A Butterfly
A man found a cocoon for a butterfly. One day a small opening appeared, he sat
and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body
through the little hole. Then
it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far
as it could and could go no farther. Then the man decided to help the
butterfly.
He took a pair of scissors and snipped the remaining bit of the cocoon. The
butterfly then emerged easily. Something was strange. The butterfly had a swollen
body and shriveled wings. The man continued to watch the butterfly because he
expected at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to
support the body, which would contract in time. Neither happened. In fact, the
butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and
deformed wings. It was never able to fly.
What the man in his kindness and haste did not understand, was that the
restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through
the smallopening of the cocoon are God`s way of forcing fluid from the body of
the butterfly into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once it
achieved its freedom from the cocoon. Sometimes struggles are exactly what we
need in our life.
If God allowed us to go throughall our life without any obstacles, that would
cripple us. We would not be as strong as what we could have been. Not only
that, we could never fly.