Meditation: On progress in the spiritual life

All good comes of God, and not of yourself

O, my soul! It may please you when you have taken some step forward in discipline, or patience, or self control, or in some other aspect of righteous intent and action.

But take heed! And remember your many failures and blunders!¹ Right reflection will reveal them to swamp any successes.

All good comes of God, and not of yourself.² Give glory to God and remember Him, and hope in His continued mercy.³

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The footnotes below lead to the online version of The Qur’an: A Complete Revelation. It is free to use and is designed to aid students of both the Qur’anic text in English and of the original Arabic. You can download the full work free or purchase it in hardback (at 10% less than with online bookstores).

1. 3:103, 3:152-153, 4:49, 4:113, 24:21, 93:1-11. 

2. 4:79, 16:53.

3. 2:64, 2:105, 3:74, 4:83, 4:113, 10:58, 17:57, 18:16, 24:10, 24:14, 24:21, 28:73, 30:46, 39:38, 42:8, 45:30, 57:28, 76:31.