Sometimes what you wish for is already in your hands, or your pocket.

One Saturday morning I noticed Allie watching her phone screen with great interest, moving her phone to various positions as if to catch different sounds. I asked her what she was doing. She explained she had an app for recording and identifying bird calls.

I was excited. I would love to have that app. Could she show me how to download it? She readily began to explain to this cyber delinquent person just what to do. She showed me the app’s icon on her own screen and that’s when the truth hit me.

I already had that app! I just had no clue what it was for. When had I gotten the Merlin app? I have no idea. It had been downloaded in my phone for quite some time. I had wished to know the identity of bird calls, to know the feathered friends who stayed hidden while trilling and warbling. And all the time the ability to identify them was already in my hands.

Now I can hear bird songs and calls, identify the singer, and know something about the many visitors to our happy acre, many whom I never see. These are some of the birds whose calls have been identified in two days time: white-eyed vireo, American robin, cardinal, Carolina wren, blue jay, American finch, northern mockingbird, brown crested flycatcher, red-winged blackbird, flicker, titmouse, chickadee, red-shouldered hawk, downy woodpecker, gray catbird, red-bellied woodpecker, black-and-white warbler, brown thrasher, mourning dove, house sparrow, canada goose, European starling, northern waterthrush, eastern bluebird, yellow-bellied sapsucker, white-breasted nuthatch, Tennessee warbler, and eastern phoebe.

I already had what I needed to identify bird calls, just hadn’t put the app to work. Now I’m wondering if I’m ignoring some other valuable capabilities already in my possession. Could it be that as a child of God I have access to more of His power than I can even imagine? Could it be that, through prayer, I can actually make a difference in the lives of strangers on the other side of the world?