Once I saw some students take an examination in a center and the sight of them made me think that God’s system of trial is quite similar. Usually a student is at liberty to write what he chooses. The examiners do not question him for giving right or wrong answers. Similarly, God has given man liberty to do good or evil in this world. He is not accountable for anything during the test of life.
This liberty is essential for every examination system. But today’s man has taken it wrongly and thinks that he will not be questioned for his deeds. He may act as he pleases.
Examination systems in this world grant a degree only after one passes an examination. In the same way, God will bestow us with His degree (Paradise) after we succeed in the test He has put us through. Today’s man is a person who is naïve enough to demand his certificate during the test is undergoing. He is unaware of the fact that he is on trial; so he yearns for the degree (paradise) right in this world. How can he obtain it without passing the examination?
The conditions we are destined to live in are, in fact, a sort of an examination in their very nature. But people take them as a reward and waste their life away. If someone is blessed with abounding success and riches, he becomes engrossed in them thinking that he has got his final reward. In the same way, those confronted with failure and stinginess wail over them regarding them as his ultimate dismal fate. Whereas wealth and poverty, success and failure, health and ailments all are tests. Worth considering is the fact that a degree is awarded forever and what we have in this world is not meant to be everlasting. So our conditions here can only be termed as a test not a degree. For it embodies eternity.
Let us hold firm the fact that in this world all conditions, healthy or unhealthy stand for a test only, not a reward. Let us take this life as an examination and act accordingly so that we may deserve the everlasting degree of Paradise. Let us leave wailing over failures and being proud of our success and realize the fact that both the states are temporary. Why worry or feel proud then if we cannot make them permanent. Let us behave as God demands us to behave in these transient circumstances so that we may evade everlasting failure and achieve everlasting success. That behavior is humbleness in success and perseverance in failure.
(Translated and adapted by Tariq Hashmi)