| A man found a cocoon of 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 that little hole.
Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it
had gotten as far as it could, and it could go no further.
So the man decided to help the butterfly. He took a pair of
scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon.
The butterfly then emerged easily. But it had a swollen body and
small, shriveled wings. The man continued to watch the butterfly
because he expected that, 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 shriveled wings. It never
did 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 tiny opening were 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 lives. If
God allowed us to go through our lives without obstacles, it would
cripple us.
We would not be as strong as what we could have been. We could
never fly!
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