This week, a few people will stand on a tower near the river in Mission with binoculars, counting hawks.

Every fall, birds of prey come down out of the north and pass over the Valley on their way south. At Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park, volunteers and naturalists climb the Hawk Tower each morning to spot and count them. Texas Parks and Wildlife says they tally thousands.

Nobody hands those birds a map. They feel the season turn and ride the warm air rising off the ground.

God pointed to that very thing when He answered Job. Job had lost nearly everything, and he had a long list of questions. God answered with questions of His own, and one of them was about a bird:

"Is it by your understanding that the hawk soars and spreads his wings toward the south?" (Job 39:26, ESV)

God was showing Job who does understand. The same God who set the hawk's route south was paying attention to one hurting man sitting in the ashes.

Some of us are in a season where the road ahead is hard to see. Maybe it's a diagnosis, or a job that ended without warning. You keep asking God for the whole map, and He keeps giving you the next stretch of sky.

That is enough to fly on. A hawk leaving the north can't see the end of its trip. It keeps to what it was made to follow, one day at a time.

Rest in that this week. You were made by Someone who knows the way, and He has not lost track of you.

A prayer

Father, You guide every hawk passing over the Valley this week, and You know every road we're on. For the ones who can't see what's next, give them enough light for today. Teach us to trust You with the parts of the map we don't have yet. Amen.

Say it with me: I am known by the God who knows the way.

Pastor Reyes Castillo

More from Pastor Reyes: his books, including Called by Name and Freedom Code, are at thewayofthewarrior.org/books. Tap a cover to hear a one-minute message about why each one was written.

Go see them for yourself this week. The Hawk Watch runs 9 to 11 a.m. daily, Monday, Oct. 26, through Saturday, Oct. 31, at the Hawk Tower in Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park in Mission. $5 for adults, free for kids 12 and under, weather permitting.

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