 In the name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the All-Merciful, the University Merciful, and the Intimate Leader, particularly Merciful. Allah reminds us in every single one of our actions, before we start that action, that we start with the Bismillah, saying that it's described to the Prophet ﷺ. It's narrated that Prophet ﷺ said that every matter that doesn't start with the name of Allah and al-Rahman al-Rahim, then it's cut off from blessings, that it's cut off from barakah. Barakah is when Allah puts a lot of result in a little bit of a cause, that one cause comes with much effect, that's barakah. And the believer, the mu'min, the person who submits to Allah is a person of barakah, is a person who brings about that barakah. And so, in that regard, every action of the believer reminds one of Allah Azza wa Jal who is the Merciful, that Allah Azza wa Jal sent his message to Allah ﷺ and he sent him as a mercy to mankind, when he says wa ma'a ar-sannaka illa rahmatan il-alameen, we've only sent you as a mercy to all realms. And to be prophetic, to follow that uswa tun-hasana, to follow that model of conduct ﷺ necessitates that we be ambassadors of mercy, that people see us as sources of mercy, that we become people who have that godly characteristic of having mercy for the other. But before we can begin to have mercy for the other, we must begin with mercy for ourselves. To have mercy for the self before you have mercy for the other, because Allah Azza wa Jal first charges us with our own selves, before he charges us and trusts us with the responsibility we have to others. This of course doesn't relieve us of our responsibility we have to others, but first we must focus on being mercies to ourselves. And what does that mean? Does that mean that when somebody inconveniences us that we disregard them? That's not what we mean by being a mercy to ourselves. Primarily being a mercy to ourselves is allow ourselves to attain mercy. When somebody asks the Prophet ﷺ the Ya Rasulullah ﷺ, I want your company in paradise. His response was what? A'inuni bi kathati sujud, that helped me with this through much sajda. And sajda here, he said sajda but what's meant by that is the prayer, that he mentioned the most important part of the prayer, the sajda. And that's the point when the mind is lower than the heart. The head is lower than the chest, where the heart rises above the mind. And we're remembered that our affair is the heart, is the affair of the heart. Mercy doesn't necessarily always come from the intellect. If we were purely rational about all of our interactions, we would first aim for that which is best for ourselves. Why would we do good to another? Why would I give charity when I can keep that for myself? But Allah ﷺ reminds us that the heart takes precedence. And to be people of mercy, that heart, we must take care of that heart. To be people of mercy, we must enact on deeds that Allah commands. That we must be people whose prayer truly tanha'i al fahshai wal munkar, truly forbids one from fahshai wal munkar, things that are despicable. Things that the heart can't settle on, that lying, the heart can't settle on lying. Backbiting, the heart can't settle on backbiting. Something in the heart feels wrong when we say something about another that's not true. Or even if it's true that they don't want us to say, the heart doesn't settle, there's that guilt that Allah puts, that guilt that Allah puts in the heart is from His mercy on to us. The guilt He puts into our heart is a reminder, that's a sign of iman, that if we did something wrong and we feel bad about it after we do that action, that's a sign of iman, that's a sign of faith, that's a sign that Allah has kept you cognizant of Him, Az-Zawajan. That I've done this thing wrong, but regardless of that fact, I've kept you at the forefront of Allah, that I've shown myself mercy to myself by not putting myself in a place where you look at me out of Allah, and you look at me with disgrace. And you look at me as somebody who deserves the punishment. So we begin with having mercy with ourselves by first enacting on those deeds, those fara'id, those Allah that Allah asked us to do. That's the first mercy we enact on ourselves. And then to avoid those acts that prevent us from receiving Allah's grace, from receiving Allah's mercy, those acts that when you do it, it displeases Allah. That when you see the message of Salaam on the mahshar, when everyone is raised, that you're ashamed to look at the Prophet Salaam with those acts. That's that second mercy. To divest yourself of those acts, to remove those acts from your life, to make tawba, to properly turn back to Allah Az-Zawajan. That's that second mercy that you have to yourself so that you do not prevent yourself from the khayr, the good that Allah has stored for you. And then the third manner in which we can have mercy for ourselves is to have gratitude for what Allah has given us. That each breath you take is something being taken from your stock, from your inventory. When you lose something, that's when you truly have gratitude for it. You recognize its worth, and each moment we're losing a breath, and we have to recognize the worth of that breath. And that breath that you take, if it's not spent in the pleasure of Allah Az-Zawajan, in your ibadat, in your worship, or your adat, your habitual acts, or your muamalat, your social interactions, if those aren't oriented towards Allah, those breaths are not oriented towards Allah, then we are wasting that breath to have shukr for that breath. Ya Allah, you gave me this breath for your obedience, you didn't give it to me to disobey. Ya Allah, that you gave me this time that I have and I recognize it's going, so I recognize its worth. Before it goes, ya Allah, I want to have shukr for this breath, that I want to use these breaths, this energy that you give me for your pleasure, that I don't use this breath to talk about so and so, and what they did wrong, I'm more worried about having mercy on to myself, what am I doing wrong, that I can solve in myself, that I can fix, I can rectify that affair in myself, that I'm too busy, that we are too busy to be preoccupied with the other, because we're first worried about having that mercy to our own selves, they're not preventing ourselves from the mercy that Allah has in store for us. And so each breath that goes, we recognize that that breath is being taken and that we are ambassadors of mercy to ourselves first and then to the other, and once you are able to fulfill the fara'id, of course this does not disregard any of the