The caterpillar emerged from its egg and opened its 12 eyes. It didn't know what to expect because it had no experiences to compare it to, so all it could do was to climb out and see what the world was all about. It crawled out on its leaf, lost its footing, and fell onto the grass. "Wow! That was fun!"
The caterpillar looks like it has 16 legs, but only six of them are true legs. The others merely assist it in holding onto twigs and leaves.
The worm realized it was starving, so it began eating. It spent most of its waking hours just eating. He began crawling all around the yard to experience life, eating every step of the way. In a couple of hours it discovered a bush. The one it fell from, but it didn't know it.
"Wow! If I can get up there I could see EVERYTHING." So it spent the next half hour climbing up the intertwining twigs of that two-foot bush. When it reached the summit, it looked out over the yard. "Wow! I didn't know I could see the whole world. I can even see the edges of the world. This is great!"
The little worm had hatched on this bush. It was planted in a small enclosure that served as a safe play lot for the 4-year-old human. To the worm, this was a huge world; but to an adult human, the 15-foot by 15-foot play lot surrounded by a six-foot-tall wooden fence was very small.
The caterpillar looked out into "the world" often, and was amazed at the size of it.
One time it began thinking, "I wonder what's on the other side of the edge of the world?" So it began climbing up the six-foot wooden fence to take a look. In about an hour it reached the top. "Wow! There are more worlds to see." And it began trying to figure out how to see it all.
Then something orange floated above its head.
"What are you doing down there?" asked the orange thing.
"I am trying to see other worlds," the caterpillar said. "I have been searching this world and found it very interesting, but ...." Then the worm realized that the orange thing was flying.
"Hey! How do you do that? How did you get up there?"
"I am a monarch butterfly, just like you will be one day. After you crawl for the last time and wrap yourself in a blanket, you will die. But, don't worry, you will come back alive. It will be difficult climbing out of the blanket because it gets real hard after you die. But when you come back alive, you will be able to see the world from up here. The world you know now is only a tiny part of the bigger world. You will fly like I am, and you will like it! Well, I have to go now. I am flying with hundreds of my friends to a far-away place called Mexico. Don't forget what I said. Bye."
"Wow! I didn't know any of that. How did he figure it out? Well, I will think about that later because I am starving!"
About 10 days later, the caterpillar said, "I'm feeling sick. Or, maybe what the butterfly said is happening. I better go to the bush and start making a blanket."
So it did. It was in the pupa stage, or chrysalis, for 10 to 12 days. And it did have a difficult time breaking out of its hard blanket. But that terrible ordeal was planned by God in order to make its wings strong, and able to fly -- to Mexico.
Our lives are like that caterpillar. We get so engrossed in this physical life that we remain oblivious to the reality that is "beyond the fence." We search this world (our vocation, relationships, entertainment, the earth itself, or outer space) and think that what we see and perceive is all there is to life. But we tend to view life like the worm does: from the "ground."
The secret to understanding real life is to die to ourselves. Galatians 2:20 says it clearly. Read it. Dying to ourselves, we become alive to God and can see from His perspective. And God grants us tough times to make us strong.
-- Gene Linzey is a speaker, author, and former pastor. Send comments and questions to [email protected]. The opinions expressed are those of the author.
Religion on 09/17/2014