I taught preschool for years. One of the things that we
covered every year was the life cycle of a butterfly. Butterflies have a very easy life cycle to
follow and clearly illustrate the circle of life: egg, caterpillar, chrysalis,
and at last: butterfly.
In preschool you never talk about the fact that the
beautiful butterfly that you have loved, possibly named, and set free will also
die. It’s a part of the circle of life
that we ignore if we can. It just isn’t
very friendly to say to a group of 4 year olds:
“Well, we have set the butterfly free.
Maybe it is strong enough to survive.
Maybe it will get eaten by a bird. Maybe another little kid will catch
it and rip its wings off”. We say,
“Look! The beautiful butterfly is free!”
We focus on the amazing transformation of an ugly caterpillar into a
butterfly. We focus on the beauty of a
transformed life.
God’s word has a wonderful life cycle as well: creation,
man-kind, failure, restoration, more failure and restoration; then miraculous
life, death, atonement, redemption, and eternity. The true beauty of life is
presented through the ugliest death and triumphant resurrection, bringing with
it the reality of true transformation to all who believe.
Sometimes the weight of the world and the dailiness of life
make me feel as if my wings have been ripped off, but I know that in Christ I
am truly free. I have been transformed from the ugliness of sin to one that can
stand before God blameless because of Jesus Christ’s great love for me.
2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new
things have come.
No comments:
Post a Comment