obligations we have in another, that we can't use the excuse of I am showing mercy to myself, therefore I'm not worried about my brother or my sister doing such and such wrong action that I can assist with them, I can assist them with that action by removing that action from their lives in whatever capacity I have, if they are in my circle of influence, then I can use that circle of influence to remove them from the action that they're in. That's a farad on us, right? With wisdom, of course. We don't want to be people who do tenfir, who drive people away from Allah Azza wa Jalla, we want to be people of tabsheer, people who bring them closer, basheeru wa la tunaffeeru, the process I'm said, that give people glad tidings and don't drive them away. And once we fulfill this act of mercy onto ourselves, then we can worry about our immediate family, past the obligations, and each of us have obligations to our immediate family in regards to encouraging them to do good and to prevent them from doing things that are harmful to themselves. And it is harmful to themselves and harmful to ourselves when we disobey Allah Azza wa Jalla. And it's from the mercy of Allah Azza wa Jalla that he prevents us from that harm for ourselves. And he says, Ya'ibadiya al-Ladina asrafu, ala anfusihim, la taqunatum ar-Rahmatillah, that all my slaves who have transgressed upon themselves, we're not harming Allah and Ayodha by one of our acts of disobedience, nor are we benefiting him one bit with our acts of obedience. It's purely for our own benefit. And so we should be people who recognize the mercy that Allah Azza wa Jalla has given us in that benefit. In giving us that guidance, out leaving us for our own devices, I say this, wa staghfirullah ali walakum wa gi'sa'id al-muslimin, yaqum istaghufiru, innahu hu wa l-ghufur r-Rahim. Bismillah wa al-hamdulillah wa s-salatu wa s-salamu ala Rasulillah wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa ma wa ala. If we feel like we spent many breaths in waste, then we recognize that there is a goal to reach, that we aren't necessarily perfect. And in that regard, Allah has given us a solution, that every single act that we do is going to have deficiencies. That doesn't relieve us of doing the fara'id, that we don't despair in the fact that those acts have deficiencies. We have hope in the fact that our actions have deficiencies, yet Allah still accepts them, that these actions that we do, they're not worth much in front of Allah Azza wa Jalla. But regardless of that fact, Allah buys back those acts for a price higher than they're worth when He's the one who owns the acts in the first place. He buys back his own property for what it's worth, for more than what it's worth. That's the mercy of Allah Azza wa Jalla. And if we haven't had the opportunity to do much acts, Allah Azza wa Jalla has given us a means of increasing that barakah in our time, that barakah in our acts, the blessing in our acts. So that we can produce Allah out of the little. And it's one of the khasais of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam mentioned in the Qur'an that Allah and His angels send their blessings and salutations upon Him, SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, and that we're asked to do the same. So when we do that act of SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, that what are we doing? We're saying Allahumma SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, O Allah, send your blessings on the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, and then what happens? That Allah sends back 10 blessings back upon us. And us sending that blessing to SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam is not worth much because it's deficient, which is why we ask Allah to send it and Allah's Sadawat is infinite. The worth of that is infinite. And then 10 come back to you so that whatever holes and gaps we have in our actions, those are filled by Sadawat and Him, SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, and that consistent reminder that we are part of the ummah, of the greatest of creation, the beloved of Allah Azawajan, that it's from His love, Azawajan, for His Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam that He has given us this ability to patch up these deficient acts with a means that doesn't take too much energy. This is from His Qasaiyus. This is from His particularities, SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, that wasn't given to other prophets. So we ask Allah Azawajan, He makes us people of Barakah, He makes us ambassadors of mercy first to ourselves and then to others. We ask Allah Azawajan that we keep in mind the rights of Allah Azawajan and then the rights of ourselves and then the rights of others. We ask Allah, He doesn't deny us of His mercy. We ask Allah Azawajan that He puts Barakah in our time, Barakah in our acts, blessings in our time, and blessing in our acts and He doesn't deny us of that blessing. We ask Allah Azawajan that when we meet Him, we're not ashamed of the acts that we have. We ask Allah Azawajan that when we meet the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam on the Mahshar, that when we meet Him, SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam at the Haud at his basin, that he looks at a smiling, proud of the actions of his Ummah, SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, and that we be people who truly manifest what it means to be part of this Ummah, to be Quntum Khairu Ummatina Khurijatina Nass, the best of people who have ever come out, the best of nations who have ever come out to people. May Allah Azawajan make us the best of people. May Allah Azawajan patch the faults that we have in our actions. May Allah multiply our words beyond what it's worth. May Allah Azawajan not take us into account for our slips and our misdeeds. May Allah Azawajan multiply our good and replace our evil deeds with good deeds. May Allah Azawajan allow us to be people who have our evil deeds replaced with good deeds. We ask Allah Azawajan that He be the only source of solace for us in our lives. He be the only source of Salam. So we say, Allahumma, Anta Salam. Wa Minka Salam. We ask Allah Azawajan to have mercy on our teachers, particularly our first teachers, our parents. So we say, We ask Allah Azawajan to allow us to recognize that Allah and His angels and their benedictions and salutations upon Him is Allah's Salaam. And we're asked to do the same. Allah and His angels and their benedictions and salutations upon Him is Allah's Salaam. And we're asked to do the same.