Abraham was old when his son Isaac was born. And older still when he had to find a wife for him. So he sent his chief servant (let's call him Eliezer) back to present-day Iraq, Abraham's home country. Eliezer arrived, and began searching.

Eliezer's search took an unusual form. He halted his camels by a well, and prayed. And in due course, the girl he was praying for came to the well. You can read the story of Rebecca in Genesis 24.

Rebecca's brother and her father felt they saw God's hand at work. So they agreed to let Rebecca go to Canaan to marry Isaac. Eliezer's description of Abraham's wealth also played a part! "The Lord has greatly blessed my master, and he has become great; he has given him flocks and herds, silver and gold, menservants and maidservants, camels and asses."

One of the beautiful things about this story, as with many in the Old Testament, is its mixture of the sacred and the secular. Nothing happens by chance. God's hand is at work in everything.

Isaac and Rebecca moved from place to place, and prospered. A little later, we read how "Isaac sowed, and reaped in the same year a hundredfold. The Lord blessed him, and he became rich, and gained more and more until he became very wealthy." (Gen. 26:13) Again, God's hand is at work.

It is easy to misinterpret these "blessings" and to get the impression that God blesses people by making them rich. The person who edited the Book of Job thought this, and finished the story with the remark that "the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning; and he had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand she-asses." (Job 42:12).

So what of the poor? Are they less blessed? (For God's hand is at work in everything!)

Later writers gave a clearer picture of what constituted a blessing. "Blessed are they whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered," wrote the psalmist (Ps. 32:1) "Blessed are they who observe justice, who do righteousness at all times!" (Ps.106:3).

The idea that wealth was a form of blessing persisted (and still does!). It was Jesus who finally turned the idea, like so many of the ideas from the Old Testament, on its head.

"Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God," he told the world (Luke 6:20). "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."(Mat. 5:5,8). In the Sermon on the Mount (or, in Luke's version, in the plain), Jesus challenged his listeners, as he challenges us now, to look beyond the safe and accepted values of the world to the values of God's kingdom, where the riches are peace and love and joy, and not francs and rappen, just as he challenged them to look beyond the old law and into their own hearts.

And in the same way, Mary sang that God "has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden. Henceforth all generations will call me blessed; for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name." (Luke 1:48-49).

Our trust in God will not shower us with big cars, expensive clothes or success in business. But God does indeed bless us (as Paul tells the Ephesians (1:3)) "with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.". And in this way, God will indeed "do great things for us". Let us accept these gifts with joy, for God's hand is at work in everything.

HD