When helping is really hurting

As a child growing up, I would try and catch butterflies during the day and in the summer months, I would catch and collect “lightning Bugs”. On more than one occasion, after catching a lightning bug, I would spear it with a toothpick and pretend to smoke it like a cigarette. Hey, at that age, how was I to know there was a difference in real glowing orange cigarette fire and glowing green bug butt fire?

Besides, it was a step up from the candy cigarettes we use to buy in the stores in my opinion. Now, let me get back to what I was originally getting to.

As I was saying in the beginning, I use to catch butterflies as a child. I was amazed at all of the various sizes, shapes and colors. I knew that a caterpillar built itself a cocoon at some point in its life and went to sleep. When they woke up, they had changed into a big beautiful and vibrant butterfly.

As curiosity often arises in young boys that age; I found a caterpillar’s cocoon and decided to “check on its progress” and help speed up the process, just in case it had gotten stuck or forgotten to wake-up. I can’t really remember but I’m sure my heart was in the right place. 🙂

Each time that I had allowed my curious behavior to get the best of me, I found what appeared to be “goo” or “worm-soup”, Yuk!
So, I would run off looking to see who else I could “save” or what else I could get into that apparently disrupts the stages of life.

Many years later I learned that the “soup” I saw was actually the Caterpillar digesting itself so that it could become what it was meant to be, a Moth or Butterfly.

What I didn’t understand then, I eventually gained knowledge of in my adult years. I was interrupting the cycle of life or God’s work in progress, if you will.

What I NOW know and understand, is, a caterpillar was always intended to be a butterfly. By God’s design and plan, there is a process it must take, in order for that to happen. We could even look at it as a maturing phase.

When little boys or other hindering beings interrupt or in my case, try to help and speed up the process; it can kill or impair the life form.

If by chance a butterfly emerges from the breached cocoon; the butterfly will never survive or reach, its full potential. Why? Because, it hasn’t fully grown, matured or built up its strength yet.

You see, the most important stage in the butterfly’s life, is the struggle or ‘rumble’ to escape from its entombment. It builds strength by releasing a chemical while inside their chrysalis (cocoon) that pumps fluid into their wings, causing them to expand. Upon a successful escape, the beautiful butterfly, spreads its colorful strong wings and soars off to heights it could only imagine while being the slow, ground crawling caterpillar. The Butterfly’s ‘rumble’, aka its struggle to escape its chrysalis, is critical for its development and its freedom

Since I’ve become a born-again, bible reading, follower of Christ, I often see all sorts of things with new eyes and with a new perspective.

With that being said, YHWH intended for each one of His children to be somewhat like butterflies. He allows us to go through our own cycle of life with trials and tribulations as our “cocoons”. We must grow in strength, wisdom and understanding during those times for us to reach our full potential and soar to new heights.
Praying, reading His word, meditating on it and striving to be Christ-like, is how we break out of that entombment.

I thought that my actions were helping but in fact I was hurting the Butterfly. The Butterfly as well as ourselves have to go through the rumble to develop our wings and fly. Actually, for us as believers and followers of Jesus/Yeshua, it’s called Sanctification.

Sanctification: is to be set apart for special use; to “sanctify” a person is to make him/her holy.
Biblestudytools.com states that “Sanctification is the process of becoming more like Christ, by purifying our hearts and minds, through repentance, prayer and spiritual practices”.

Acts 26:18 (ESV) says: “to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.”

So, our “metamorphosis” from an analogy of the Caterpillar to Butterfly is Sanctification.

We sometimes think that we are helping a friend, family member or stranger when we try to “break them free” of their “Cocoons”, when in fact we are impeding their growth. Spiritual or otherwise.
Our heavenly Father has a plan for us and in order for His plan to work, we can’t be tearing open the cocoon; so, to speak.

If we step in on our own to offer assistance, without God directing us, we break that cycle and weaken that individual.

It pains me to see any of my family or friends going through struggles of life. But I’m no longer that infringing little boy. There may be or have been times, that I unknowingly, have or will impede God’s plan. But if I continue reading and studying His Word, praying and striving to be Christ-like; then I will surely know, when to step up and when to step back. When I’m helping versus when I’m hurting someone.

Thank goodness we are not like Eagles. The mother feeds her babies until a certain stage and then pushes them out of their nest (their comfort zone). If the young eagle doesn’t start flying at a certain point, the mother swoops down and catches it before plummeting to its death. She will repeat this process until the young eagle “gets it” and learns to fly on its own. However, after too many times of the young eagle depending on its mother to rescue it, she (the mother) will let it fall completely and painfully to the ground.

God’s creations do fall; sometimes He saves us and other times, when we just won’t make the effort, He allows us to plummet to our lowest low.

To sum this all up; the point I hope to make is, to be strong we have to struggle or go through our ‘rumble’ to break free of the chains that bind us or the cocoons that envelopes us. To rise up and soar, we may fall (Romans 3:23) a few times before hopefully allowing YHWH to show us the way. We must also remember that sometimes showing our love to others is stepping back and allowing them to ‘rumble’ so that we don’t interfere with their metamorphosis.

My prayer for you is that when you find yourself in a cocoon of sorts, that you will keep ‘rumbling’ by reading the Bible so as to build your spiritual strength and you burst out beautifully soaring high with YHWH.

All glory, honor and praise to my heavenly Father for first, ignoring my adolescent ignorance and then for saving me, teaching me, forgiving me and loving me. Without Him I would be a soupy caterpillar or a splattered eaglet. Oh, and yes, I’m STILL being sanctified; DAILY!