Savings & Hoarding
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Peace Myr,
Brother, believe me, the more planning and saving, the more stress, hardship, and test. The more investing and giving/working in the sake of the All-Mighty the higher the return is and the safer your retirement will be if God grants you life until then. May God the All-Mighty guide you to the right decision. Indeed wealth and children are but a test.
I don't understand, please elaborate? Are you saying that we should only 'invest' in giving to charities etc and not personally 'save' any money for say, the children's sake e.g college/sickness/hospital bills? That everything will work out somehow anyway?
All our savings and financial projections made possible, come from any "excess" we may have, and if you look at our system, there is no way to give anything if you think about every tiny winny detail of life to "secure" because our system is a consumer system, you are not a citizen but a consumer driven by needs that the system creates for you.
I do think there can definitely be a balance here. Why do we need to spend all our excess money on only our own needs?
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Peace,
The Arabic words I posted above is an adage known to be said by Imam Ali. It is very famous in the Arab world even among Christians and Jews. The adage is part of the culture here!
It can be translated as follow
The first part of the adageMeaning Work in this life, for your life, as if you were promised/guaranteed to live forever. Meaning work hard and plan ahead and be ambitious. Don't think like " Why should I work hard for a living when I might just die tomorrow!?"
The second part
And, at the same time, work for your Hereafter as if you were to die tomorrow. Meaning be steadfast in your faith and good deeds as if your JD is as near to you as tomorrow.
Now try to merge those two life styles!
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Peace Myr,
Thank you for your kind words. We think alike in many ways.
In fact, this culture of "saving" for retirement, "saving" for college, saving for "marriage", saving for "house", saving for grandchildren, saving for this saving for that and for evrything and anything, gives us a "pseudo-feeling" of security and "planing" while in fact God the All-Mighty is in charge of everything and can overturn everything and anything. People take for granted that they will live enough long, they will do this and they will do that, while in fact they don't know whether they will wake up after they sleep.
This is the problem many people seem to forget. We get consumed in planning for the future that we forget what we're here for. Now, I'm not saying that being rich is a problem. But this thing about keeping money aside for unseen problems that may or may not appear in your life, thinking that the money will save your life. Keeping money aside for retirement, planning to retire at 60 and live until 90+, just does not make sense to me. Banks here vehemently encourage saving a minimum of about 400 dollars a month from your mid-thirties until you retire... and I'm talking about average working people.You know, we say it and say it over and over again, God is in charge, but truly, how much do we really believe this, and put it into practice? The same people say, what if I get sick tomorrow, who's gonna help me out? What if I get fired from my job, how will I survive? If I don't start saving now, how will I ensure my children will go to college?
Look, I think we all agree here, if you're making 'good money', you use some, you give to charity, you still have money remaining, hey, good for you! But I'm not sure how many of us fall into that category, leaving aside the 'need vs. want', debate for a moment. Let's concentrate on the 'common folk', working, paying bills, trying to make ends meet for their families. What does saving for the future mean here?
I'll stop here for now... (got to get some work done, to make that money! )
Peace
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Peace all.
I'd like to make a general point here about God helping us. Zenje brought up the example of getting sick tomorrow, who's going to help me out? I don't think we should just leave it to qismat and say it's God's will. I'm not necessarily saying Zenje is saying that here but I think there is a common misconception among many of us that somehow we have less free-will because God says He does whatever He wills.
It's a two-way street. God helps those who want to be helped. We can't get sick and just do nothing about it, and say "God will heal me." I don't think the Qur'an proclaims such a view. God helps us by telling us how to behave in this world. It is ultimately our own actions that help us. But how do we know what actions to take? The answer is God. God tells us and, in that way, God helps us.
God's will is expressed through the natural immutable laws He has inhered the universe with. We have the free-will to act in ways that are in alignment with those laws (and thereby benefit, "by God's will", or to go against them, and suffer. Seen in this vein, I don't think it's bad to save money for retirement. Yes, on the one hand, we don't know what tomorrow will bring; we don't know if we'll die 10 minutes from now. But that doesn't mean one should halt progress. One should try to live one's life (in accordance with God's principles) and realize that God has given us the free-will to live in accordance with or against those principles. If I save money for retirement, am I really invalidating God's power? Am I implying that God cannot help me? No, absolutely not. I'm simply exercising my free-will and realizing my actions, those which are in accordance with God's laws, benefit me. In that sense, God helps me.
