Ask our children:
1. If it is your desire to buy a very expensive toy, and for this you save all your spending money everyday, after one month will you take all your money that was saved and throw it away?
2. If you spent the whole day building a huge sandcastle, then when it is just about complete will you take a spade and break it down?
3. If it was a very hot day and you managed to fast the entire day and there is one minute remaining for the sun to set, will you have a sip of water and break your fast a minute before it’s time?
Now tell them the story:
A man once stayed high up on a mountain, where there was no drinking water. However at the foot of the mountain there was a stream flowing with clean water. So the man took a teaspoon in his hand and he walked all the way down to the foot of the mountain to the stream and he filled the teaspoon with water. Now he walked carefully all the way up with the teaspoon of water and he emptied it into a jug. Then he walked down again and then up again with a teaspoon of water and he emptied it into the jug. This he continued to do for the entire day, in the heat of the burning sun. By the end of that day he was all tired and the jug was only half filled. So he took the jug and emptied all the water into the drain. The next morning he once again started his work, walking up and down the mountain with the teaspoon, trying to fill the jug with water and once again at the end of the day he emptied the half filled jug into the drain. He continued to do this, day in and day out, whereas his object was to fill the entire jug with water. What will we call such a man?
We will definitely call him a fool. However there is a bigger fool than him. It is that person who tries so hard to do good actions, but after doing good actions he falls into bad actions and sin which destroy the good that he has done. Good actions take us closer to the mercy of Allah Ta‘ala, whereas bad actions move us away from the mercy of Allah Ta‘ala.
Lessons:
1. One is to do good, but it is just as important to protect the good we have done.
2. Sin destroys the good we have done.
3. Protect our good actions by staying away from sin.
4. It will be tragic if we feel we have done lots of good but due to our sins there remains no good in our book of deeds.