Eyes to See, Ears to Hear

You may react in one of two ways to this blog post.

1. “Jonathan, you’re a missionary, someone who is supposed to be super spiritual. Is this what you’re spending your time pondering on?”
2. “God stories are cool. I love His level of care and involvement.”

My take is the latter as we indeed are loved by Almighty God. I don’t want to only look to Him during the spiritual highs or lows. I want to see the fine detail of His interaction with our lives, day in and day out. The following is a normal day, fine detail, God story.

Dana and I are avid birdwatchers. We love to discover all the different species and how they look, act, fly, nest… on and on. The American Kestrel (above) is one bird I noticed in our very first bird guide book that became one of my favorites and most desired to see in person. They are common across the entire country mostly in open areas. I have traced with my eyes umpteen miles of power lines as I have driven around hoping to see one perched so I could gawk at it. Seeing one in the wild is different than seeing one in captivity. The above picture is obviously one in an aviary. It was nice to see him at the Carolina Raptor Center but my quest for one in the wild continued.

Tuesdays and Wednesdays are when we drive from Waxhaw to Indian Trail to volunteer at the Elevation Church offices. The drive is about 30 minutes through the countryside and one section of our route is in purple below.

Yesterday, we left a lot later than usual to go to the offices. We passed a crow shortly after we left and to state the obvious to Dana I said, “I wish I’d see a kestrel.” That must be the 100th time she’s heard that out of me.

As we came (travelling up on the map) to the light at Goldmine Rd and N Rocky River Rd, we noticed a Road Closed/Detour sign for construction that was taking place where the red dot is on the map. The below map is one of the detour route that essentially led us around the Monroe Airport.

As we turned right off of Goldmine Rd onto Airport Rd, my eyes continued to routinely scan the power lines. I noticed something sitting on a line about 100 yards ahead of us. As we approached it in the bright midday light, I could only make out a silhouette. I couldn’t tell exactly what it was but I could tell it wasn’t a dove or bluebird, the most common line perchers in our area. I could only look so long, as I was the one driving, then as we passed it, Dana yelled, “It’s a kestrel!”

I whipped around the car like they do in movie high-speed chases. Well, almost. We drive a Honda Civic. Then, I drew my camera quicker than a gunslinger in the wild wild west. I ended up snapping almost 100 pictures of a bird we still weren’t 100% was actually an American Kestrel. We must have spooked it as it flew off toward the runway of the airport. About that time, Dana reached the kestrel page in the bird guide book I gave her the night before. I turned to listen to her read what it said, “… known to commonly hover…”. We turned to look back in the direction of the runway and what-do-you-know… the bird was hovering! It’s not a normal behavior for a bird to hover for 15 seconds at a time. At least not normal for birds other than kestrels.

We’ve driven that route for months now with no need whatsoever to detour or go a different path.  We haven’t seen a single kestrel in any of the literally dozens of fields we pass.  We don’t carry a bird guide with us.

I don’t believe in coincidences. I enjoy God.