A New Creature

From a tiny egg a little smaller than the head of a pin a little caterpillar emerged to face a big wide world around him. He had an insatiable appetite and soon set to work on feeding on the nearby vegetation.

However the more he ate, the greater his appetite and somehow he seemed to be locked into the system feeding, growing and resting, feeding, growing and resting, and he never seemed to get anywhere.

Occasionally this earthbound worm looked upward to see the birds and bees in flight with a longing to be there with them, and those beautiful butterflies that lifted themselves into the air on vibrant wings, what grace they emulated! He sighed and carried on munching.

“I have been watching you from here and I notice that your life is so different from mine; I am tied down but you appear to be so free.”

“Aah”, said the butterfly “I was once like you are this day but let me offer you a message of hope: you too can have wings like mine upon which you can rise above the earth and fly.”

“How did you get your wings?” asked the caterpillar.

The butterfly replied, “There came a time when I had to die to myself and leave the old world behind.”

“Oh” said the caterpillar, “How did that happen?”

“It happened when I realised that this world could no longer satisfy me. With my last bit of energy I crawled out and upward and clung with all my strength on the boughs of a tree; dying to self I rested there.”

“Oh”, said the caterpillar looking down at his bloated body wondering if he would ever be able to do the same. “Then what happened?” he asked.

“Why, in the passing of a little time changes took place within me, and before I was aware of it, I had become a new creature and God gave to me wings! See?”, he said, opening them wide to display the beautiful colours. “This beauty you see is not my own but God gave it to me so that I might testify boldly for all to see what a difference He makes. Remember,” he said ...

Then on his coloured wings he up mounted and was gone.

After a bright testimony like that, who would ever want to continue as before? But still the call of the world was all the caterpillar could think of to satisfy his appetite. However he could not put out of his mind the words of his colourful friend; the only one who ever gave to him a message of hope.

As he became more and more aware of himself and his own limitations, he grew more restless with every passing minute. Before long he tasted one last mouthful, this time he knew for sure that it did not, and could not give him pleasure or satisfaction, so he crawled away almost at an end of himself.

Then he remembered what the butterfly faithfully told him to do, and so with his last bit of strength he searched until he found the tree and crawled upward and clung to it sheltering beneath its branches, and died!

Then it seemed to him in no time at all he heard the call to rise up and come out. Something was different, very different; he had completely changed and had himself become a new creature, old things had passed away, and behold, all things had become new.

Now he had a beautiful pair of wings of his own given to him by God. Soon he would be able to tell others of his joyful news and message of hope to those who were just like him.

Now, learn a lesson from this little creature: if we only have an appetite for earthly things God can do nothing with us. We will soon find out, perhaps the hard way that the world cannot satisfy the longing soul, it was never meant to, only He can.

When we come to an end to ourselves and are prepared to acknowledge that in God’s sight that we are dead in trespasses and in sins, then God shows to us the cross upon which His precious Son died as a substitute for the sinner.

There is nothing for us to do other than to cling to the boughs of the tree of Calvary and die to self and let God do the rest. Life will never be the same ....