Check-in

Where are you really heading?
Where is your direction, your purpose, your end goal?
You walk through life, busy here and there, all over,
yet you never stop to ask
what you’re walking toward.

You drift from place to place, hustle to hustle,
pulled by noise, by want, by people, by pain,
and still wonder why the heart feels empty.

Life and death were never your choice.
Your first breath was not your request,
your final breath will not wait for permission.
You didn’t choose to arrive.
You won’t choose when you leave.

So what sense is there
to live every breath in between
as if the whole script belongs to you?

Why live the space in between
like you’re the one in charge?

What reason do you hold,
living your whole life
by your own impulses,
cravings and desires,
your own mood swings,
your own rules?

The truth is this:
Your life was made to seek the One who made you.
The One who breathed soul into you,
who placed life in your chest,
who carved you out of nothing,
who shaped the face you stare at every morning,
the face you show the world.

And He is calling you.
Every day.
So answer His call
before the day comes
when you can’t call back.

Step out of the noise.
Give your heart some space.
Let your mind breathe.
Because everything He gives you
comes without you asking.

And what He asks of you
in return is so small,
so simple, so possible.
Not wealth, not brilliance, not perfection,
but just time.

Time with Him.
Five short sacred moments each day.

Look around you.
The signs are everywhere,
in everything.

Every breath, every heartbeat,
every sight and sound,
every joint, every movement,
every sleep and every waking.

He never forgets
to continue providing,
even on days you forget to pray,
and days you don’t remember Him.

The Maker of all beauty.
The sunrise and the sunset,
the clouds and the rain,
the wind and the rainbow,
the plants and the flowers,
the forest and the sea.
All of it moving, living,
in a perfect rhythm
you never instructed.

Like a parent
who checks on their child
every now and then
when the child leaves home.

Our five moments a day
are those check-ins
with the Creator.

They are our gratitude.
They are our obedience.
They are the sign
that we are Muslim.

So rise, truly rise.
And bow.
Truly bow.

Aydarus Alhabshi
December 2025