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Well said Cavey! I wanted to post this earlier, the one about the man on the mountain during a flood. People come in a helicopter trying to save him with the rising waters and he keeps going, go away dammit, God will save me! Eventually he meets God and asks Him, why didn't you save me? God goes, who do you think sent the men in the helicopter?
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Seen in this vein, I don't think it's bad to save money for retirement. Yes, on the one hand, we don't know what tomorrow will bring; we don't know if we'll die 10 minutes from now. But that doesn't mean one should halt progress.
Please clarify what you mean here. I'm not sure if you mean, not saving for retirement is 'halting progress'?It's a two-way street. God helps those who want to be helped. We can't get sick and just do nothing about it, and say "God will heal me." I don't think the Qur'an proclaims such a view.
Correct, and I can only speak for myself, that I don't condone such a thing. Someone falling ill and just wait for God's hand to come and touch him to be healed, I've seen some nut cases on tv do that to their kids. But here's the thing, Who cures? The doctor? The medicines? The money that provides for these? Are rich people immune from diseases?... or are their diseases more expensive? Who cures?When I had my first-born, there was always a worry before that, as to how I was going to make it, seeing that I had just left my job which I worked in for 10 years. Nice timing. I could never do 'accounts' in regard to the expenses in my life, so I gave up on planning and worrying about it. I just let it be. God has blessed our family, and especially myself, I think more than I deserve. I'd still complain, given the chance I guess... want more. But looking back, I don't know where the money came from. I never once begged in my life, not from family or anyone. Never accepted hand-outs, yet without a job, we lived under a comfortable roof, ate 3 (or more meals) a day, infact some of the best years of my life. I could have stayed in the dead-end job worrying I wouldn't be able to survive if I left until today. Who provides?
Are we given burdens more than we can bear? Or do we give ourselves those extra burdens? Let me invest for my future, have some stock in Enron, just for it to topple and die a week before I retire... Who will take care of me then?
I realize we keep bouncing the ball from one side to the other, and neither of us are really on either extreme. Help yourself and God will help you, ofcourse, who doesn't believe in that? But when do we cross the line and think we're in full control? Think about it. muscle
Peace
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Chapter 26
78. ?The One who created me, He will guide me.?
79. ?And He is the One who feeds me and gives me to drink.?
80. ?And if I am sick, He is the One who cures me.?
81. ?And the One who will make me die and then bring me to life.?
82. ?And the One whom I hope will forgive my faults on the Day of Judgment.?
83. ?My Lord, grant me authority and join me with the good doers.?peace
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My son and I were talking about this subject today and he said, "If I hang on to a luxury while my brother is in need, there is something wrong with my heart."
There is a parable told by Jesus in the Bible about a man whose harvest was so abundant that it would not fit in his storage barns. His solution? He planned to tear down his barns and build bigger ones so he could store the abundance, take his ease and live on it for retirement. God called him a fool, saying, "This very night your soul is required of you; and now who will own what you have prepared? So it is with the man who stores up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God."
The Bible also teaches us that it is not for the ease of others and for our affliction, but by way of equality...this time my abundance will supply for your need...next time, when I am in need and you have been supplied an abundance your abundance supplies my need, so that there may be an equality.
What a difference it would make if those of us who believe what God says would not just be hearers of what He says but would trust Him enoough to be doers of what He says. )
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Please clarify what you mean here. I'm not sure if you mean, not saving for retirement is 'halting progress'?
Peace Zenje. I was being a bit general there. I shouldn't have used the word progress. Maybe "well-being" is a better term. My point was, one should not think that one is invalidating God's power by saving for retirement, for example. There are various things we do for our own and our family's well-being. I exercise and eat well to nourish my body. Similarly, I save money (but not to an excess! of course the question becomes, what "excess" is), perhaps, for my child's college fund or for an emergency fund or for retirement. I do these things to benefit myself and my family. I see these two examples as similar. In one case, I am strengthening my body by eating of the food God has graced the earth with as well as "exercising" (aka, learning and applying the knowledge of how to benefit my God-created human body). In the other case, I am nourishing the financial needs of my family and myself through unexcessively saving resources I have earned through the equitable labor I have put forth.
