If I grow rich, I may deny You

The teens in my household enjoy everything a kid could want – security, money, food, encouragement.  My loving provision shields them, in part, from the curse of Eden!  They think they are ready to run their own lives, totally unaware of how unprepared they are for making their own way. I wonder if my relationship with my Heavenly Father is similar?  Have His blessings actually allowed me to be deluded? Do I ever think that I can manage life apart from His care?  Am I content to give Him a little perfunctory respect just to keep the provisions coming my way?

God’s kids can develop an unhealthy independence from Him built on the illusion of self-sufficiency.  There is a pattern that I have observed many times.  A person grows up, gifted by God, blessed with parents who provide discipline, training, and stability. He takes those gifts and goes on to a successful life, in process abandoning all the but the pretext of faith, nearly completely unaware of foundations others provided for him. But, over time the neglect of the True Source of his blessings leads to crisis, for which he is unprepared. Only then, often too late, does he realize the gifts of God.  Or, there is the other extreme. A person whose life is in ruins desperately reaches out to God. Just as the Word promises, he finds Him to be a Friend and Savior. He loves worship and fellowship with other Christians. He devours books that show him the ways of Christ.  As he grows in faith and walks in spiritual disciplines, his life shows evidence of success. Destructive habits are replaced with responsibility. Godly ways are the fertile soil in which blessings grow.

Too often, we grow independent of the very God that blesses us! Financial independence allows diversions that lead us from making the Lord first priority. Ministries that once were the core of our lives are side-lined as we pursues the hobbies we can now afford. Weekends are spent at the vacation home, instead of at church.  Our prayers are polite and formal prayers, not heart-felt conversations with a Friend.  True thankfulness is almost non-existent, because we think we are a ‘self-made man.’  If asked, we  will thank God for the things we enjoy, but our words and our true values are far apart.

Think that's far-fetched?  Jesus spoke of the seed of the Word which was received with joy but then He said that "the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful." (Mark 4:19, NIV)  Moses prophecied that God’s people would abandon their Deliverer when they were settled in the Promised Land – “Jeshurun (God's people) grew fat and kicked; filled with food, he became heavy and sleek. He abandoned the God who made him and rejected the Rock his Savior." (Deuteronomy 32:15, NIV)

In the richest nation on earth, empty churches on Sunday morning are but one stark symbol of our lack of regard for the Lord and things of the Spirit. We find more security in our bank accounts than we do in our Father’s promises. We gain more sense of worth from our ability to achieve that we do from His gift of grace. It may be that the price of real spiritual revival is deprivation!  It may be that the greater blessing is not more things, more wealth, even more health. Jesus asks, "How do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose or forfeit your own soul in the process?" (Luke 9:25, NLT)

Here’s a prayer that the honest man will pray in sincerity, trusting God to keep him. "Give me neither poverty nor riches! Give me just enough to satisfy my needs. For if I grow rich, I may deny you and say, “Who is the Lord?” And if I am too poor, I may steal and thus insult God’s holy name." (Proverbs 30:8-9, NLT)