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We were pleased to welcome Grace Ethiopian Evangelical Church into our LPD/EFCC Family at our district conference in March 2019. This dear group of brothers and sisters meet at the location of the Church of All Nations (New Westminster EFC) on Sunday afternoons, and ministers to a growing population of Ethiopian immigrants (estimated to be more than 10,000 in Greater Vancouver), and has a passion for mission overseas as well.
Please pray for Pastors Fitsum Mekbib and Pastor Worku Mekonnen, and the church family as they serve and spread the Good News, and as they have a special celebration of our Risen Lord this Sunday.
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Do You See Caterpillars or Butterflies?
Today is “Earth Day.” It is also our son Daniel’s birthday. Born on Earth Day, perhaps it is appropriate that he is a botanist and engaged in the study and conservation of the Fraser River Delta. In our family, all of our children have grown up attending interpretive programs in BC Parks and waiting for me to take photos of wildflowers on our hikes through Manning Park. One of the ways that our God has revealed himself is through his creation, and I love to be out in this!
More locally, each spring I head out to our back yard to wrap our cherry tree trunk with sticky tape – (the sticky side out) in an effort to prevent caterpillars from crawling up our tree and devouring our blossoms and young leaves. I have a soft spot for this cherry tree. I found it as a tiny shoot, growing in our compost, and I planted it to see what would come of it. Growing rapidly it soon become huge. I feel like something of a steward of it, even if it is a choke cherry!
Recently, however, I have been rethinking my attitude toward caterpillars. Though I may regard caterpillars as a nuisance and will try to prevent them gnawing away at my favourite foliage, I have an affection for butterflies – and I can’t have butterflies without caterpillars…
My rethink began while preparing a recent sermon for Grace Evangelical Free Church in Richmond, as they celebrated their tenth anniversary on April 10. Two of their theme verses for their eleventh year are Romans 12:1,2:
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
These familiar verses tell is that, we, having transferred the “title” to our lives to God in an act of worshipful appreciation for all that He has done for us, are to resist the pressure of being conformed to the pattern of this world, (or “squeezed” into the mould of the world). Rather, we allow/invite God to transform and change us by renewing our minds and become living proof of what God can do. We do not change ourselves – rather, He transforms us. Our job is to yield and to obey…
The word that Paul uses for “transform” is “metamorphoó. ” It is from this word that we get our English word, “metamorphosis,” the process of transformation of a butterfly egg to a caterpillar (larva) to a pupa and finally to adulthood as a butterfly. The same word is used to describe the transfiguration of Christ (Matt. 17:2; Mark 9:2). While the process of metamorphosis is not unique to butterflies – (some types of caterpillars become moths), it is butterflies that we prefer.
Within each caterpillar (of some species), there is the potential to become a butterfly, given time, the correct environment and necessary nourishment – and freedom from sticky tape on a cherry tree…
As I have reflected on all this, I have come to think that if I want to enjoy the butterflies, I need to appreciate (or at least tolerate) the caterpillars, and of course, I relate this to people…
When I see others, am I looking for butterflies, or am I willing to look for and invest in “caterpillars?” Caterpillars may be rather unattractive, messy and undesirable, but in them is potential, by God’s grace and His work, for them to become “butterflies” that bring glory to God.
As we move forward in this season of spring (and caterpillars), may I, by God’s grace, view others with the potential to become “butterflies” of God’s grace. I cannot transform a caterpillar into a butterfly, but I know who can. Similarly, I cannot create a disciple of Christ or change a person’s life, orientation or faith conviction – but I know who is able to do all of these things.
We do not have a message of behaviour modification – we have a message of hope, of grace and new life in and through Christ!
As we pray for those on our street, in our lives and around our churches, I pray that I might see them with potential for God to reach and transform – to not see them from a worldly point of view (2 Cor. 5:16), but to pray for them to come to faith in Christ, and to experience the same love, new life and transformation that I am experiencing, and only God can provide.
Who are some caterpillars in your life? Might they have potential to become butterflies, by God’s grace and by His transforming work?
God has revealed Himself most perfectly through His Son (Hebrews 1:2). He also has revealed Himself through His creation, and through the lives of those transformed by Him.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! (2 Cor. 5:17).
