. and just a few meters from my house, accidentally i crashed my car to a motorcycle in front of me. I really didn't know how that could happened exactly.. but i think  i was just careless. Luckily the motorcycle driver was fine so does his motorcycle. However, it almost got me into trouble since i had to have harsh arguments with the motorcycle driver about the accident. After the crash,  i got out of my car and apologize to him but instead of forgiving me he shouted and insulted me eventhough not him nor the motorcycle took any damage at all. Here in my city, car driver is deemed as "the have" and motorcycle driver is "the poor" which makes every person around there will be defending the motorcycle driver instead of me and it was very disadvantage situation for me. While other motorcycle driver that saw the accident started to provoke the situation, it was so lucky for me that the accident makes other cars and busses behind me stopped, and one of them mediated the argument so it ended with the motorcycle driver kicked my car and drove away. Well, i still pretty got mad with him but the situation forced me to go back inside my car and just go away.

Inside my car, i tried to forget everything and calm myself, i didn't want to ruin my day just because of the stupid fight. By the time i got myself calm and happy again, i arrived at the highway entrance which makes me should prepare money for the entrance ticket... guess what... i didn't brought my wallet with me,  and the entrance ticket window was just one car ahead of me. So i got panicked and tried to look for small money that i expected tucked somewhere inside my car but i didn't found any. So there i goes, finally met the highway officer in the ticket window.. i told him with pretty shame expression on my face,

"Sir.. i am sorry i didn't have my wallet in me.. can i please put some stuff here and will get back to take my stuff back along with the money? i will borrow my friend later on." and he said "Please stop a few meters ahead while our officer will take care of this, you will be getting in the way of other cars now" so i drove a few meters ahead and a moment later i saw behind me some officers walking towards me. Tried to overcome my panic situation, i tried to look deeper for money or stuff that temporarily i can trade it off. You know what?! There's no money nor proper stuff that i can trade inside my car! I saw the officer its getting nearer to my car and until he finally arrived, this was may third times getting public attention and embarrass my self that day. And so i told him that i didn't have anything neither money or stuff to trade with entrance ticket, he laugh and told this "What? you have a car, you doesn't look like a poor guy and yet you don't have small money or anything to trade??" that words "slapped" my dignity a big time .. Lol. So after a few arguments with him, he let me go.. and just told me this "Okay i believe you are not a bad person, so please Sir.. after you meet your friends, come back and pay the ticket! and God witnessing". I said "ok, thx a lot Sir". When he said that word i started to realized... God was punishing me for what i had done the night before.. so i promised to my self to get back to the officer and pay the ticket later on.

To make it short, That day whole my time at college was not a successful one, i got bad arguments with the lecturers, i can't found a friend who can lend me small amount of money where it was usually there are plenty friends that willing to lend me not just a small money but a big favor for me and later that night i got a big fight with my girl friend through the phone then made myself hit the wall so hard which dislocated my arm bone .. What a day! so i guess that was all God saying for everything you do, there are always consequences.

Lessons learned:

1. Once You Get to Know And Believe God You Can Understand Things Better.

Maybe if i'm still not a believer, I would say that what happened above was merely "shit does happens" or just having a bad day. For me that's not just a coincidence, is a matter of consequences for what you have done towards your own promise to Allah. To Allah , above story is way of showing love to me in form of punishment as a reminder that Allah sees everything and reminds human for their sins so we will not do the sins again. There's a different way for Allah showing the grace, greatness or even wrath to each person, including  me.

To interprets things better is called "hikmah" by moslem, so if you can get close to Allah you will be able to draw out hikmah in every single event in your life which will make you be thankful for everything because Allah already knows what's better and certainly the best for you, even though you don't know it yet but you will later, guaranteed.

2. There Are Two Punishments, First Is In This World And Second Is In The Life After Death.

I did ask for Allah forgiveness that day and yet i still experienced a bad events. Some people might questioned if Allah is The Most Merciful why the bad events still happened to me. For me the answer is this, your sins in the life after death is redeem with you asking for forgiveness but the world still have the consequences. For example we as a human has to decide everything by our self, God will show you the way, will give you hints, but at the end you have to decided everything by yourself either good or bad. Let say, there's a person who found a wallet with a million dollar in it and then that person will be faced with two options, find the owner or just take the wallet. When the person chooses to take the wallet, maybe some people sees it and will shout at the person as a THIEF! and the person will take all the consequences.. got beaten by a mass public and then go to prison for like 5 years. That's the world consequences.. But when inside the prison the person repent the sins to Allah and ask for forgiveness sincerely over and over.. By the Will of Allah, the prison sentence might will be lightened to just 1 year and thus the life after death punishment is also lightened or maybe redeemed totally.

If i was not asking for Allah forgiveness over and over that day, who knows the bad events will be far more worst? who knows the motorcycle driver whom i accidentally hit is dead and i have to face prison because of it? and who knows the highway officer will not let me go until someone comes and pay the ticket for me and i will lose my class which was very important for me that day? As long as we ask for forgiveness sincerely, Allah will forgive us that's for sure. What happened to me based on above story was Allah way for telling me that all of the bad events is for your reminder of the sins and SO YOU WILL NOT DO IT AGAIN.

3. If You Believe God's Graces Then You Should Start to Believe God's Punishment

For some people including me long time ago, believing God is only believing God's kindness, Grace, etc. but we often forget that if there is a God grace of course there is a God punishment. Therefor if you believe heaven then start to believe hell. Everything is about consequences, For Hindu religions there's belief about karma.. Good deed will be paid by good things in other hand bad deed will be paid by bad things as well, Chinese believe on Yin and Yang.. There's no Yin if there's no Yang,  so it concludes there's no good if there's no bad, there's no white if there's no black.

For Moslem if i allowed to give some advice.. for everything you do please be convinced that the consequences is real, either here or later after we are dead. I believe you had Allah graces in your life so start to fear hell that created to washed off our sins and be fearful of Allah's wrath. So please do good deeds and take care each other regardless of what they are and what they come from because once again.. Allah graces is not only for Moslem but for all of Allah creations.

Okay this is my second post, God's Willing i will share another more.. hope it can be useful. Thank you =)

With Warmness,
Dee
Muallaf.