Relating

You know, when people look at the world it can seem very scary.

People are very weak and fragile, and it doesn't take much to squash them.

The world is full of things that can squash people, like falling rocks, or wild elephants, or fast cars,

even the ground hurts them if they hit it hard enough.

And how hard is that?

How hard is hard? It's all a question of how strong things are, and some things are strong in different ways.

Things have different powers.

Water may be soft to touch, but the sea has great power,

and can tumble you around,

and suck you in and spit you out.

The air is so soft that most of the time we can hardly feel it,

but strong winds like tornadoes can tear up trees, rip them apart and blow them away.

Lightning isn't hard like a piece of wood, but it has tremendous power.

Not many people get hit by lightning, but when it does strike it can fry a person like a sausage.

Volcanoes blow away whole mountains in a moment,

and earthquakes can move whole countries.

The power of Nature in the world makes the power that humans can control look rather weedy,

but the power of Nature in the world is as nothing compared to the power of the Universe.

The light and heat of the sun warm us and feed the plants that feed us.

Power never vanishes. It never goes away. It just moves from one thing to another.

The power that heats the sun and spins our world, makes our weather that waters our plants,

which gives us vegetables

and feeds the cows that give us milk,

and the sheep that give us mutton pies.

When they get tired, people can eat something and it gives them energy.

They eat the food, and they take in all the power that has gone into the making of it.

They recharge like a solar powered battery.

But the world uses just a tiny part of the power of the sun,

and the sun is just a small star at the edge of the Milky Way,

and the Milky Way is itself just one small galaxy

amongst millions of galaxies in the universe.

Yet even the power that holds the tiny atoms of our world together

is so great that a few atoms torn apart make an explosion big enough to destroy a city.

All that Power, never going away,

just passing from one thing to another.

All that Power was put into the Universe when God made it out of nothing.

The power that moves the stars and galaxies is the same power that gives us life and keeps us alive,

and nothing can happen anywhere in the universe except by the Power of Allah.

Well it looks like no-one has to worry about God too much.

With all those galaxies to deal with, a few speck-like humans aren't going to get noticed.

On the contrary!

It's not like God just made everything and then left things to get on with it themselves.

God knows everything that happens.

God not only starts everything, but is a part of everything.

God can not only be seen in everything, but can also be seen inside ourselves.

God knows everything that we do,

and even knows the secret thoughts we have inside us.

So if God makes everything happen

and knows everything that happens,

that means that humans just do what God makes them do.

Not at all.

That's because of the special thing that God has given to humans,

a special part of them that shares in something that can only be given by God.

The ability to choose for themselves.

But all animals choose for themselves.

A donkey can choose what carrot it wants to eat,

and a bee chooses the flower on which it wants to land.

That's right.

But the choices of the animals are all according to God's will.

Whichever carrot a donkey chooses, it can't be the wrong one for God.

Carrots and flowers and bees and donkeys are all part of Nature, but humans are different.

They have been given a way of seeing the world that is alien to other animals.

Humans see the world and the way that they fit into it in terms of right and wrong.

God created humans free to choose between good and bad.

Even though some things are bad for them, God leaves humans free to choose them if they wish.

In giving humans that freedom, God gave them something that even the angels don't have.

It gives every person a special link with God, that isn't shared with anyone else.

God knows what people do, and what they do is by God's power,

but the choice between good and bad belongs to each individual person.

And because God knows the thoughts inside, we can be judged by our intentions.