"But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well." - Matthew 6:33
A verse for all the worriers. The "things" Jesus refers to are food and clothing, the everyday necessities. This is a great, foundational verse about priorities and trust. It is just what the spiritual babies (good grief—preemies!) attending Jesus' sermon on the mount needed to hear and apply to their lives.
But Jesus doesn't just say "these things;" He says "all these things." So really that could mean anything we need. Or think we need. Or can't get for ourselves. But hey, God can. He's got the hookup. We seek Him like a cosmic vending machine, throw in our loose change, and expect to get "all these things."
At some point, however, we need to realize that "all these things" do not constitute the payoff of Christian faith. The payoff is God Himself. Psalm 37:4 says, "Delight yourself in the LORD/and he will give you the desires of your heart." Doesn't it sound like He is just begging us to make Him the desire of our hearts? Of course He won't begrudge us the necessities of life; they are so nothing compared with the gift of Himself He's dying to give us. Nothing we could ask for even comes close to the value of God.
The rich, young ruler of Mark 10 already had "all these things," or at least, most of them. He just needed the last thing on his list: eternal life. So he hits up the J-man. Jesus tells him, Get rid of all these things. They are keeping you from the greatest thing: me. But the man couldn't see that laying hold of God Himself was a reward far greater than anything else. Granted, adjusting one's perspective to prize the gift of God above the trappings of faith requires some spiritual insight and abstract thinking. But all these things will be given to you as well.
"When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, 'Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it.' He was afraid and said, 'How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.'" - Genesis 28:16-17
Surely something of Jacob's fear was due to his sin. However, "to fear God" in the Old Testament is to reverence God. Flippant language in prayer and testimony about God reveals a lack of a true sense of His presence. The movement of God's Spirit is always accompanied by a deep sense of intense awe. People want to kneel. Some are so convicted of sin that it appears as a terrible blackness. Such people find they have the attitude of the apostle John who, although in earlier days had leaned upon Jesus' breast, bowed to the ground in worship before the ascended Lord (Revelation 1:17). - BSF: Genesis, Lesson 23
Our culture is not normally one to foster deep reverence. Even genuine God-seekers can be blinded by their desire to make their God-concept into something that works for them. Therefore, God becomes a casual God because I am a casual person. God becomes a permissive God because I am a permissive person. God becomes a short order God because I am accustomed to instant gratification. (I had intended to avoid this phrase, but) It smacks woefully of creating God in one's own image. We take the portions of God that we can see, relate to, and/or are endeared toward and whip up a God-casserole that is digestible to us. And we've missed it.
We've missed that, in relation to us, God is entirely other. He has imbued us with certain aspects of his own existence—intellect, emotion, spirituality—so that there can be communication between us and Him, but He is also, to a large(r?) degree, unknowable. "'For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,' declares the LORD. 'As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts'" (Isaiah 55:8-9). Jacob saw it. He saw that God was not Who he had imagined Him to be. In that experience, he was forced outside himself. He could not continue to be who he was, after having seen God revealed. His God-concept was shattered and with it his self-concept, also.
We can only truly appreciate God (in our limited earthly capacity) when we lose any notion of ourselves. Jesus said, "Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it" (Matthew 16:25). The irony is that in forfeiting our lives/egos/self-concepts, we become more fully the individuals we were intended to be. We find the completion of our personalities only in relationship with Him. And we gain a more realistic perspective on His awesome unknowability.