Supplication and Laziness

Don’t think that supplication and requests have no effect on people who are renovating their country. For people who are crossing a difficult and long way, aiming to accomplish a great achievement, I say that it is a must to open a wide door of supplication, requests, and asking for God’s help beside hard work and relentless pursuit.

That’s why we see that the noble prophet (pbuh) and the infallible Imams (peace be upon them) used to seek God's help and resort to Him almighty during wars and dangerous battlefields and when having great work or making important decisions. So, can anyone say that the prophet (pbuh) and muslims didn’t make hard-pressed efforts in the beginning, to perform their duties?

Are there any efforts greater than the efforts made by those believers? The ten year authority of the prophet (pbuh), when he was responsible for managing the islamic society, was full of hard work and relentless pursuit.

Beside those efforts made by the prophet (pbuh) and muslims, supplication, requests, istighfar (seeking God’s forgiveness), and sincere penitence (returning to God) had a special place in their lives.

Then, the only way for a nation to achieve success is improving and strengthening the relation with God almighty.

Therefore, if a nation wants to accomplish great achievements, it should seek help from God and if it wants to remove its fear from enemies, it should fear no one except God. This is because, as you know, people’s problems result from their fear from arrogant powers, wretched ones, and international bandits. A nation starts to fall in the slider of humiliation when fear from the powerful and wretched seeps into its heart.

This is not only limited to the people of the nation, but fear from the great powers may seep to the hearts of the officials and guardians of the nation. Thus, their hands and legs will be bound and they will not be able to make any step forward to serve their people. The only way for any nation to prosper and benefit from its abilities and self energies is limited to not fearing from tyrannical powers and international bandits.

In order for a man not to fear the greatest powers, he should focus on fearing from God almighty because a heart that is full of God’s fear and love, the fear from any power in the world despite how much it becomes great will not seep to his heart. This is the real benefit of supplication and requests to God's help.

The great secret of the success of our dead Imam, may God be pleased with him, who stood like a strong mountain in the face of major powers- as you have seen- is his close relationship with God Almighty. 1

Supplication and Laziness
Then, supplication shouldn’t be an excuse for laziness, ignorance of materialistic causes, or the causality law. Supplication doesn’t stand against these points, but beside them.

Mostly, supplication plays the role of providing all of this.

But at the same time, remember that miracles that happen sometimes are independent cases. They are considered as exceptions. Otherwise, the role of supplication as we mentioned before is preparing the causes and needs that should exist in normal cases. For example, when you ask God for something that you need, you should before exert all your efforts beside supplication. If you feel lazy, then you should ask God almighty to get rid of this laziness. But in order for this to happen, you should have the will, determination, and persistence to get rid of it (laziness).

Then, we have here another natural and materialistic causes which are determination and persistence. Do not ever think that God almighty will fulfill our needs if we ask Him while sitting in our houses, doing nothing and not insisting on achieving our goals. This cannot happen. Therefore, supplication should take place beside and with exerting efforts.

We conclude that many efforts don’t end with success, without supplication. When a man requests God's help, he will succeed to achieve what he was dreaming of. 2

Supplication from the Words of Al Imam Al Khaminai (may God protect him)

([1]) Occasion: meeting with a group of martyrs’ families- Time and place: 7 Dhul-Hijjah 1414 AH - Tehran - Attendance: A group of martyrs’ families coming from various cities of Iran.
([2]) Occasion: The Friday prayer sermons - Time and place: 17 / Ramadan / 1415 AH - Tehran - Attendance: A group of worshipers.