Do not imprison yourself

Through this world... We see the ferocity of the attack on Islam from the visible enemy and the internal infiltrators: War, desires, distraction, doubts, forgery... We are jealous of our religion, we long for our glories...we respond to the falsehoods, we call to the truth, we organize activities... People respond with eagerness, for our words touch their nature and bring about change in them... And in all of this, the specter of arrest and the oppression of falsehood and the cessation of the call haunts us...(They will not let us complete, they will not let us complete) Months and years may pass... We are not arrested, falsehood does not suppress us, and the field remains wide open for our call And yet...we slacken, our momentum decreases, our determination weakens...and days pass, days in which we could have pushed back falsehood, revealed the truth, brought the distant closer, and awakened the heedless...but we surrendered to laziness, then slept after dawn, then flipped through the internet without a specific goal, and spent hours without a clear plan...some of us may even complain about being affected by desires, and we become among those we were treating yesterday, waiting with them for someone to rescue us! We will discover that we imprisoned ourselves the day no one imprisoned us! And we may become enthusiastic again, but we soon slacken...and so on While we look: if the people of falsehood in their programs are continuing, with determination, activity, planning, and achievement...and they win over Muslims daily who could have been in our good deeds. And may Allah's Messenger (peace be upon him) be truthful when he said –as attributed to him-: (I complain to Allah the harshness of the wicked and the weakness of the believer). O Lord, grant us determination like that which Ibn al-Jawzi spoke of: (Among the elite are those who, since they awoke, have not slept, and since they stood, have not stopped. They are in ascent and progress, and whenever they complete a stage, they look, and they see the palaces they were in, so they seek forgiveness).