Spiritual Caterpillars

Perhaps I've been too obsessed with my latest obsession. Is there such a thing, too obsessed once you are obsessed?  My latest obsession is one of those obsessions that you hope to never really outgrow. You do in fact hope to outgrow some if not most obsessions merely because they've become obsessions. You'd rather regulate them down a notch to hobbies. Hobbies sound much better than obsessions. Obsessions implies something being done too much, even to the point of excluding other things, whereas hobbies sound as if they are pleasant ways to pass the time, harmful in no real way unless of course they become obsessive. You see where I'm going with that? A hobby is okay to have, an obsession is not okay to have. To even have a latest obsession implies I'm obsessive in various ways - taking things a touch too far outside of the acceptable lines of hobbies. To solve this dilemma I'm going to simply take a step back, start over and get on with it.

Maybe I've had my hobby on my mind a bit too much lately. See, that didn't work either because I immediately made it an obsession with that statement. I'll try once more.

Perhaps my hobby has caused me to view a few things in a different perspective.  That's much better and something I should have started this whole thing off with.

My hobby is butterflies, and if I'm being truly forthright here, my hobby is plants with teeny tiny butterfly eggs attached to them. Those teeny tiny eggs become teeny tiny caterpillars which go through a series of growth spurts until they begin a process of alteration that will have them no longer caterpillars but butterflies. A complete change, not just a minute change, but such a change that to hold a butterfly without knowing it was once a caterpillar you would never suspect it could have ever been such a creature.  It's true! I could look at a caterpillar all day long and never in my wildest dreams picture a butterfly, never, and of course vice versa.

I now join the ranks of the millions before me who use this caterpillar/butterfly analogy and apply it to human life.  Why not, right? It isn't as if I'll have anything new to say about it all, but it will ease something within me just to have said it in my own words and not those of another. And if my words do happen to be those of another it will be complete coincidence.

Our human beginning is such that we are housed within our mother's body for nine whole months (in a perfect scenario that is, though we could only be there for six, seven, eight, months or the possibility we are there for ten, eleven months exists but these are all exceptions to the rule of nine months).  Housed as hapless creatures unable to survive without the protection our mother offers us from her body, the nourishment of her oxygen, her blood, her food all of it is necessary to our survival when we are first conceived and then once we are expelled from that nourishing, safe environment we continue to rely upon a caregiver or sorts who will feed us constantly as well as make sure we are kept clean, clothed comfortably and taught for years how to become grown up able to function in the society around us and begin the process of reproduction ourselves.

The mother who housed us until we were birthed from her body, whether or not she continues to be the one who cares for us until we grow up, will continue on her own cycle of life. That cycle has her bearing more offspring (or not), but continuing to age onwards and upwards until her life ends. To be fair, and honest here, not all lives even get to the point of birthing but end before that point during their internal growing period of nine months. And after that, some who are birthed may live only a few moments after they are expelled to their external existence. From the moment of their conception as two parts merging to make one being, the age of their ceasing to exist could arrive at any moment at all. Two merged cells on their way to becoming four could stop right there and what they were intended to be no longer happens.  So from that moment of merged two cells until one hundred and seventeen (or more) years down the line, the being could cease to exist in a form that defines living, growing and dying.

Because I've made it into my fifty-sixth year of existing outside of my mother's body, I can say a few things about living. Getting back on the track of my non-obsessive hobby concerning butterfly eggs and onward, their very rapid (at least in my experience with the Monarch butterfly in particular), growth and change into something extraordinary (in the sense they are first one thing and then something completely different and all of it (okay, most of it) visible to the naked eye) I can't help but truly hope our caterpillar stage is all taking place as we live in our vulnerable flesh and blood bodies. That we are ALL - those who are conceived in their two merged cell state all the way to the oldest of old- just spiritual caterpillars. 

I hope we are caterpillars who are eating ALL the necessary spiritual food we can eat in order to one day be the butterfly called forth from our graves into newness of life in Christ.  And perchance we are among the rarest caterpillars of all, we are consuming all we need to change into new creatures instantaneously when Christ comes if we haven't had the chance for our caterpillar bodies to sleep in the grave.

Caterpillars eat and eat and eat constantly changing in size until they finally shed their last caterpillar  skin and wrap themselves in a special covering and inside that covering they are changing completely. 

We need to eat and eat and eat constant spiritual food and change in spiritual size until we are wrapped in a spiritual covering and are being changed into the new creature we will become.

In my experience with butterfly eggs- not all of them turn into caterpillars, and not all caterpillars make it to the point of their special change, and not all of them change as they should, and then not all new creatures go on to be healthy butterflies able to continue the cycle of their lives. Just as with human beings, the butterfly egg, caterpillar, butterfly can cease to live at any moment.

I know this common analogy- one of many variants people use with the butterfly life, isn't perfect. Just a weird thought I had as I contemplated the miracle of change human beings need to undergo as they seek a life of true change from vile, sin-filled, sin-prone creatures to a life that to many only exists in a dream. The true change is a reality we have to look forward to, our vile corruptible bodies will be given incorruptible bodies, or mortal frames will be given immortal frames all upon the return of Christ who will make those changes in us, all because we believe in His love and His desire to sacrifice His life- one He did NOT have to live and die- for us. He longs for us to become the creatures He imagined we would be one day. 

Our caterpillar selves allow God to begin the change in us, a spiritual invisible change that will alter us into butterfly selves one day.

One of a million differences between us and butterflies though, their changes happen not by choice but by nature, our changes must be by choice or it is possible we will be among the many who perish before we ever take flight.

1Co 15:42  So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: 

1Co 15:43  It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: 

1Co 15:44  It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. 

1Co 15:45  And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. 

1Co 15:46  Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual. 

1Co 15:47  The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven. 

1Co 15:48  As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. 

1Co 15:49  And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. 

1Co 15:50  Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. 

1Co 15:51  Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 

1Co 15:52  In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, AT THE LAST TRUMP: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. 

1Co 15:53  For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. 

1Co 15:54  So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. 

1Co 15:55  O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? 

1Co 15:56  The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. 

1Co 15:57  But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 

1Co 15:58  Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.