Revive Your Heart: Putting Life in Perspective

āyah
—
wa-abūnā shaykh kabīr
—is a very old man;
meaning he cannot do this work anymore, we are the only ones in the family that
can do this work.
So 
Mūsā
(
ʿalayhi al-salām
) doesn’t continue talking to them, he actually just
grabs the sheep, goes to the well, and moves those guys like they were a bunch
of insects because he is a very strong man. He fed the animals and brought them
back. This is the 
āyah
that I want to reflect on with you in this reminder, this
brief background was there so everybody’s on the same page.

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… Moses watered their flocks for them, and then returned in a shaded
place and said: “My Lord, I am truly in great need of any good that
You might send down to me.”
(Al-Qaṣaṣ 28: 24)
He watered and fed their animals for them. Thereafter, he turned back to the
shade. So now 
Mūsā
(
ʿalayhi al-salām
) goes back and lies down or relaxes under
the shade again, once he sits down what does he do? One of the most famous
duʿā
s in the entire Qur’an: he turns to Allah and says, ‘My Master, no doubt
about it, whatever good you have sent down my way, whatever you have
descended—sent down towards me—of any kind of good; no doubt about it, I
am desperately in need of it’. This is the 
duʿā’
of 
Mūsā
(
ʿalayhi al-salām
) when
he sat back down in the shade.
I wanted to take the opportunity in this reminder to discuss with you some of
the benefits of this incredible statement; so powerful that Allah (
ʿazza wa-jall
)
made it a part of His Qur’an. As long as Muslims are around we are going to be
celebrating this 
duʿā’
of 
Mūsā
(
ʿalayhi al-salām
) that he made in private, there
were no congregations behind him, he wasn’t saying this 
duʿā’
and there were
thousands of people behind him saying 
āmīn
; he’s just by himself, sitting under
the shade of a tree, making this 
duʿā’
but this 
duʿā’
is so valuable to Allah that
until 
yawm al-qiyāmah
we’re going to be reciting this 
duʿā’
and we are going to
be celebrating these remarkable words.
The first thing I would like to share with you here is that when you help
people, you don’t wait around until they say thank you because you didn’t help
them so you can hear appreciation. When 
Mūsā
(
ʿalayhi al-salām
) helped those
ladies, you don’t find in the Qur’an: ‘They both said thank you so much’, and he
said: ‘No problem, no big deal’. He didn’t expect and he didn’t actually continue
the conversation with them, he handed over the animals and walked away. He
did this for Allah and so the only one he wants to get appreciation from is Allah.
He’s not interested in a conversation with those two women; he is interested in a
conversation with Allah. A lot of times we do good things but in the back of our
head we’re hoping to get some recognition, we’re hoping to get some

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appreciation, some other side benefits; we are going to learn in this 
duʿā’
that if
you make your intentions pure, you help someone, you do something good for
someone but you expect and converse only with Allah, then Allah will take more
care of you than you could ever imagine.
Obviously, sometimes people do each other favours because they are hoping
if I do you a favour today, maybe tomorrow you will do me a favour. I’m doing
this for you hoping you’re going to do something for me—I scratch your back,
you scratch mine. But in this