We’ve all read and/or heard about butterflies and how God, in His perfect and glorious will, transforms something ugly into an incredible thing of beauty. A monarch butterfly, thought to be one of the most beautiful of its species, is a flying display of striking orange wings with black stripes and white spots.
But the butterfly originated as something quite different – a tiny egg. After a period, the egg becomes a small caterpillar, weird looking at worst, and at best with colors to match what it will become. It’s small with many legs, and under a microscope it has a monster-like appearance.
The caterpillar soon forms a chrysalis, which protects the creature as it becomes what God intends. After a few weeks, a butterfly emerges from its protected environment. Its wings are crumpled and it has to hang until the wings dry out and harden. And then, in its beauty, the butterfly takes wing and flies. It will lay its eggs and the cycle will begin anew.
Many parallels can be made between a caterpillar’s transformation into a butterfly and our Christian journey to holiness. We call our transformation process sanctification.
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