God’s top priority is for us to comply with his salvation plan and thereby qualify for heaven.
Thereafter, he wants us to experience true contentment as we walk in harmony with him and minister on his behalf to the hurting people in our circle of influence.
With these intentions in mind, God outfits us with the mixture of comfort, convenience, safety, success, and satisfaction that further these purposes.
True contentment is ultimately a matter of delighting in God, which flows from knowing him intimately.
Accordingly, he bestows the blend of blessings that position us to understand his excellence at levels we would not comprehend if he always satisfied our every desire.
An effective personal ministry requires us to relate to others and vice versa.
The disparity between God’s blessings and our preferences enables us to identify with the hurting people we encounter and speak authentically to them.
They heed us because we have firsthand knowledge of God’s excellence and their pain.
We want to believe that we would draw closer to God and do more on his behalf if he blessed us with more temporal abundance.
But God is omniscient. He is familiar with the good and bad tendencies of our fallen nature. He knows how we would respond to more prosperity.
He also knows the other people he wants to reach through us, the tailored message they need to hear, and the factors that will make them amenable to hearing it from us.
God sees the outcomes of every blend of blessings at once, including those that would enable us to enjoy an easier life.
He selects the blend of blessings from these variations that he knows will best fulfill his purposes for us and those in our orbit as we walk in harmony with him.
If we turn away from God because we dislike his selection, we forego true contentment on earth as well as the heavenly rewards he reserves for those who serve him here.
