It’s always 21.

Not 19. Not 24.

Twenty-one days from the time the egg is laid to the moment the shell breaks open. It doesn’t matter if the chick is hatched in a barn, in a forest, or in an incubator under a lightbulb in someone’s basement — the rhythm doesn’t change.

But how does the chick know?

There’s no calendar inside the egg. No alarm clock. No coaching. No voice saying, “It’s time.”

And yet, somewhere deep in that unseen place where bone and breath and beak are taking shape, there is timing. Sequence. Readiness. Every milestone of development happens with precision: organs, muscles, feathers, eyelids. And then… on the twenty-first day, the chick pierces the air cell with its beak. It breathes. It peeps. It begins the final push.

According to poultry scientists at North Carolina State University, this isn’t guesswork — it’s biology in sync. Internal pipping (the first breath) usually occurs on day 20. External pipping (cracking the shell) begins within 12–18 hours after that. The chick’s body has followed a timeline that began long before it was conscious.

And isn’t that remarkable?

Jehovah’s design is not only intricate — it’s rhythmic. He doesn’t work in chaos. He works in order. What we sometimes call a “delay” might actually be alignment. What we label “too soon” might just be us looking from the wrong side of the shell.

The chick doesn’t hatch early just because it’s eager.

It hatches when the design says now.

Could the same be true for us?

Could the thing we’re praying for be forming on schedule, even if we can’t see it yet? Could Jehovah’s answer be closer than we think — just waiting for the last quiet breath to settle before it cracks through?

Ecclesiastes 3:1 (NWT) says:

“There is an appointed time for everything, a time for every activity under the heavens.”

So when nothing seems to be moving, maybe something is. Just not on our timeline.

Not rushed. Not late.

Just… right on time.

References:

• Ecclesiastes 3:1, New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (NWT)

• Embryo development timeline summarized from North Carolina State University poultry science resources