The First Crack Only a Mentor Could Name

In a small roastery in Portland, Oregon, twenty-three-year-old Mateo Reyes stood over a drum roaster for the first time, overwhelmed by heat and noise. His mentor, a sixty-year-old Guatemalan roaster named Don Julio, had told him to listen for "first crack" — the precise moment the beans pop and release their deepest flavor.

The first time it happened, Mateo thought it was the gas burner clicking. "That was it," Don Julio said quietly. The second time, Mateo mistook it for the cooling tray rattling. Don Julio shook his head. The third time, he placed a hand on Mateo's shoulder and said, "Close your eyes. Stop trying to hear everything. Just be still."

And then Mateo heard it — a delicate, unmistakable pop, like a whispered announcement that something was becoming what it was always meant to be.

This is the story of 1 Samuel 3. Young Samuel heard a voice three times in the darkness of the tabernacle and mistook it for old Eli calling him. He was not foolish — he simply had never learned to recognize the voice of the Almighty. It took a weary priest to name what was happening and tell him, "Next time, say: Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening."

Sometimes we need a mentor to name what God is already saying. The voice is there. We just need someone to teach us how to hear it.