BUTTERFLY EGGS AND CATERPILLARS


 

Ezekiel 34:11-16
Titus 2:11-14

 Butterflies are symbols of new life and transformation.  Like them, people grow and change, not only physically but emotionally and spiritually.  What role does God's grace play in this process and when does it begin?





A caterpillar is one of nature's eating machines.  When they hatch, the first thing they eat is their egg case, and then its off in search of more food.  And they eat and eat and eat.  It's what caterpillars do, It's encoded in their butterfly DNA.

Some scientists believe that our search for spiritual meaning can be found somewhere in our DNA that forms a part of the brain that makes us look for God.  That would explain why there are so many religions in the world.  As we respond to some neurological process, we come up with ways to make this idea of God accessible to us.

I have mixed feelings on this.  Part of me says it makes sense, since human beings were created to be in relationship with God.  Another part of me wonders what that says about God.  Does God leave us to stumble around, trying out different paths, and if we happen to be the few who do find God, we get the "salvation prize?"  Is that God's plan for us, to stand apart from us, uninvolved with our lives until the time we "find" God, and then God loves us?

I thought that was how it worked.  I had to find God first, but the Bible tells us that it's the other way around.  God seeks us out, and it begins before we are even born.

Titus 2:11 tells us that in God's plan of salvation through Christ, that new life is offered to all people, not just a few who manage somehow to find a hide-and-seek God.  By sending Christ to live among us, by becoming accessible to us through God the Son in human flesh, God was saying to us, "Here I am.  I have come to you."

Even before Christ, God made it clear that God is the one who finds us and gathers us into fellowship with Him.

“‘God, the Master, says: From now on, I myself am the shepherd. I’m going looking for them. As shepherds go after their flocks when they get scattered, I’m going after my sheep. I’ll rescue them from all the places they’ve been scattered to in the storms. I’ll bring them back from foreign peoples, gather them from foreign countries, and bring them back to their home country. I’ll feed them on the mountains of Israel, along the streams, among their own people. I’ll lead them into lush pasture so they can roam the mountain pastures of Israel, graze at leisure, feed in the rich pastures on the mountains of Israel. And I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep. I myself will make sure they get plenty of rest. I’ll go after the lost, I’ll collect the strays, I’ll doctor the injured, I’ll build up the weak ones and oversee the strong ones so they’re not exploited.         Ezekiel 34:11-16 (MSG)

We are so important to God, that it is God Himself who comes looking for us.  In the parables of Luke 15, Jesus tells us that we are the lost sheep that God left everything else behind to find.  We are the lost coin, so precious that God will to drop everything to seek us out.  We are the prodigal child that God never gives up on, and runs to us with open arms to scoop us up into His grace.

John Wesley called this action of God's love for us "prevenient" or preceding.  Before we knew who God is, before we choose to love God, God loves us and sends out his grace to us, inviting us into a relationship with God through Christ.

In the movie, The Life of Pi, the adult Pi tells a young writer who has come to him to hear his story, that "One cannot know God unless one is introduced to God."   God does put other people in our lives to help with the introductions and give us words to describe our longing.  That longing is a result of God's grace at work in our lives, and it is that same grace that plants the seed of faith that eventually leads us to Christ.

Before we were even born, salvation was God's plan for us all.  So great is God's love for us, that rather than waiting for us to search for Him, He comes looking for us so that we can experience His gift of love to us:  new life through Jesus Christ.


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