The Murmur Only Dr. Patel Could Hear

During her first clinical rotation at Johns Hopkins, medical student Anya Krishnan pressed her stethoscope to a patient's chest and heard nothing unusual — just the steady lub-dub she had memorized from textbooks. But Dr. Meera Patel, the attending cardiologist, leaned in and said, "Listen again. Right after the second beat. There's a faint whooshing sound."

Anya listened. Nothing. Dr. Patel repositioned the stethoscope slightly, told her to close her eyes, and said, "Don't listen for what you expect. Listen for what's actually there."

On the third try, Anya heard it — a soft murmur between heartbeats, barely perceptible but unmistakable once she knew what she was listening for. That murmur led to a diagnosis that saved the patient's life.

Samuel heard a voice three times in the darkness of the tabernacle and assumed it was old Eli shuffling around. The voice was real. The call was clear. But Samuel didn't yet have the ears to recognize it. It took Eli — weathered, flawed, but experienced in the ways of the Almighty — to reposition Samuel's listening. "Go back and lie down," Eli said. "If He calls you again, say, 'Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.'"

God's voice rarely arrives the way we expect. Sometimes we need a wise mentor to teach us to stop listening for what we assume and start hearing what is actually there. The call was always sounding. Samuel just needed to learn how to hear it.