A teacup full of gratitude

وَإِذْ تَأَذَّنَ رَبُّكُمْ لَئِن شَكَرْتُمْ لأَزِيدَنَّكُمْ وَلَئِن كَفَرْتُمْ إِنَّ عَذَابِي لَشَدِيدٌ
[14:7] And when your Lord made it known: If you are grateful, I would certainly give to you more, and if you are ungrateful, My chastisement is truly severe.
[Yusufali 14:7] And remember! your Lord caused to be declared (publicly): "If ye are grateful, I will add more (favours) unto you; But if ye show ingratitude, truly My punishment is terrible indeed."
Allah tells us again and again in the Quran: few of my servants are grateful. He asks us afala yashroorn? Why are you not grateful

وَلَهُمْ فِيهَا مَنَافِعُ وَمَشَارِبُ أَفَلَا يَشْكُرُونَ
[Shakir 36:73] And therein they have advantages and drinks; will they not then be grateful?

Shaitaan implies that we are more subject to his evil power when we are not grateful. When he is arguing with God and asking for permission to lead mankind astray, he tells Allah:

ثُمَّ لآتِيَنَّهُم مِّن بَيْنِ أَيْدِيهِمْ وَمِنْ خَلْفِهِمْ وَعَنْ أَيْمَانِهِمْ وَعَن شَمَآئِلِهِمْ وَلاَ تَجِدُ أَكْثَرَهُمْ شَاكِرِينَ
[Shakir 7:17] Then I will certainly come to them from before them and from behind them, and from their right-hand side and from their left-hand side; and Thou shalt not find most of them thankful.
To put all these verses together, a few things come to mind:
The opposite of shukr is kufr – that is if you are not grateful for His blessings, you are doing Kufr. We are told in Hadith that half of imaan is in sabr and the other half is in shukr. We often talk about sabr and what it means but we may be overlooking the importance of shukr. Allah holds it in such importance that He puts it together with His rememberance. In Sura Baqara, He says:
فَاذْكُرُونِي أَذْكُرْكُمْ وَاشْكُرُواْ لِي وَلاَ تَكْفُرُون
[2:152] Therefore remember Me, I will remember you, and be thankful to Me, and do not be ungrateful to Me.
And He says that most people are ungrateful and according to Shaytan’s conversation with God, we are more likely to be subject to his evil if we are not grateful.
Lastly, Allah has promised that if we are grateful, He will increase our blessings. I am assuming that all of us would like an abundance and an increase in blessings so today inshallah we will reflect on what is shukr or gratitude, what are its worldly benefits: everything ordained by God is for us to reach our full potential – which means that it has benefits in this world and the next and lastly how can we learn to be more grateful.

So how do we put gratitude in action?
I find that if we start off the day on the right foot, so to speak, it sets the tone for the entire day. So what if we started a practice of gratitude with our morning cup of tea or coffee? What if we said a silent thank you to the people who planted the tea, who harvested it, processed it, made the tea cup, took care of the cow who gave the milk and worked in the factory which made the cup itself. By starting out the day like this, we cannot but be in a state of spiritual expansion, in a state of awesome gratitude for He who coordinated it all - just so that I could have my morning shot of caffeine! Alhamdulliah!