The Raven

I have directed the ravens (God speaking, 1 Kings 17:4, NIV). 

It was a Friday morning. In keeping with my current wacky sleep schedule, I had woken up at about five o’clock, and now, three hours later, was back in bed hoping to top up my rest so that I was fit for the day. But I couldn’t go back to sleep. I lay there for an hour, trying every which position to facilitate a gentle descent into dreamland, but nothing was working.

Then I heard footsteps in the hallway. More accurately, I heard the distinctive creak of the floor outside our bedroom door that indicates someone’s approach. Greg had headed out of province a couple of hours earlier, so it must be our son Ben, I thought, needing something and wondering if I was awake. “Hello,” I called, so that he would know that I was indeed. But there was no response. I turned over the other way and closed my eyes.

The floor creaked again. There is absolutely no way that that happens unless there is someone out there. “Hello,” I called, more loudly this time. Still nothing.

Again I tried to settle. Just moments later I heard another creak and a gentle knock on the door. “Hello,” I called. “Come in!”

Suddenly I realized that the knock had not been on the door but on the window just above me. Someone had knocked on my second floor window! I grabbed the bottom on the venetian blind, intending to lift it right up, but quickly thought the better of it as I was in a skimpy nightie. Instead I carefully lifted the blind a few inches and peered out. There, just a couple of feet from my window, was a raven. The movement startled him and there was a great flurry of wings as he flew away, immediately followed by his mate, who had been just outside my range of vision.

I remembered now that I had been hearing a bunch of ravens calling to one another all through the early morning hours. We don’t often see ravens out at our property. I’d certainly never before heard the raucous carryings-on that had filled the background of my morning so far today. And now one of them had stopped to visit me personally. My first thought was one of foreboding. It seemed to me that the raven is supposed to be an ill omen. Certainly Edgar Allen Poe’s poem by that name is dark, ominous, almost occultic. But then again, I thought, in Biblical times God sent ravens to bring food to Elijah the prophet for a period of time in the wilderness. In that event they were very welcome missionaries.

I lay back down, feeling that I really wasn’t supposed to be trying to sleep anymore. I thought of Samuel, dedicated by his mother to the Lord from his very conception and left at the temple, just a little weanling, to be raised by the high priest, Eli; of how one night while still a young boy he heard someone calling his name and ran to the priest to see what he wanted. Eli sent him back to bed. “I didn’t call you,” the old man said. It happened a second time, and then a third. The third time, Eli clued in and realized that it was the Lord who was calling Samuel. He instructed him, “If He calls again, answer: ‘Speak; for thy servant heareth.’”

As it says in 1 Samuel 3:1, NLT, “Now in those days messages from the Lord were very rare, and visions were quite uncommon.” But God called Samuel’s name a fourth time that night. The young boy responded as he had been instructed, and God gave him a very important message.

As I lay there thinking, I heard the ravens land again on the roof that is just below my window. It was a heavy-footed tread that sounded like a grown man walking around out there. The sound stopped outside the window. I got up on my knees and lifted the blind way up. I was face to face with the raven: I was less than a foot from the glass and he was the same distance the other side. We stared at each other. His gaze was fierce. I could see every vivid detail. Then he tilted his head another way, as though to add emphasis, eyes still fixed on me. If I could translate that look into words, it would be “Pay attention!” The word “messenger” came to my mind. After about eight long seconds, the raven’s wings flashed again and he mounted up to the sky. His mate, who had been standing just a couple of feet away, flew right behind him.

I lay back down. There was no question that I was getting up; I just needed a few more minutes to clear my head and muster my resolve to face the day without sufficient rest. A minute had hardly gone by when I heard a thump again at the far end of the lower roof, and the footsteps came again, with firm intent, this time traversing the roof a good thirty feet to my window. And then, for the second time, came the beak on the glass, aggressively this time: “Rap, rap, rap, rap, rap.”

I lifted the blind one more time. He and his mate flew away immediately, calling raucously to half a dozen or so of their kin that were circling some distance from the house. I got on my feet and began my day, dressing and straightening up the room, talking to God, thinking of Samuel. “Speak,” I said, “for thy servant heareth.” Then I added, “Well, actually, Lord, I’m not sure how well I heareth, but I sure listeneth.”

