God by default wants to bless us
There are many examples in the Bible of God punishing people when they did not listen to Him. So it can be easy to fall into the trap of thinking God is always looking for reasons to punish us.
The more I have been reading the Bible and praying, the more I see that in fact, it's exactly the other way around - God by default wants to bless us. We are His children. He wants us to have good things for us spiritually. Again, this is different to giving us the equivalent of a bunch of candy, which I have written about before.
Even in the book of Job, where Job suffered an incredible series of calamities, none of these came from God. They all came from Satan. This is not to say that God didn't punish people - there are plenty of examples of that in the Bible too. The message I'm trying to get across here is that God by default wants to bless us. Again, blessings are things which are good for us. Often these may take the form of spiritual gifts, such as wisdom, but can take the form of material things. Remember, blessings won't be the equivalent of candy (e.g. a fancy car) - something that looks fun and desirable but really does nothing for us long-term, it's empty calories.
When we pray knowing that God's default is blessing, it helps. It means we can think of Him more as a father instead of an angry guy we are trying to figure out how to not get offside with. After all, thinking of Him as a father is actually the type of relationship that both you and he wants. It builds a real authentic loving relationship (through prayer), not a ritualistic legalistic relationship.
Even if it feels like we are not currently being blessed by God, we should not get discouraged. It may mean you are being attacked by Satan or by other people - but that is not God doing it.
In some cases it may mean He has blessed you with many things (e.g. good health, a loving family) but you may not have noticed because you have taken those things for granted.
Regardless of the cause of a lack of blessings, it's important to put the relationship with God first. Hopefully, blessings will happen naturally later. But on the chance they don't, that is not the prize anyway. Heaven is the prize. Heaven is forever. We should not lose faith or lose hope because of bad things (or a lack of good things) happening in this temporary world. Bad things are not the fault of God but rather the fault of Satan and of man. God has a place prepared for you in Heaven, and the path to it is through Jesus.
So to sum up, God by default wants a proper relationship with us something like a loving father. He does want to bless us. The relationship is what comes first. Blessings are a nice side effect that may come as you get to know God. However, the real prize is Heaven, not anything specific to this temporary world. If you feel that God is not noticing or blessing you, it is all the more important to draw nearer to Him to get to know Him better as a loving father. Also, understand that bad things that happen in this world are usually not caused by God, but by Satan and by man. Therefore, a lack of blessings or of good things does not make God any less real.
You do not want a relationship where you are running around trying to do things to appease and angry guy, that is not an authentic relationship. Rest assured, the relationship you want with Him is that of a father who guides his child (you).
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