Do you desire a close(r) relationship with God?

• What do you imagine that relationship will look like?
• What do you bring to the relationship?
• How much time are you willing to invest?

Given that God doesn’t “talk” to anyone directly, how will you have a relationship with Him?

• The importance of the physical rituals in Islam.
• Without them, the relationship will not have a routine.
• While intellectually we may desire that we should read the Quran every day for a certain amount of time, in the physical reality of human life, this desire alone is not sufficient. There is a missing ingredient; we need something to subdue the body to make it come along for the ride, every day.

Salah (Prayer) – the perfect combination of body and spirit.

• You cannot maintain a daily Qur’an reading, with consistency, without also integrating it with your prayer.

Tahajjud – the great Islamic mystical ritual

• Tahajjud allows and enables us to always remain close to God. How? Because it’s on His terms, not ours.
• It is a reliable means to renew our relationship with Him daily.
• The nature of that relationship is going to primarily rotate around forgiveness of sins, reorienting ourselves away from the worldly life’s pull and stress, and encouraging us to live a far simpler life, living in the blessed realm of walking with God through life.