Summary: Today I would like to share with you, are some important life lessons for myself and for you that stem from surah Yusuf. Surah Yusuf enjoys a unique place in the Quran because as many of you know it's the one place in the Quran where almost the entire Surah is dedicated to a story in chronological order and there are a lot of things to learn in this Surah. And every bit of this Surah is important and when the ulema (scholars) talk about the fruits that you can get from the ayaat you can literally write a few phd thesis on the lessons and the counseling that comes out of this surah. But overwhelmingly there's one aspect of the surah that I never want you to forget. It's a surah that teaches you and me how to deal with sadness, how to deal with grief, how to deal with difficult situations in life. Allah az Zawjal essentially describes two characters in this surah that deal with a lot of sadness. On the one hand there's the father, Yaqub AS and on the other hand there's the son, Yusuf AS and they both suffer from a great deal of sadness throughout the narrative of the Surah.<br> <br> The father is excessively in love with his son, and this love is expressed in a few words at the beginning of the Surah. You all know the story so I won't walk you through the surah, but there are some essential lessons and some aspects if how we should be thinking about Allah, especially when it comes to sadness, how we should be thinking of Allah az Zawjal, that's what we're going to focus on today.<br> <br> You know, in the beginning when Yusuf AS came to his father and told him his dream, his father's first response was worried. He told him not to tell his dream to his brothers. And we learn this is part of the character and nature of Yaqub AS he, worries for his children. Many years later, his sons, who left Bin Yamin behind, and he is worried about what has happened to him, and they're about to go back into the city of Egypt. He's worried and says don't go into the city all together, go through different doors. Don't go in from one door, go in from different doors because he's worried. It was an economically tough time, we all know there was a famine at the time, so if you have 8 or 10 guys going with camels with them, which they're going to load up and take back, so they would become an easy target, and people would think that they're trying to stock up *** and people would keep an eye out for them and they would be targeted on the journey back, so he tells them to split up, and go through different doors, this is the benefit of him giving them good practical advice. *** even though he brings all his plans if the plan of Allah is otherwise his plans will not benefit them. Which leads me to an important point.<br> <br> He told his son, don't tell this dream to your brothers they might plan against you, and we learn in this story that even though he didn't tell his brothers, because he listened to his father they still planned against him, didn't they? They planned against him anyway. What we are learning here is there are two plans going on: there's a human being's plan, a great human being, Yaqub AS, who has a wonderful relationship with Allah Az Zawjal, there's his plan, and then there is Allah's plan. Of course when you read the story all you see is there is Yaqub AS who is worried and there is the brother's plans, his sons, Yusuf's brothers. In reality there are our hopes, our plans and there are Allah's plans. Sometimes our hopes and our plans for the future are the same. So you really want to get that job, and Allah decides you will get that job. So Allah's plans and your plans are working together. But sometimes Allah decides that your plan is something else and his plan is something else. So you want to get that job and you want to move to that house and all the paperwork is going okay, everything has been approved, and last second they pull back, they don't want to give you the house.
