How do people deal with the problem of suffering? That’s a question that religious people and philosophers have been trying to solve for thousands of years.
The problem of suffering stands in stark juxtaposition to the ideal we’re taught in modern America, that life is “the pursuit of happiness.” Does endlessly pursuing happiness actually make people happy? Does it make the world better? Take a look at the world around you today. What’s the point of endless partying, sex and drinking? What’s the point of endless consumption?In many religions there is a concept of life having meaning. In Islam, one’s life has meaning in so far as one serves God and makes themselves a part of God’s plan. Life will not go according to your plan. Life will go according to God’s plan. Trying to control everything is a good way to end up with nothing. The greatest strength comes from letting go and submitting to the will of a higher power. This does not mean you have no ambitions. But it means you calibrate your goals and ambitions to align with God’s goals.
In Islam there is a concept of service and one making sacrifices for a greater purpose. There is an idea that one can reach paradise if they do their duty and obey God's laws, even if they face adversity here on Earth. You may have nothing here on Earth, but if you serve the Almighty, you'll have everything in the sense that you are connected to something greater than yourself. There is honor and value in doing your best in day to day life, even if you have to face hardship in the process.In reality, life is a long-term struggle and great movements of change are created by people who have the discipline to persevere. These movements are not created by people who joined the movement and expected some result in six months and then got disillusioned and quit. It's years. It's often a lifetime of work, or several lifetimes of work, that finally created enormous levels of change. And this was certainly the case with the Islamic revolution, the greatest religious revolution in history that came from one man inspired by the Almighty coming out of the desert, and within 200 years, had created an empire stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the snows of the Himalayas. And it wasn't just an empire, or a military empire. It was an empire of belief, it was an empire of ideas, it was an empire of faith.
So as you go forward you have to live a life where you communicate with God. That is the importance of prayer that helps you make decisions and the Quran does help people have an inner peace and emotional ability to accept unacceptable events. And as we look forward in world history, this is going to become more and more necessary because the people running things don't know what the hell they're doing today and you really don't have to be a great expert to see that what they've building is going to end in disaster. It's not going to work. So you have to have the right kind of philosophy to deal with this.It is possible that Islam reaching its destiny could be a huge positive force in the world and this needs to be developed. But in conclusion, you must understand you are not the star of the show. You are just a small part under the control of the Almighty. You look up on a night where there is no moon and the truth is often hard to see in the darkness, but your eyes will adjust and you'll see millions and billions of stars over your head. That's the real world. You're just a very small part of this. Your value is connected to your service in the Almighty. It's not for you to judge. He is the judge. You are not. You serve and you may spend your whole lifetime serving and in your eyes what you're doing might not seem to be doing a whole lot, however you just need to emphasize over and over again that it's the willingness to hold your position and to keep doing what you're supposed to do that's the real world. That's what produces change in people. The willingness to make that commitment to create change.