On Supplication (& Prayers)

For the past one year or so I think I've been making a lot of modifications to my prayers. By prayers I mean, the du'a I make every time after solah. It's a good thing I guess. If I have been reciting the same prayer for the past 24 years of my life, it may become more of a routine kind of thing, and it tends to get more and more meaningless as time passes.

My du'a, unsurprisingly, would reflect something I am in need of or at least, something I desire or have a slight interest in at that particular moment.

Some of the du'as that I've started making recently are very basic stuff. Being away from home, I've always struggled with praying on time or even just praying in general. Winter months sucks; it makes you feel like staying in your bed being nicely wrapped in your duvet every morning. I lost count of the days I would just wake up and it's freezing cold, and I would just blatantly ask "God, do I need to pray? Why do I need to? Huhu" and slowly dragged my feet to the bathroom or the sink next to my cupboard. It's not a nice feeling, to feel like you're "forced" to do things, but the reality is I'm still struggling to find sincerity in my 5 times prayers. Coincidentally (well, one can argue that nothing in life is a coincidence), around the time I was being really really lazy to wake up for Subuh as winter began last year, I came across a sharing by Ust Fakhrul Radhi on Instagram, on the du'a you can make to pray regularly and consistently. It's a du'a made by Nabi Ibrahim for him and his family, and this is quoted from Surah Ibrahim verse 40:

رَبِّ اجْعَلْنِي مُقِيمَ الصَّلَاةِ وَمِنْ ذُرِّيَّتِي ۚ رَبَّنَا وَتَقَبَّلْ دُعَاءِ

which means,

“My Lord, make me an establisher of prayer, and [many] from my descendants. Our Lord, and accept my supplication."

(If you're struggling with prayers (solah), I hope you find the strength to work on it, and I would appreciate if you can pray for me too!)

Another du'a that I've been relentlessly making for the past few months is for God to make things sufficient for me: I asked Allah to 'cukupkan rezeki' so I don't fall into any desperate illegal means of sustaining myself. I remember desperately asking God to give me the part time job that I went for an interview for last October and I literally poured my heart out in my prayers, telling God how much this means to me - how much I would be a financial burden to my family if I don't pass this interview. And yes, I literally cried the moment I got the email for the job offer. God listens, He really does. He knows things you can or you can't bear and He won't test you anywhere beyond that.

(Desperate) prayers or supplications like these makes me think, we pray a lot for things that we want in life - in addition to those mentioned above, I prayed for a peace of mind before my exams, good exam results before getting the marks, an increase in knowledge before I started studying, etc - but do we spend time praying for the one thing that is for certain going to happen?

I realised I didn't - and still don't - spend a lot of time praying for a good ending of my life. I know it's going to happen for sure. In fact, I have always had this inner feeling that I that I don't think I will make it pass my 30s (don't ask me why). It's weird cause that should make me feel that death is so near, but it barely change any of my attitude to death (or at least my perception to my own death).

So this post serves as a reminder for myself to not only pray for things I desire in the dunya, but also to pray for things I would love to have in the afterlife. We have all the time now to pray for it, yet we take the opportunity for granted, and I honestly don't know why.

Well Hamizah, a lot of things in this world is a distraction. Every once in a while you need to get back on track and remind yourself of the real life purpose :)

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