Metamorphosis

I've been thinking a lot about caterpillars lately.  Aidan and I have been studying them in school.  Of course, I already knew that caterpillars make a chrysalis and inside that chrysalis they change into a butterfly.  I've always found it fascinating.  More than once, we've purchased caterpillars for the kids so we could watch this amazing transformation take place. What I didn't know, is what happens inside that chrysalis.  I didn't know that in order to become a butterfly, the caterpillar spins a chrysalis and then dissolves into nothing but goo.  And by a process that no one fully understands, this goo becomes a butterfly.  It is the same being that went into the chrysalis, but it is made completely new and has a new purpose.  Everything it did as a caterpillar, was all in preparation for what it would one day become.

Therefore if anyone is in Christ, a new creation has come:  the old has gone, the new is here! 2 Corinthians 5:17

I've been wondering about that caterpillar...dissolving into goo.  What must that be like?  Is it painful to dissolve into goo?  Does the caterpillar have any kind of understanding of what it is going to become?  I am in awe of this process.  What an amazing thing this is.  This dissolving and becoming new.  You have to wonder why God didn't just make a baby butterfly look like a little butterfly...why all this dissolving, and goo, and being made new.

I can't stop thinking about these caterpillars...how they feed on leaves and gorge themselves to the point of bursting, and then one day they just stop.  And they wrap themselves in a chrysalis, and they dissolve into goo.

I can't stop thinking about caterpillars because I feel like that sometimes...I feel like I'm dissolving.  My wants, my needs, my ravenous desires for what this world has to offer...I can sometimes feel it...right in the center of my being...dissolving.  And, it's not always fun.  Sometimes it's painful.  And, I wonder, is it painful for the caterpillar too?  Does the caterpillar resist?  Does he just want to stay as he is?  Or does he get sick of crawling around munching on leaves?  Does he innately know he was made to be so much more?

I feel like since I started walking with God I've been in a chrysalis, dissolving...He just loves me too much to leave well enough alone.  My grip on all the things I think I need...dissolving.  Selfishness...dissolving.  A critical spirit...dissolving.  My plans, my ideas about how things should go, my control...dissolving.  I don't always like all this dissolving.  If I'm honest, sometimes, I just want to be left alone for a while.  Caterpillars are cute, right?

Did you know, that unless a caterpillar turns into a butterfly it can't reproduce?  So, if it doesn't go into that chrysalis...if it doesn't dissolve...it will die a caterpillar.  It won't make more caterpillars, it won't pollinate flowers so they can reproduce...it will leave nothing behind.  If it doesn't get into that chrysalis and dissolve, it will accomplish nothing that it was created to do.

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."  Jeremiah 29:11

So, maybe that's why God made caterpillars, instead of baby butterflies.  To remind us about metamorphosis...about becoming new.  Caterpillars are cute, but butterflies are glorious, and they have a purpose.  Maybe he wanted us to know that dissolving is not pretty, but it is necessary.  We must die to our old self to become something new and glorious and useful.  This constant dissolving, the constant submitting of our will, this focusing on things unseen instead of what is right in front of us...is all accomplishing something in us, and in God's kingdom.  He loves us too much to let us be caterpillars when he created us to be butterflies.

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.   The life I live in the body I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.  Galatians 2:20