1 Kings 17:1-6 / Matthew 5:1-12
We expect blessings to come in nice and pleasant forms.
After all, blessings are meant to be something good.
So, if blessings are good, then blessings ought to look nice and pleasant.
But God’s blessings often come in unexpected forms, or what we may often say “a blessing in disguise”.
In the 1st reading, the bird that brought food to the prophet Elijah was certainly not of the beautiful or majestic kind.
Rather, God ordered ravens, which is a rather unattractive bird, to serve Elijah.
Indeed, God’s ways and God’s thoughts are just so different from ours.
In the gospel, Jesus teaches about happiness.
Happiness is a blessing. But God’s way of blessing us with happiness is certainly not how we expect it to be.
Especially when Jesus says that it is a blessing when people abuse you and persecute you and speak all kinds of calumny against you on His account.
It is difficult to understand God’s way of blessing us.
But with faith, we will be able to see how God is blessing us even as we are undergoing trials and difficulties.