Blessings -- from whose view?

As a follow up to my post on ungodliness...

God gives good gifts. I am convinced of that. Yet, I wonder sometimes if I have a warped sense of the blessings of God in my life? When I am happy, pleased, secure and content then I often comment that I am blessed by God. When my financial picture is rosy, when I have pleasant relationships with those around me, and all of my cars are working well I feel I am blessed by God. But what if God's greatest blessing to me is not found in what I just mentioned, but discovered during times of difficulty? In fact, what if the times of difficulty ARE the blessings themselves? Here are a few thoughts on why ease and comfort may NOT be the blessing of God that we often take them to be:

1. Comfort blunts our longing for the next life (we are to consider ourselves aliens and strangers in this world, but it is hard -- even pointless -- to see that when we are comfortably set up here).

2. Ease of life distracts us from pursuing God wholeheartedly (goodness knows that I know this reality. Currently I find that my jobless position has stirred me to seek God in greater ways than I usually did when I had a stable life. Perhaps this is just a "me" problem, but I would venture to guess it is a universal reality).

3. Prosperity dulls the need for a life of faith (Why do I need to trust God desperately when I can take care of it myself? I have enough money, influence, or resources to accomplish this on my own. I may not even need to call out to God on this one -- I can handle it).

For most of us, we have so much material "blessing" around us that we are insulated from the difficulties of life (read pain and suffering) that God wants to use AS a blessing in our lives (to remind us of our dependence upon Him). A friend told me that Dave Bechtel just preached on suffering and I am going to try to track that down. I am becoming more and more convinced that difficulty is the way that we most clearly see God.

What if the material prosperity we enjoy is not a blessing of God to us? What if it is rather His allowance to give us over to what WE have desired? I'm not saying we should seek pain in some masochistic manner (it will find us quickly enough if we allow it), but if you find yourself in any of the three categories above, I'd gently encourage you to intentionally jettison some of your comfort, ease, or even material resources.

Consider Hebrews 11:6 -- "And without faith it is impossible to please God. For he that comes to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who diligently seek Him." Tomorrow I hope to post about the relationship between faith and pain.

By the way, since I'm reading Proverbs, I figured I'd start a Proverb Thought of the Day section:

"Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly (14:29)"

Pretty self-explanatory.