Butterflies
“Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool,” Isaiah 1:18.
Have you ever seen or touched a butterfly? I live in an area that at times is abundant with butterflies. It is relatively easy to have one land on your shoulder or even your hand. They are beautiful creatures. I enjoy seeing them and watching them as they float along harmlessly through the fields or grassy areas around my house.
Butterflies are beautiful yes, but at one point in time they were not pretty at all. They were ugly creatures that crawled over everything leaving a trail of web and very sticky cocoons that are almost impossible to remove. They were worms, caterpillars. They may have been beautiful as a caterpillar to some, but to me they are a nuisance. I’ve stepped out of my house more than once and had them drop on my head from above. They are not the best feeling things on the planet.
Consider this. All butterflies go to heaven… Yes, they do. A butterfly has not always been a butterfly. It was not born a butterfly. The beauty of a butterfly only comes through an immense change. The value of a butterfly goes up tremendously when it goes through its metamorphosis.
You may be thinking what am I talking about. Have I done gone mad? If you think of a Christian as an ugly creature before the undertaking of Christ in our lives, then you can see what I’m referring to. A Christian was not always a Christian. We were
implacably defined by our failures and faults. We were condemned to an eternity in a devil’s hell.
Before we were Christians, we were ugly creatures with no hope of becoming beautiful or perfect. It was only through the metamorphosis of God, through the blood shed on the cross, that we were ever able to be seen as anything but ugly and putrid. We were those caterpillars that got in the way, that did everything wrong with no hope of redemption.
I’m extremely thankful that God made me a butterfly. I hope you are too. Butterflies are unlike any other creature ever created. We are guaranteed an entrance into God’s conservatory, or Heaven. Never more will we exist as a sinner heading for hell. We may be sinners, but we are sealed by the grace of God.
This summer there will be many caterpillars crawling into a church for a VBS program. They will not act like the rest of the butterflies, and some may even assume that they already are a butterfly. That is only for God to discern and for us to not judge based on outward ugliness or attitude. These caterpillars are awaiting the greatest metamorphosis of their young lives. How will they reach that state if we are not willing to teach them and guide them to their eternal, white as cotton, cocoons?
This may be hard to fathom but think about it. We were once one way, but we are now another. We have been newly created for a specific purpose by the grand designer. God wants nothing more than for all His caterpillars to enter their cocoon of salvation and come out forever changed
Michael Whitman