Correct, and I can only speak for myself, that I don't condone such a thing. Someone falling ill and just wait for God's hand to come and touch him to be healed, I've seen some nut cases on tv do that to their kids. But here's the thing, Who cures? The doctor? The medicines? The money that provides for these? Are rich people immune from diseases?... or are their diseases more expensive? Who cures?
This is a good example and I'm glad you brought it up. My answer God cures, as beautifully shown in the verse you pasted, 2680. But the discussion doesn't end there! My point is, how does God cure? Does God magically intervene and say "Thou art cured"? I don't think so. I think God cures through immutable laws that He has already constructed the universe (and our bodies) with. When I take medicine, I am cured. How am I cured? By ingesting substances that have shown to cure that particular ailment, substances which were put on earth by God. Or, even failing to take medicine, likely the body uses its own immune system to ward off the disease. This, again, is God curing us. How? God was the One who created our immune systems in the first place, and in that regard, God has cured us.
When I had my first-born, there was always a worry before that, as to how I was going to make it, seeing that I had just left my job which I worked in for 10 years. Nice timing. I could never do 'accounts' in regard to the expenses in my life, so I gave up on planning and worrying about it. I just let it be. God has blessed our family, and especially myself, I think more than I deserve. I'd still complain, given the chance I guess... want more. But looking back, I don't know where the money came from. I never once begged in my life, not from family or anyone. Never accepted hand-outs, yet without a job, we lived under a comfortable roof, ate 3 (or more meals) a day, infact some of the best years of my life. I could have stayed in the dead-end job worrying I wouldn't be able to survive if I left until today. Who provides?
Are we given burdens more than we can bear? Or do we give ourselves those extra burdens? Let me invest for my future, have some stock in Enron, just for it to topple and die a week before I retire... Who will take care of me then?
I realize we keep bouncing the ball from one side to the other, and neither of us are really on either extreme. Help yourself and God will help you, ofcourse, who doesn't believe in that? But when do we cross the line and think we're in full control? Think about it. muscle
Peace
You are right; neither of us is really extreme. Honestly, I think we probably agree on most of these issues. I like the examples you used; they are very illuminating.
Your final question, "But when do we cross the line and think we're in full control?", is a great question! My current understanding of the Qur'an in this regard is this we are in full-control of our own actions. God has created us with free-will. What we do not have full control, however, are the consequences of those actions. I can't choose to ingest strychnine and expect a benign consequence; it is likely I will be poisoned to death. Why? The answer is God. God created that particular substance with particular properties, the effects of which hurt human beings. So, I chose to ingest it freely, but what I had absolutely no control over was my action's consequence. I couldn't will a good consequence to come into existence from my foolish act. Similarly, I can choose to put my hand in fire, but I can't choose to have the fire not exert its heat onto my skin thereby burning it.
So to answer your question briefly who is in full control? Both God and human (through God-given free will). The human is in full control of his or her actions, but the consequences of those actions are the result of immutable laws that the Creator has imbued the creation with.
Peace.
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When I had my first-born, there was always a worry before that, as to how I was going to make it, seeing that I had just left my job which I worked in for 10 years. Nice timing. I could never do 'accounts' in regard to the expenses in my life, so I gave up on planning and worrying about it. I just let it be. God has blessed our family, and especially myself, I think more than I deserve. I'd still complain, given the chance I guess... want more. But looking back, I don't know where the money came from. I never once begged in my life, not from family or anyone. Never accepted hand-outs, yet without a job, we lived under a comfortable roof, ate 3 (or more meals) a day, infact some of the best years of my life. I could have stayed in the dead-end job worrying I wouldn't be able to survive if I left until today. Who provides?
That is a good example, there was a time when I didn't know what's going to happen next with the job situation but everything worked out in a way that I couldn't even have imagined and yes God has blessed us far more so than we deserve, I agree completely. That however does not stop me from thinking that we must be smart and think about the future to some extent, and there will be times that we won't know and things will work out with God's grace.
I realize we keep bouncing the ball from one side to the other, and neither of us are really on either extreme. Help yourself and God will help you, ofcourse, who doesn't believe in that? But when do we cross the line and think we're in full control? Think about it.
Giving God something to work with is what I call it! But yes, I understand your point completely and agree. peace