God Notions

Revelation 21:5

He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

In wanting to teach my children about metamorphosis, I had read that you can feed butterflies by stringing bananas and oranges. Stringing bananas is not easy if you peel them first; they slip right off the string. First slice and string through the peel. I didn’t figure that step out until after I had given up and just smeared the fruit on the biggest tree in my backyard. The summer months passed and we never saw a single butterfly or caterpillar. The butterfly tree was eventually forgotten until the following June when our back yard had beautiful butterflies everywhere! My children and I stopped counting at 20. It was amazing to watch as they emerged from their cocoons to slowly fan their wings.

A week later we visited a butterfly farm in a nearby town. Inside were cages of beautiful Monarch butterflies at different stages of development. In one cage the owner had 50 or more chrysalis (cocoons). He talked with passion about how he started his farm and why he raises them. Then he confessed. He was almost teary eyed and his voice cracked when he told how his curiosity got the best of him one day and he cut open one of the chrysalis. He explained that he expected to see the caterpillar with wing sprouts or some sort of resemblance of a caterpillar being changed to a butterfly. What he found amazed him. He said, “Inside was a puddle of liquid goo. Pure DNA. Only God can take something and transform it completely from what it was and make it something totally new.”

Those statements made me think about the sovereignty and magnificent creative power of the Holy, Almighty God.

I continued to dwell on this while I was cutting the grass a week later. The caterpillar did not evolve or die but was changed completely. Perfectly. Then an old cocoon caught my attention. I just stood there staring at its old empty shell, overwhelmed with the realization of my future transformation and what I now understood about God’s grace and gift of eternal life. (I am hoping you will know what I am saying when I tell you God impressed upon my heart. What I mean is he spoke to me. No one else was around but, I am certain if someone had been, they would not have heard. I heard Him, as clear as if He were sitting right next to me.)

He said, “ If I will do that for a worm, think what more I will do for you?” I knew he wasn’t talking about doing for just me but for His children.

How wonderful, how marvelous, how exciting to understand, to believe, to know and hope for what is sure to come.