Look at my last post to boatbums. Each person devises his or her own "litmus test." To me, that smacks of superstition, but that's just my opinion, not judgment.
Realty tells us that either success, or failure, visits the righteous from the unrighteous indiscriminately.
Even though the Bible claims over and over that God is impartial, that same Bible also claims that God favors one group or one person over another.
People just pick and choose what they want to believe and then discard the rest.
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NO! MOST EMPHATICALLY NO!
Reality does NOT tell me that by a long shot.
King David said he had never seen the righteous foresaken nor their seed begging bread.
There IS a reaping for righteousness sown that is enormously above, better than the reaping of unrighteousness.
Ignorance of that is pitiful, pathetic ignorance of the worst sort.
Yes, God does not seem to have such things set up in a strict digitized vending machine instantaneous fashion.
The complexities are plenty and the delays can seem excruciatingly drawn out for ages. We are not, per se, rats in the skinner box with the food pellet dispenser and electric grid all wired in to instant reinforcements and punishments.
The complexity is likely tied in somehow to our subjective experience of whatever degree of free-will is our existential thrownness in that moment and context.
God is not interested in being our Great Heavenly Vending Machine & Instant Imperfection Shredder. He's interested in being our Father and Friend.
The dance is not hop-scotch. It is a complex choreography of HIS leading. He wants us to follow, flow with Him. He also wants to delight us beyond our dreams.
Our delight in all ways is tied super tightly to the degree of our delight IN HIM. That alone is safe for us and for Creation.