Playing Ping Pong with God | Alireza Panahian

Playing Ping Pong with God

We are playing ping-pong with God twenty-four hours a day. When you become a member of the National Ping-Pong Team, a professional coach plays with you continuously. He knows that your weakness is in the left court when he hits the ball a certain way. Therefore, he constantly smashes into the left court until you learn. Then he says, “Now, I must strengthen him in other areas.”

We are playing ping-pong with God twenty-four hours a day. Look where he is hitting the ball for you to get it. That is your weak point, and you should work on it. You are playing with your coach.

The coach doesn’t want to stifle you either. He hits several balls for you to show your strength and feel good. Then he hits the ball into your same corner where you are weak; to make you jump. He sees you have become lazy, so He hits some balls in a new way. He is a professional coach and the real owner! This is God.

When you start to evaluate yourself, you will see He has hit most balls into the corner where you are weak. You will see God and live with Him twenty-four hours a day. This is remembering God.

However, when some people are reciting God’s names, they say, “Glory be to God; look at that car! Glory be to God; wow a new car!” What are you saying? That means “A glorious car! A glorious car!” Repeating God’s names means seeing that God is paying attention to you.

Self-evaluation helps you understand that the ball has been hit to your left corner ten times. This shows your left court is weak! What is God doing? You will realize what He will do tomorrow; and the next day. Do you know what point you will come to? God will become predictable for you.

A person is incapable of understanding his present relationship with God, and God’s expectations. What does this mean? You will gradually come to know what God expects from you tomorrow. He will probably aim at the corner of the left court. He has made me feel good for several days and worked my arm on that side. Now, He will work on this side.

I have heard that athletes have close ties with their coaches, and they become friends. If it is a good relationship, they cry when they say goodbye after a long time!

A person who sees God as a coach and his trainer with whom he is playing ping-pong will love God. He will see God’s smile towards himself.

Self-evaluation helps you to see God and know others. If you understand yourself well, you will understand others. You will understand everyone’s weak and strong points. Self-evaluation gives much insight. That is why the Household of the Prophet (‘a) say, “The person who does not evaluate himself is not from us.”