I was supposed to be meeting our daughter Melissa for lunch in downtown Edmonton. I might as well get a move on. But first I wanted to phone my husband. I still had a low-lying cloud of fear over me, wondering if the raven had been a messenger of impending disaster. I wanted to pray with Greg for each of our kids, for the special people in their lives, and for each of our workers. But God seemed to be saying no. Not right now. Then I wanted to phone my friend Deb and tell her all about the raven. No, God seemed to say again. Talking about something outside of my timing is as useless as gossip.

What I did feel to do was to google “raven” and find out what it symbolizes. I quickly found myself at a site that seemed like the right one. The first thing I saw was a text box with a quote in it attributed to “Raven.” It read, “You are the master of synchronicity. Know in your heart that all doors are open wide. All you have to do is move through them.”

Below the text box was the main body of content, beginning with the heading “If Raven Has Come to You.” The first paragraph began, “If Raven has come visiting you—” and I thought, Are you kidding me? He surely has!  

If Raven has come visiting you, it can mean any number of things. Most powerful of all is the synchronicity that Raven assures you is pending. He is a master of bending and folding time and space so that you are exactly in the right moment at the right time. As a messenger¸ [he reminds you] that those around you are reflecting back at you the things you most have to learn about yourself.

Know that when Raven appears that magic is eminent. Raven is about rebirth, recovery, renewal, recycling, and certainly reflection and healing. He signifies moving through transitions smoothly by casting light into the darkness. 

It was not lost on me that the raven was here referred to as a messenger. In fact, the word “messenger” was highlighted (albeit to show another link). Then there was the phrase, “magic is eminent.” Now “magic” is not a word much used in my vocabulary, but I simply translated it as “supernatural,” meaning “all things God,” and that suited me just fine. The kingdom of heaven is eminent. At hand. Yes!

Then began the next section, but God seemed to say, Don’t read any further. The rest is irrelevant to you. I stopped reading. I really wanted to hear, and I really wanted to obey, because this is how we get into the flow of God’s life, and how we get to see amazing things.

All that I had read thus far had made me think of Melissa, especially as she has been taking some counselling and has been processing a lot. I decided I would share these excerpts with her and see if they rang any bells with her.

Now I felt that it was okay to phone Greg and tell him the story of the morning. He was amazed and intrigued. “The raven coming to your window is quite something,” he said, “but three times!” He was quite willing to agree with me in prayer concerning the safety of our loved ones and those with whom we have to do, and so we prayed, but afterwards he said he didn’t think this was a warning as such. “Ì think the important thing here,” he said, “is the message, ‘Pay attention!’”

In due course I headed for the city. En route, I turned on my favourite classical station just in time to hear the host say about a composer, “He’s just the messenger.” Synchronicity. The synchronizing of time and circumstances.

I was three-quarters of the way to my lunch date with Melissa when my phone rang. A familiar female voice said, “Hello? Is this the Pine Haven Colony?”

“Hello?” I answered. “Is this Deb?”

“Yes,” she said, sounding confused.

“This is Nancy,” I clarified for her. “How on earth did you end up calling me?”

“I don’t know.”

“What’s the colony’s number?”

She told me.

“That’s the same as my number except that where their last digit is 4, mine is 7.”

That cleared up that little mystery.

“Well, you better hang up and call the colony,” I said, “but before you do, I want to tell you something. I wanted to call you earlier but the Lord told me it wasn’t the right time. I have a feeling that the right time is now.” And so I told her all about the raven.

“This is fascinating,” she said. “I’m going to be really praying into this. I’ll let you know if the Lord gives me anything.”

I picked up Melissa outside her office building, and shortly we were seated with a meal. I told her the story of my morning, and that I felt there might be something in the message for her.

 “Let me read you what I found on that website about the raven,” I said. 

I got out my phone and found the webpage; scanned the text box with the quote by “Raven.”

“Oh my goodness!” I exclaimed.

“What?” she asked.

