Good morning…
“Refuse to settle for anything less than butterflies,” the small plaque in the store whispered to my eyes. I wondered to myself, “Do caterpillars have the choice to settle for less than colorful wings and an ability to fly?” Of course, I meander home and google, “Can a caterpillar stay a caterpillar?”
I spent hours and hours of sifting through websites chronicling the fascinating life stages of a butterfly. First, the pin sized egg is born on a nourishing leaf. Then, the crawling, hungry caterpillar sheds its skin four times as it expands into a full grown adult. Next, complete metamorphosis is achieved within the protection of a closed-off chrysalis. Finally, the butterfly, a completely new creature, emerges to fly the sky. Still my question remained, “Can a caterpillar refuse to become a butterfly?” Eventually, I found this article: Caterpillar Metamorphosis: The Magic Within the Chrysalis (http://animals.howstuffworks.com/insects/caterpillar3.htm).
The article begins: “A caterpillar spends most of its life crawling on — and devouring — its food source. But when it’s time to become an adult, most caterpillars start to wander away from what they’ve been eating. They find a sheltered, safe spot in which to pupate, or transform into an adult. In all caterpillars, this happens inside a protective shell known as a chrysalis, but the specifics differ from species to species.” Did you catch the two conflicting phrases? “…most caterpillars start to wander away…” “In all caterpillars, this happens…” If they do not find themselves squished beneath a car tire or meet another form of unnatural death, I still can not figure out if “most” or “all” caterpillars go through the process of metamorphosis. Why am I so intrigued by this question?
I compare people to caterpillars. I think we all, not most, are designed by God to go through metamorphosis. We are born, we crawl, and, unless we are somehow stunted or meet an unnatural death, we expand into full grown adults. Whether or not our caterpillar friends share the same freedom, the next stage of development is where human choice comes in. Will we wander away from what we have been eating to find safe shelter for our spiritual transformation? Will we cut from the crowd, crawling up to a higher level, cocooning with our Creator, like Christ in the tomb? Are we willing to die to our old crawling self to live freely for the purposes of God, resurrected with Holy Spirit power to fly to the people who desperately need the palpable presence of our LORD?
We each have freedom of choice caterpillars may not share. We must ask, “In what parts of my life am I still settling for less than butterflies?”
Therefore if anyone is in Christ [that is, grafted in, joined to Him by faith in Him as Savior], he is a new creature [reborn and renewed by the Holy Spirit]; the old things [the previous moral and spiritual condition] have passed away. Behold, new things have come [because spiritual awakening brings a new life],
2 Corinthians 5:17 (AMP),
Sue
