The inference that has to be rejected

Run the verse about taqwa and a way out backwards and you get this: if a door has not opened for you, your taqwa must be lacking.

That inference is the single most damaging idea in this whole subject, and it does not follow from the verse. A promise that Allah provides for those who keep His limits is not a statement that anyone can read another person's standing off their bank balance, or read their own off it.

It does more than not follow. The Qur'an states the inference, in the words a person actually uses, and then refuses it. Man, when his Lord tries him through honour and blessings, says, my Lord has honoured me. But when He tries him through the restriction of his provision, he says, my Lord has humiliated me. No indeed. Both halves are put in the mouth of man and both are turned down. Wealth read as honour and restriction read as humiliation are the same mistake facing in two directions, and the second one is the one being made about you, sometimes by you.

If it were true, you would have to conclude something about every prophet who was poor, every Companion who was hungry, and the households of the people of the Suffah. The family of Muhammad, peace be upon him, never ate wheat bread with meat for three days running to their fill, until he met his Lord.

There is also a reason given for restricted provision that has nothing to do with a deficiency in the person. If Allah were to grant His plentiful provision to all His creatures, they would act insolently on earth, but He sends down in due measure whatever He will, for He is well aware of His servants and watchful over them. The measure is described there as an act of watching over somebody.

And where the comparison with other people is the part that hurts, the instruction is not to reach a conclusion but to ask. Do not covet what Allah has given to some of you more than others; you should rather ask Allah for some of His bounty.

Notice also what the inference does to a person who believes it. It makes financial difficulty into evidence of spiritual failure, which makes it unspeakable, which makes them hide it, which stops them getting either the money help or the religious counsel they need. The idea is not only wrong, it is load bearing for the shame in lesson five.

Your rizq is written, so do not worry, is the same idea wearing softer clothes. It is true as a statement about the decree and it is useless as advice, and in practice it functions to end the conversation.