While it is very true that God gives abundantly, it is clear that God is a God Who Separates.
Especially in the Old Testament, God seems to do a lot of separating. In our acquiring/blessing mentality, I think we forget this very important aspect of God's interaction with us. We often let it catch us off guard.
And yet, "Come out from among them" seems to be the clarion call from the Old Testament. He says it to specific men and women of God as well as to an entire people group. He spent complete books in the Old Testament making sure the were separated from old ways and old habits and instead put on new ways and new habits that would set them apart from the pagans around them and the Egyptians they left behind.
Noah was separated from the rest of the unrighteous, saving mankind. The people of the Tower of Babel were separated, never to return to previous unity. Abraham was told to leave his father's people.
I find it interesting that Abraham did not exactly obey. He took both his father and Lot, his nephew, with him. God shook Abraham free of his father early on and then Lot was finally shaken off after the detour in Egypt.
I'm not sure if Lot's heart was bent away from God, if he felt his independent wealth was enough, or what, but whatever the case, Lot did not value the special relationship with God that Abraham had. Instead, he pitched his tent near Sodom and Gomorrah, closer and closer, until he gave up and just lived with them, to his and his family's detriment. (I'm going to guess his wife had something to do with that too. The call of comfort, maybe?)
The inheritance of a God who calls us to be separate, speaks, and appears, seems to have been completely lost on Lot.
Putting myself in Abraham's shoes, I wonder if him offering to separate was him finally getting right with God or if he wanted Lot to say "No! Where you go, I go!" I can see Abraham viewing Lot as a "backup heir" to God's promises since Sarah was still barren. Whatever the case, it is interesting to note that God did not speak to Abraham again until Lot separated.
More importantly, God did not make covenant with Abraham until Lot was gone and Abraham returned to the Terebinth trees where God first appeared to him.
It was after Abraham's backup plan was decimated that God explained that an heir would come from his own body. Sarah still tried to come up with her own backup plan (Ishmael) later, but even then, God separated Hagar and Ishmael from Abraham's entourage (though He didn't forget them).
In my life, I see God separating me from people, circumstances, and even places. Not in a "this person isn't good enough to hang out with" way, but in a "I've got somewhere for you to go and they are not going with you."
Sometimes the separation is subtle and other times, dramatic. I have a friend whom I'm met through Wellspring. She told me of her previous life of luxury and comfort from which God separated her until she had nothing...not even a pair of shoes. Then and only then, did she reach out for help. She had a house in Tuscany, laundered endless money for the mafia, travelled with stars, and even had a room just for her shoes. We laughed long and hard over God taking every single pair.
Grace separates us from that which holds us back.
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A few notes on God's separation—what it is and what is NOT (not meant to be exhaustive):
What God's separation does not look like: prideful and arrogant, sharp and unloving, occurring in public (usually) or on social media.
God does not separate us from: dependent children, dependent parents, pregnancies, covenant spouses, the world in need of the Gospel, and people who offend or irritate us.
God calls us to be separate from: sin, people whom He has turned over to their sins, and people and places that entice us to sin.
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