Selfishness, or Pride

The great destroyer of everything.

This is a blinding influence. It tells one that one deserves more, better, things that you currently do not have.
What is God's way of breaking us down and stripping us of our pride? He takes away what we have. He can do that in a great number of ways. We can give it all away for some supposed better thing. It can be taken by someone else. Or God in His miraculous ways can cause nature to take what we have away from us. In whatever way He chooses, what we have will be taken away.
Standing in the emptiness, the void of what is then gone, we gape and wonder how we ever missed all that we had. You're telling me that I had all of that? Why? How did I miss it? Why didn't I see it? It was right in front of me?
After a time of grief over what we've lost we see that it is all God. We didn't see what we had because we were prideful. Too busy looking over the fence to see what it is that we didn't have. Ingratitude for what we had and because of that God was offended. Maybe even others were offended, your friends, family, loved ones. But as sure as the sun sets God will do as He will. Pride must be pulled down and brought to its knees. And so we lose from time to time.
It's necessary to feel unhappy and regretful of the time and effort you didn't spend in thanking God for what you had. Especially since it's now gone. And one only hopes that we recognize what God is trying to do. Otherwise we are left to curse God for our misfortunes and we are left to ourselves.

Beware of Pride. Unless you strip yourself of pride you will lose everything.