Not much to say about this really. It's just like I said alongside the first Prayer for the Day, I just picked a piece of the Qur'an that I liked and then talked about it. 

The language of the Qur'an will often change imagery and simile from sentence to sentence, it's pages sometimes a firework display of different ideas, each interplaying, in different shades of harmony and tension, with ideas in the surrounding context of the book. The rhythms of the Arabic twist and turn and change in a way that can never translate into a foreign language, and the subtle meaning of the Arabic also suffers considerably from translation.

But English it must be, so this reading is from the chapter called The Bee, verses 77-79 and 96-97.

To God belongs the Unseen in the heavens and in the earth. And the matter of the Hour is as a twinkling of the eye, or nearer. Surely God is powerful over everything.

And it is God Who brought you forth, knowing nothing, from your mothers' wombs, and Who appointed for you hearing, and sight, and hearts, that haply so you will be thankful.

Have they not regarded the birds, that are subjected in the air of heaven? Nothing holds them but God; surely in that are signs for a people who believe.

What is with you comes to an end, but what is with God abides; and surely We shall recompense those who were patient their wage, according to the best of what they did.

And whosoever does a righteous deed, be it male or female, believing, We shall assuredly give him to live a goodly life; and We shall recompense them their wage, according to the best of what they did.

The more we look around us the more that we see there is to know. In fact, the more we know, the more we know how little we know. And what is unknown to us is held in God's knowledge, and what is unseen to us belongs to God. In Creation, our stay on this earth is no more than an eyeblink. Our lives flash for a moment and are gone, but God is before what was before, and after what comes after. For God is the Creator, the Maker and the Shaper, and like-God is no other.

We are created knowing nothing in the mercy of the womb, and slowly gain knowledge through our life experience. We are equipped with our senses, emotions and intellect, and presented with our task of finding the ideal way to live. One of the nicest states to be in is to live with a feeling of thankfulness, as though having just received a wondrous present. That is a feeling we know that we enjoy, yet we so easily feel that there is no-one to be thankful to and nothing to be thankful for. But Who feeds the birds? The same One Who takes care of feeding us. And like the birds, when we are subjected God sustains us. Of course, that doesn't mean we don't have to work for our sustenance, any more than it does for the birds.

Whereas we change and grow, God is constant. This world is just a shadow of the Truth, in which we are given a brief moment of time to learn the way to live and the way to die. And one of the things we have to learn if we are going to get some peace into our lives is Patience, knowing that the good we do carries within it the seeds of its own reward. For it is not just who we are, but what we do to the limits of our ability that makes us really feel good about ourselves, and of course, choosing good over bad is essential if you want to live the good life.

And the good that we achieve is vastly more important than our failures and our errors, for it is written that on the Judgement Day God's Mercy will take precedence over His Wrath. Then we are promised that we will be recompensed according to the best of what we did.

In the Name of the One Who is All-merciful and All-compassionate. O God! Help us in our endeavours, and accept our efforts as worship. Guide us in the things we do, and make clear to us our purpose. Protect us from sickness and hunger, except inasmuch as they teach us and serve You. Let your Mercy and Loving Kindness descend into our lives. Amen