Our six year old daughter recently received a very interesting gift. The gift was a butterfly kit. Yes, you read it right, it was a butterfly kit. The kit included five little caterpillars in a plastic jar with food prepared especially for them. The kit also included an observation box. We eagerly opened the kit and placed the jar in a safe place for the caterpillars to grow. At first, the caterpillars were quite tiny, but it did not take long for them to grow. All they had to do was eat, eat, eat! They also spun silk webs on which to climb. Then, after about eight days, a caterpillar climbed to the top of the jar and hung upside down. He (or she, I'm not sure) would move his body around some, but finally ended up looking like the letter 'J' hanging from the top of the jar. His head curled up toward the top of the jar as his rear legs seemed to be fixed to the top. It then appeared that he began to put on a coat of armor. His once soft fuzzy body began to appear hard. To this point things had progressed as expected. We knew that the caterpillars would not stay caterpillars long unless they died. We expected them to attach themselves to the top of the jar and form a cocoon. What we did not expect was that as the cocoon formed the head of the caterpillar fell off. One by one, each of the other four caterpillars proceeded with the same pattern of events. Finally, about a week later, butterflies began to emerge from the cocoons. These butterflies looked beautiful and nothing like they did either when they hung in the cocoon stage or while they were in the caterpillar stage.

The spiritual parallel was too good to pass up writing about. Think about the different stages that the little creatures went through and then think about the periods of life that a person goes through, lost and saved.

First, let us consider the caterpillar stage. The little caterpillar is the offspring of the butterfly, but he does not look like his parents at all. He had to undergo a dramatic change. The same is true with the Christian. The fact that a child is born to Christian parents does not make this child a Christian. To become a child of God, great and dramatic changes must take place in everyone's life and must proceed the proper way. Not only does the caterpillar not look like a butterfly, neither does he live like a butterfly. He does not get around like a butterfly. He certainly cannot fly, for he as no wings. And unlike the butterfly which has long delicate legs, the caterpillars are very short and are made for crawling. The caterpillar does not eat the same food as the butterfly. The caterpillar munches his way through a meal of leaves while the butterfly relies on a long flexible snout that draws nectar from flowers.

Someone who is lost has some parallel similarities to the caterpillar. First, he does not conduct himself in the same manner as one who is saved. Titus 3:3-7 reads,

For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another. But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour; That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

Also, just as the caterpillar does not move from place to place like the butterfly, so the lost person does not move spiritually as the Christian. Galatians 5:25 reads, 'If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.'

Second, let us consider the cocoon stage. The caterpillar first stops going about his business as a caterpillar and gets ready for the huge change that is about to occur. He cannot expect to continue to live the life of a caterpillar and yet be a butterfly. Matthew 4:17 reads,

'From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.' where 'repent' means to change one's mind (heart) for the better, to amend heartily with abhorrence of one's past sins. How interesting it is that the caterpillar loses his head! The head is the place of the body where decisions and thoughts are born. The Bible says in Galatians 6:3,

'For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself.' Also,

Proverbs 30:12 reads, 'There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness.' Certainly, the head of a lost person should not literally fall off, but spiritually, he must quit thinking the way he has always thought before and start following God's will.

The cocoon is a hard shell that forms around the caterpillar's body. This is like Jeremiah writes in Lamentations 3:4-9:

My flesh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my bones.

He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.

He hath set me in dark places, as they that be dead of old.

He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out: he hath made my chain heavy.

Also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer.

He hath inclosed my ways with hewn stone, he hath made my paths crooked.

Oh, the isolated feeling of one whom God has shown that he is lost! He has left the world yet he has not found God as yet. Ah, but God is working. There is a great work of God going on in one who has found himself at this stage.

Third, the butterfly stage. The new creature has come forth out of his darkness. Though once a caterpillar, he can never go back to that life. The caterpillar lost his head and is now no more. Now is a new creature, a beautiful butterfly. Consider the following passages:

II Corinthians 5:17, 'Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.'
 

Ephesians 2:10, 'For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.'
 

Colossians 2:12, 'Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.'
 

- Brad Hill