Incredible Transformation

I don’t know anyone who doesn’t love butterflies, but I can think of a whole lot of folks who don’t get excited about caterpillars—from whence butterflies come! Compared to caterpillars, butterflies are so colorful. And, unlike slow-crawling caterpillars, butterflies flit freely from place to place, making it hard to keep your eyes on them, especially when watching through the tiny viewfinder on a camera, as I did one afternoon.

For nearly an hour, I tried to get good photos of those lovely but elusive creatures as they sipped nectar from the blooms on the lantana bushes out by the garden. By the time I’d locate one of the dozen or more butterflies in the viewfinder, compose the shot, and press the shutter button, the butterfly would have fluttered away to a new spot, leaving me with photos of orange lantana blooms—minus the butterflies or, at best, half of one! Only rarely did I get a full, sharply focused, beautifully framed shot of a butterfly.

Now, if I’d been trying to take pictures of pokey caterpillars, I’d have had plenty of time to get the perfect shot! But I wanted pictures of butterflies not caterpillars.

Why am I so drawn to butterflies? For their beauty, obviously, and for the way they move so freely. I also enjoy butterflies because they remind me that change, dramatic change, is not only possible, but it’s expected. That’s exciting!

When I’m looking at a butterfly, I find it hard to believe what it once was. It bears almost no resemblance to its former self, to its former way of life. Only the Creator Himself could make such a change possible.

Scientists have a big word for that remarkable change: metamorphosis, which comes from a Greek word meaning “to transform.” Transformation is sometimes subtle--almost imperceptible, actually--as when tadpoles ever so slowly begin to look like the frogs they will one day be. Such slow transformation is certainly amazing; yet it seems less thrilling than the miraculous change that takes place in secret between the time the caterpillar enshrouds itself inside a chrysalis and then emerges days later as a butterfly.

Because I’m awed by butterflies, my mind latched onto something I heard a motivational speaker say. “Your body ‘morphs’ itself every seven years. So should you!”

How incredible! Imagine the body replacing all of its cells every seven years, getting rid of the old ones, producing new ones, changing constantly in order to remain at peak performance. WOW!

Since the Creator designed the body to miraculously renew itself continuously and subtly, surely He intended the mind, soul and spirit to renew regularly, too! After all, the Bible says, “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think” (Romans 12:2, New Living Translation, NLT).

When you and I start thinking right, we’ll start acting right and talking right, as well. Imagine how we’ll feel when we no longer resemble our old sinful selves. Incredible, huh?

© 2005 by Johnnie Ann Burgess Gaskill. For permission to use, please contact her.