Deuteronomy 31:19-23: in context

As Moses nears the end of his life, God foretells what will happen to Israel in the good land. When I have brought them into the land flowing with milk and honey, God says, and they have eaten and filled themselves and grown fat, then they will turn to other gods and serve them, and despise me, and break my covenant. God knows that their very prosperity will become the occasion of their forgetting him; that full and comfortable, they will turn away from the God who gave them all they enjoy.

God's foreknowledge here names a real and sobering danger: that prosperity leads to forgetting God. It might seem that plenty and comfort would produce gratitude and devotion; but God warns of the opposite. When they are full and fat, comfortable and prosperous, they will turn from him. The very blessings they enjoy will become the occasion of their forgetting the God who gave them. Prosperity, comfort, and fullness tend, in the human heart, not to gratitude but to forgetfulness and self-sufficiency, so that we forget the God who provided all we enjoy. This is a danger we do well to heed, for it is as real for us as for Israel. When things go well, when we are comfortable and prosperous, when our needs are met and more, there is a subtle pull to forget God, to grow self-sufficient, to feel we no longer need him, to let our devotion cool as our comfort grows. Beware, Moses warns Israel elsewhere, lest when you have eaten and are full, and your houses are good and your possessions multiplied, your heart is lifted up, and you forget the LORD your God. Prosperity can dull our sense of dependence and cool our devotion, so that the blessings themselves become the occasion of forgetting the giver. This searches whether our prosperity is leading us toward gratitude or forgetfulness. When we are comfortable and things go well, do we grow more grateful and devoted to God, or does our comfort dull our sense of need for him and cool our devotion? The prosperity that should produce gratitude can instead produce forgetfulness, as God foretold of Israel. Give me neither poverty nor riches, one wise prayer asks, lest I be full and deny you, and say, who is the LORD? The danger of plenty is real; it can lead us to forget God. This calls us to guard against the forgetfulness that prosperity breeds. God foretold that Israel, full and fat in the good land, would turn from him; and we too can let our comfort and prosperity dull our devotion and lead us to forget the God who gave us all we enjoy. Let us guard against this, remembering in our prosperity the God who provided it, keeping our sense of dependence and our devotion alive even when we are full and comfortable, so that our blessings lead us to gratitude and not to the forgetfulness that turns from the giver, remembering the LORD our God when we have eaten and are full rather than forgetting him.

When I am comfortable and prosperous, my needs met and more, does my plenty lead me toward gratitude and devotion, or toward the forgetfulness and self-sufficiency that dull my sense of need for God, and can God's warning that Israel, full and fat in the good land, would turn from him move me to guard against the forgetfulness that prosperity breeds, remembering in my comfort the God who provided it and keeping my devotion alive even in plenty rather than forgetting the giver?