When I was in high school, one of my teachers shared a story with me about one student

of hers who was preparing for his exams by going to church to ask God to help him pass
them all but without him doing no study at all. He was doing a lot of praying but little or no
studying at all. He had faith.He really believed that he will pass the exams without him
reading any of the books that needed to be read, without him studying anything. And of
course he failed.

He was so upset and mad. He could not understand how could God do this to him. His
God let him down. What kind of God is this? He was complaining and telling everybody
how disappointed he was and how bad he was treated by his God.

If you think about it, the story is pretty funny but at the same time it is tragic. Why is that?
Because there are a great deal of people in the world that do the same thing as this
young boy did. They are asking and praying, they are begging and hoping that God will
supply all their needs. It is so childish.

How can you expect to receive help when you do nothing to help yourself. You can’t
expect Allah to give you anything if you don’t work for it. If you are a student and you
want help with your exams, with your projects, homework, grades and so on, you have to
study, you have to show that you are interested and that you want to be good at
everything you do and by doing this, by showing that you are interested, you might not
even have to ask and you will receive that which you need. And if you do ask for help,
you will surely receive it.

If you are in a relationship that does not work and you want things to change, you want to
make it work, you have to show that you are making efforts, that you are looking for ways
to improve yourself, for ways to make the other person happy and by making them happy
you will be happy.  Whatever the situation might be, you will never receive help if you
don’t first help yourself.

If you are determined to make some changes in your life, if you want to become a better
person, a better friend, a better husband, mother, father and so on, you have to look for
ways to do just that. You can’t just ask and then wait for it to fall out of the sky. It doesn’t
work this way. Go on your journey, be willing to work on yourself, be willing to learn, to
study, to work and if you need help on the way, if you will ask for guidance, you will
definitely receive it. It takes time, it takes work, it takes patience but in the end it is all
worth it.

Believe in yourself and in the very wisdom that created you. Go beyond your physical
appearance and by doing that you might just find who you really are. Know that you are
more than that which you see in the mirror. You are more than what you have and what
you do. You are an infinite being, you are a spiritual being having a human experience.
You are a soul with a body and not a body with a soul. You are not that which you can
see in the mirror but that which make the seeing possible.

Wherever you are, whatever you do, always remember that you are here because you
have a purpose, you have gifts to share with the world. You are not here by accident, I
am not here by accident. Nothing and nobody is here by accident. We are all part of
something big and it’s up to us to find what that something is and work toward achieving
it