The Birdwatcher at Cape May

In October 2019, twelve-year-old Maya Chen stood on the observation platform at Cape May, New Jersey, during the fall hawk migration. Her grandmother had dragged her there at dawn, promising something extraordinary. For the first hour, Maya saw nothing but gray sky. "I don't hear anything," she kept saying. Her grandmother, a veteran birder of forty years, smiled and said, "You're listening for the wrong thing. Stop waiting for a screech. Listen for the silence — the moment the songbirds go quiet. That's how you know the hawk is close."

Maya tried again. And then she caught it — a hush rolling across the marsh like a wave. She looked up and saw a peregrine falcon cutting through the cloud cover, so high it was barely a speck. "I see it!" she whispered. Her grandmother nodded. "You've always been able to see it. You just needed someone to teach you how to listen."

Three times young Samuel heard his name called in the darkness of the Shiloh temple, and three times he ran to Eli, certain the old priest had spoken. Samuel wasn't deaf — he was untrained. He didn't yet know the voice of the Lord. It took Eli, flawed as he was, to offer the simple instruction: go back, lie down, and when you hear it again, say, "Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening."

God is always speaking. The question is never whether He calls, but whether we have learned to recognize His voice — and whether someone beside us has the wisdom to say, "That's Him. Answer."