"Nobody can be given a blessing better and greater than patience."
Muhammad, Hadith
I made the point recently to a friend that you should never choose a religion that you could CLEP out of. By that I meant that while many of us look for religions that are a "good fit" I would argue that it shouldn't be so comfortable that we aren't challenged and thus don't grow and evolve. Americans are very lazy people, and I think this is one of the reasons behind the growth of the mega-churches that aren't really churches in any true sense. You have mega-churches run by clowns like Joel Osteen which are simply glorified self-help meetings; they ask nothing of their followers, other than to write a check, of course. And as I've pointed out several times, this doesn't mean that the only path to God (whatever that means) is exclusively through a specific organized religion, or any organized religion for that matter. Rather, what I'm saying is that the path takes time and dedication and sacrifice, and, of course, I'm not particularly good at any of these virtues. Anyway, this is a rambling path to say that I was drawn to my faith as much by the "bad match" as by the "good fit" aspect of Islam. A classic example of the former would be patience, a virtue that is stressed repeatedly in the faith but which I'm not known for (ask any of my friends). We are told repeatedly throughout the Quran and the adhadith of the virtues of patience, and it is a constant staple in my daily prayers.
I'm not saying that Islam is not a good fit for me, because it is, but I also struggle with it every day. I struggle with the daily demands of being a Muslim, but also sometimes with some of the basic tenets of the faith (or at least how they're interpreted). Truthfully, there are certain aspects of the faith that I simply reject, for any number of reasons.
Muhammad, Hadith
I made the point recently to a friend that you should never choose a religion that you could CLEP out of. By that I meant that while many of us look for religions that are a "good fit" I would argue that it shouldn't be so comfortable that we aren't challenged and thus don't grow and evolve. Americans are very lazy people, and I think this is one of the reasons behind the growth of the mega-churches that aren't really churches in any true sense. You have mega-churches run by clowns like Joel Osteen which are simply glorified self-help meetings; they ask nothing of their followers, other than to write a check, of course. And as I've pointed out several times, this doesn't mean that the only path to God (whatever that means) is exclusively through a specific organized religion, or any organized religion for that matter. Rather, what I'm saying is that the path takes time and dedication and sacrifice, and, of course, I'm not particularly good at any of these virtues. Anyway, this is a rambling path to say that I was drawn to my faith as much by the "bad match" as by the "good fit" aspect of Islam. A classic example of the former would be patience, a virtue that is stressed repeatedly in the faith but which I'm not known for (ask any of my friends). We are told repeatedly throughout the Quran and the adhadith of the virtues of patience, and it is a constant staple in my daily prayers.
I'm not saying that Islam is not a good fit for me, because it is, but I also struggle with it every day. I struggle with the daily demands of being a Muslim, but also sometimes with some of the basic tenets of the faith (or at least how they're interpreted). Truthfully, there are certain aspects of the faith that I simply reject, for any number of reasons.
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