During a discussion of Duʿā Kumayl, I was reminded of a verse from the Bhagavad Gītā:

“If one offers Me with love and devotion a leaf, a flower, a fruit or water, I will accept it.”

[Chapter 9, verse 26, Prabhupāda translation]

When you are a parent, sometimes your child brings you flowers. They did not cultivate the flower, nor did they do anything but pick it, but they bring it to you as an offering. Your heart is filled with appreciation simply because they offer it to you as a symbol of their love, not because they actually accomplished anything remarkable. It is the intention (niyya) behind the offering that you appreciate. They could have been absorbed in their own self, or focused on the antics of some other human being, but in that moment they saw something truly beautiful and offered it to you with love.

If that is true of parents, then how much more so of the One that raised all human beings. Muslims know God primarily through Names, one of which is al-Shakūr (الشكور). Muslim thinkers who have commented on the meaning of this Divine Name say that it refers to God’s appreciation of the little that we do with pure hearts only wanting to please God. Perhaps it is a gift of ṣadaqa. Perhaps it was one of our duʿās. Perhaps it was an ʿUmrah. Perhaps it was leaving something ḥarām even though no one knew about it. Only God knows. But in that moment we offered back to God something that God gave us in the first place (our wealth, our voice, our healthy body, our agency, etc.). God is Self-Sufficient (al-Qayyūm) and does not need anything from us. But manifesting as al-Shakūr, God appreciates the intention (niyya) in our heart to offer something to God that God already possesses.

This is what this verse of Gītā is talking about. God is moved by the devotion (bhakti is the Sanskrit word in the verse) underlying our offering, not the bigness or smallness of the offering. Keep in mind that the Gītā was saying this over 1000 years before the Qurʾān.

One brother reflected on a line of Duʿā Kumayl that states, “please forgive this one whose only wealth is hope (ارْحَم مَّن رَّأْسُ مَاِلهِ الرَّجَاءُ),” which indicates our utter poverty (faqr) before the Possessor of Everything (al-Ghanī).

All of our lives we think we are doing so much and trying so hard to earn God’s love, but the truth is that God is looking most of all for the sincerity (ikhlāṣ) of our hearts.

We are all children offering flowers to the most merciful of those who show mercy (أرحم الراحمين).