“This is not the quote that was here two hours ago,” I said, thoroughly confused and mystified. “How can this be?”

“What did it say before?” she asked.

“I can’t remember. Except I know it said something about synchronicity.”

“What does it say now?”

“‘Something special is about to happen. Use gratitude to speed its process.’”

“That’s kind of interesting,” she said, “’cause this morning I was sitting at my desk and thinking about how much I like my job and how grateful I am for everything in my life right now. I was so full of joy and gratefulness. And I was aware of my gratitude.”

I read her the rest of what had caught my attention on the site, in particular the part saying, “Those around you are reflecting back at you the things you most have to learn about yourself,” as well as the words “reflection and healing,” as this had made me think of the counselling she has been having. Also “moving through transitions smoothly,” because she has recently transitioned back from school to full-time work and also in another month is heading for Washington, D.C., to begin a four-month internship.

So we talked about her last counselling appointment and other things and then I rushed her back to work, after promising to email her the stuff from the raven site so that she could ponder it further.

Later that evening I checked the site again to copy and paste it into an email for her. I found yet another message in the text box. The mystery of these changing quotes was solved when I scrolled to the bottom of the page and saw a note explaining that these quotes rotated among four or five different messages in the course of the day. They suggested that the “right” message would be there when someone needed it. Kind of like a Chinese fortune cookie, I guess. Now, for the nervous or religious Christian, I know that God’s word warns us against pursuing any kind of divination. But I was convinced that God had led me to this site and that it was all a part of the message he wanted me to ponder. After all, God can speak through anyone or anything He chooses, even a dumb ass (Numbers 22:21-33, KJV).

In subsequent visits to this website, I found several other messages circulating through the text box. Each of them was signed, “—Raven.” Here below, I have juxtapositioned these quotes with scriptures that they brought to my mind:

“You are more powerful than you think you are. Believe and have faith!” (Philippians 4:13, NKJV: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me!”)

“It’s time for you to make changes within yourself. Embrace your true potential and become who you really are.” (Romans 12:2 and Ephesians 2:10, NKJV: “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. You are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works which He has before prepared that you might walk in them.”)

“Magic surrounds you right now. Take note of the small miracles that are happening right now!” (Matthew 10:7, NKJV and Luke 1:37, KJV: The kingdom of heaven is at hand! With God, nothing shall be impossible!”) 

The next morning I got a call from Deb. She said God had been speaking to her about the raven incident. “Nancy,” she said, “I don’t believe it’s a bad omen. The fierceness of the messenger was just to get your attention.” (This was essentially Greg’s perception the day before when I told him about it.)

Deb’s words brought something to mind immediately. One morning the previous summer as I lay in bed, a little wee bird landed on the sill of my other window and tapped the glass with its beak. Oh, how cute, I thought. It flew away, but a few moments later it was back, tapping on the window again. I thought it was curious that the bird had done that, especially that it had done it twice, but I moved into my day without a backward glance, with no other impression than that it was a dear little thing and a unique incident. It certainly hadn’t riveted my attention the way the intense glare of the big, fierce black bird had.

Deb went on: she felt God was saying that He was going to be speaking to me in ways that I wasn’t used to, in ways that would surprise me, and that He wanted me to pay attention so that I wouldn’t miss what He was saying. She spoke about Samuel, about how God had called him three times, and how Eli hadn’t got it until then: “Oh, that’s the Lord speaking.”

She reminded me of how when God has seen fit to say something more than once in the scriptures, we can be sure He’s really trying to emphasize it to us: “Heed what I’m saying!” The raven coming three times was very significant, emphasizing the importance of God’s getting—and of my giving him—my attention.

So I really do want to pay attention. But I, like many of us, wonder sometimes if I will get what God is saying. This question is reflected in something I said to God that morning of the raven’s visitation: “Lord, I am listening, but I don’t know how well I’m hearing.”

I see now that it’s our responsibility to simply be listening; God is quite capable of making Himself heard.  

Moreover He said to me: “[Daughter] of man, receive into your heart all My words that I speak to you, and hear with your ears (Ezekiel 3:10, NKJV).