– Muhammad Abdullah Javed
While journeying this morning, my eyes caught a humble yet significant sight: in the open fields, under the vast blue sky, farmers were ploughing their land with their oxen. After days, perhaps weeks, of tireless toil, the farmers will sow their seeds into that cracked and sun-drenched soil… and then they will look up, with hope and aspirations. They will wait for the sky to open, with rain, with mercy.
Isn’t this an eternal scene? A living metaphor? A sacred cycle of human striving and Divine giving? The farmer knows his plough cannot summon the clouds. His oxen cannot water the seed, and yet he works. He wakes before dawn. He bends his back. Why? Because he believes that the Unseen will answer. That the heavens will respond to the rhythm of his thought.
Had he not believed in the rain, he would never lift the plough. For centuries, season after season, this partnership has endured. Man works the earth; God sends the rain. Man sows the seed; God ensures the growth. Man stores the grain; God nourishes with it. And through it all, life moves on, from one season to the next.
Yet amid this grand exchange between sky and earth, we must pause and ask: What is our part in return? Are we grateful? Are we mindful? Are we humble before the One who turns dust into grain? Or have we become too absorbed in our machinery, too confident in our own cleverness, and forgotten that even the best machines, the most advanced tools, cannot command a single drop from the sky?
The farmer, in all his simplicity, teaches us the secret of life: do your part with sincerity and look up with trust. Till your heart like the soil, plant your efforts with sincerity, and look up in hope. Because just like the harvest, guidance too descends from heaven.
And He sends down rain from the sky, thereby reviving the earth after its death. Surely in this is a sign for those who listen. (Surah An-Nahl: 65)
Now it’s our turn to respond:
The Almighty has answered our efforts and sincerity with mercy from the sky—He sent down the rain. Now, it’s our turn to respond. This sacred exchange between the Creator and His servants defines the essence of true worship. Our labour meets His mercy; our hopes meet His grace. So how do we respond to the One above the heavens? It’s simple. Whenever we witness a field being ploughed or feel the gentle breeze after the rain, let us pause. Let our hearts answer the silent Divine questions embedded in every drop, every gust, every crop and every blessing:
Do you not see that Allah sends down rain from the sky, and forthwith the earth becomes clothed with green? (Surah Al-Hajj: 63)
Do you not see that it is Allah who gently drives the clouds, then He joins them together and then turns them into a thick mass and thereafter you see raindrops fall down from its midst?… (Surah An-Noor: 43)
Do they not see that We do drive rain to parched soil (bare of herbage), and produce therewith crops, providing food for their cattle and themselves? Have they not the vision? (Surah As-Sajda: 27)
Don’t they see that Allah sends down rain from the sky, and leads it through springs in the earth? Then He causes to grow therewith produce of various colours: then it withers; thou wilt see it grow yellow; then He makes it dry up and crumble away?… (Surah Az-Zumar: 21)
Who is it that sustains you (in life) from the sky and from the earth…? (Surah Younus: 31)
Who is there that can provide you with sustenance if He were to withhold His provision? (Surah Al-Mulk: 21)
As the farmer trusts the rain, so must we trust the guidance that descends—quietly, consistently, and only to those who prepare their hearts to receive it.
As for the good land, vegetation comes forth in abundance by the command of its Lord, whereas from the bad land, only poor vegetation comes forth. Thus do We expound Our signs in diverse ways for a people who are grateful. (Surah Al-A’raf: 58)
