The Song Before Hatching

In 2012, researchers at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, made a remarkable discovery about superb fairy-wrens. These tiny, iridescent birds sing a unique melody to their eggs — days before the chicks hatch. Dr. Sonia Kleindorfer and her team found that each mother fairy-wren teaches her unborn offspring a specific "password" call, a signature note embedded deep in their memory before they ever crack the shell. When the chicks finally emerge, they already know their mother's voice. They call back to her using the melody she gave them in the dark.

Zephaniah 3:17 tells us that the Lord our God is in our midst, that He rejoices over us with gladness and exults over us with loud singing. Picture that: the Almighty, the Creator of nebulae and neutrinos, singing over you. Not in response to your performance. Not because you finally got it together. He sings over you the way that fairy-wren sings over an egg — before you can do a single thing to earn it.

And here is the deeper truth: His song is not merely sentimental. It is formational. Just as those unhatched chicks are shaped by a melody they cannot yet understand, God's rejoicing over you is shaping who you are becoming. You were known by His voice before you knew how to answer. His love is the first song you ever heard — and it is still playing.