You are eating at your favorite restaurant, and drinking your 5th cup of coke. Now the waiter/waitress never let your drink get below half full. You finally get the chance. You do it, you finish the drink. And what is at the bottom? A nice big juicy caterpillar. Its dead, but still. This is your 5th cup and you’ve been drinking a coke with a gross dead caterpillar?!?
Okay… definitely not the story of caterpillar soup you thought I was gonna tell.
Let’s try another one… It’s better.. I promise.
So you see this cute fat green caterpillar. Just moving around, taking care of the leaves on your trees and bushes. Its funny you didn’t think the leaves had to be trimmed up, but thank God for the caterpillars doing it for free. They really are beautiful inside and out. So this fat caterpillar is probably the biggest one you’ve ever seen. Like it may weigh the branch down a bit, type of big. This is good though it means big things are gonna to come. So, as he gets fatter he gets more lazy. I guess just like all of us do. He starts to take a 9-14 day nap. Idk about you but that is EXACTLY what I could use in my life right now. But here he is starting to build his temporary home, also known as a chrysalis. Here is where the craziest transformation happens. So it might sound gross just hang in there with me. We will make it through it together. So, he releases his stomach juices (that were once to eat food) and starts to break down his old body. Making a caterpillar soup. Now this is where he starts to become a butterfly. He must break himself all the way down in order to build back to a beautiful end result.
So, Bradon why the heck does this story belong in a blog post? Especially one for your World Race mission trip?
Well I say there is no better place for this huge encouragement.
We as Christians can relate to this in a multitude of ways. Here are just a couple.
First off, Romans 12:1-2 says, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
How in the world does this compare to a caterpillar soup?
Just as a caterpillar gives up its whole body to transform into the next, we have to offer our bodies. We offer our bodies as a living sacrifice. So, God can use our hands, feet, mouth, and ears. We use our body as a sacrifice, as in we give ourselves to Him and His will, despite our wants. And the second verse tells us to not conform but be transformed. This caterpillar didn’t conform to his friends and stay the same. He knew he had bigger better things ahead. This prepared him for his transformation. We must not conform to this world because this is not our home. We must allow our faith in Jesus to transform us. We are not just a little bounded caterpillar stuck to our past life of sin. We are transformed to a beautiful creation. Our mind is opened to the ability to see God’s will for our life. Instead of crawling or inching to our next stop in life we can now fly to where God has called us.
We can also look at 2 Timothy 2:11 and compare it with our caterpillar friends. It says, “Here is a trustworthy saying: If we died with him, we will also live with him;”
Just as this caterpillar had to die to be a butterfly we must die with Christ. Christ died for our sins in the worst death possible. In one of the most painful and embarrassing ways imaginable. He didn’t do it because He sinned so much that it was to pay for His own sins. It was because we couldn’t save ourselves from our sin. We had to have a perfect sacrifice. He was that sacrifice, and He gifted us with that chance to change from a caterpillar into a butterfly. We must die with Christ so we can live with Him. We must die to our old self and be raised back anew.
I, my friends, am not. I repeat NOT a bug person, but if I see a caterpillar I just think to myself that lucky thing is gonna be soup one day. I remember that it may look like the end for that little bug, but I know that his life is just beginning. Just as our lives actually begin when we accept the greatest most undeserved gift we will ever get the chance at.
All this to say the only thing in this life worth while. Only thing that will last for all eternity and beyond is accepting Jesus as our Lord and Savior. To be transformed from our hell-bound body. To the beautiful new creation we were created to be.
Thank you for your time! He will lead, if you follow! He will guide, if you ask! Not mine, but His will be done!
