Monarch Butterfly
Walking along the a hiking trail at certain times of the year a person may well spot a green-striped worm feeding on the milkweed. Repulsive, it seems. That ugly, chewing machine seems to be destructive and greedy. It hatched out of an egg attached conveniently to the underside of the milkweed plant. After being protected by the milkweed it is now eating its host. How ungrateful!
Then in fall the worm builds itself a sort of ‘coffin’, called a chrysalis, and attaches it to a twig for the winter. During that winter the worm disintegrates, almost liquefies, into a formless mass and transforms into something that emerges in spring as the beautiful Monarch Butterfly. You’d have to see that whole process happening in order to really be convinced, I’d say. What a change!!
That kind of physical transformation doesn’t happen to us as we grow physically but it can happen spiritually inside of us. We are promised in Paul’s letter to the
Corinthians that “If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation…”
It’s wonderful to have that potential offered to us.
Henry Wiebe