God’s infinite bounties

So, which of the favours of your Lord would you deny, goes the refrain of a beautiful Surah from the Quran. The Surah lists God’s magnificence -- the sun and the moon travelling with precision, the stars and the trees, the fruit and the date stalks, the seas and the mountains, the grain with husks and aromatic plants, and the promise of paradise with all its bounties as a reward for goodness, for as the verse says the reward for goodness is indeed goodness. The question then is asked repeatedly and gently of the followers, so, which of His favours would you deny?

Which indeed? Whatever be our faith, this is a question we all know the answer to-None.

Yet man struts around assuming that he is the master of all that he surveys. He does not acknowledge God’s grace, forgetting the sheer temporariness of life. He struts around forgetting that he is still discovering the universe – wide eyed presently seeing the images beamed from the James Webb telescope.

Man was humble. With time and development of science and technology, came the arrogance. The belief that he has acquired the necessary knowledge to find answers to the mysteries of life and universe. Which is paradoxical, for science teaches us also our limitations. Science teaches us that there is so much more we have yet to invent and discover. Much as Man tries to push the frontiers of Science and seeks to become immortal, Death does come knocking at the doors, at the appointed date and time. Acknowledging God’s bounty would make us humble. It would make us appreciate God’s creations. It would make us respect the environment, protect it. It would make us realize that that there is a world beyond this world. It would make us appreciate the need to make our life here purposeful, serve others. It would make us kinder.

Everywhere we look we have reminders of His bounty. But if we still want a reminder, one must but just get up before the crack of dawn when the stars are still there, and a gentle breeze is wafting by. Look up at the sheer majesty of the sky-the resplendent colours in the horizon, blue, white, orange, mauve, the chirping of the birds. We will be overcome with amazement and gratitude. Which of His favours can we indeed deny?