Programmed for Change

Becoming What We Are

Metamorphosis is one of creation's most remarkable stories. It is not primarily a change of being as much as it is a radical change of form and function.

Many creatures undergo metamorphosis. Frogs, moths, dragonflies, and butterflies all experience this remarkable transformation. Yet the butterfly remains the most familiar picture of a creature becoming what it seemed impossible for it to become.

For generations, scientists believed the caterpillar simply dissolved into a biological soup from which the butterfly emerged. Recent research tells a different story.

Transformation is not random destruction followed by a new creation. It is a carefully programmed process of both dying and becoming. Some cells and organs atrophy and disappear, while others—present from the very beginning—suddenly awaken and grow.

The butterfly is not created in the chrysalis.

It is revealed.

Perhaps the butterfly can teach us something about ourselves.

So let the butterfly tell its story.

Within an egg no larger than a drop of water lies everything needed for the butterfly that will one day emerge. Hidden within its DNA is the blueprint of a future no one can yet see.

The tiny larva hatches into a caterpillar. It eats almost constantly, growing rapidly and shedding its skin several times as it matures. Its life is simple. Eat. Grow. Prepare.

Then something changes.

A release of hormones signals the beginning of the next stage. The caterpillar attaches itself to a branch and forms its chrysalis.

From the outside, almost nothing appears to happen. The chrysalis hangs quietly from the branch as though life itself has paused. Inside, everything is changing.

Cells and organs that served the caterpillar begin to disappear. At the same time, cells present from the very beginning awaken and rapidly grow into wings, eyes, antennae, and the body of the butterfly.

The mystery is not that something new is added. The mystery is that what was hidden begins to appear.

Finally, the butterfly emerges.

Its body has changed. Its world has changed. Even its purpose has changed.

Where the caterpillar spent its life consuming leaves, it now lives in an entirely different way. It now moves from flower to flower gathering nectar while carrying pollen. The creature once known for taking now becomes an instrument of giving life.

Its story is complete.

Or perhaps...

it has just begun.

The butterfly's story finds its fulfillment in Christ, but it does not end there…

As I watched the butterfly's story unfold, I found myself thinking about Paul's remarkable words:

"...the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit."

Suddenly the butterfly seemed to be pointing beyond itself. It was no longer simply telling the story of an insect. It was quietly bearing witness to Christ. Where the butterfly becomes a life-giving creature, Christ becomes the Life-Giving Spirit. He is not simply another example of transformation; he is its fulfillment. In Him we see humanity as the Father intended it from the beginning.

The story of the butterfly reaches its fulfillment in Christ, but it does not end there. It continues in us. George MacDonald explores this same movement through three of his sermons, beginning not with our origin but with our destiny. Like the butterfly emerging into a new world, he begins with the fruit of transformation before gradually leading us back to its hidden source.

I had never thought about it before, but the butterfly never hoards what it carries. Simply by living according to its new nature, it spreads life from flower to flower. Reading The Inheritance, I found myself smiling when MacDonald wrote, "A real share in the kingdom of heaven is not what we keep but what we have the power to give away. What is truly mine is that which I can share with others. What I cannot share with everyone cannot be essentially my own."

MacDonald sees the kingdom in much the same way. What truly belongs to us is never what we possess, but what we are free to share. The transformed life naturally becomes a life that gives itself away.

But fruit is never the beginning of the story. It is the end. That raises another question. How does such a transformation take place? MacDonald answers that question in Abba, Father! by shifting our attention from what we become to how we become.

"Our heavenly Father is not content simply to have children. His desire is to have sons and daughters after His own heart. As we walk in the Light, we begin to participate in our own becoming." MacDonald's words made me stop and think. He doesn't describe transformation as something we achieve. He describes it as something we participate in. That feels much closer to what the butterfly has been showing us all along. It is the quiet work of participating in the life already given to us in Christ.

That leaves one final question. If this new life is the Father's purpose, where did it begin? MacDonald reflects on this by taking us back to The Child in the Mist. "Nothing is required of us that is not already within us, placed there by God." The butterfly does not receive its wings from outside itself. They have been hidden within from the beginning. So it is with us. "Our childhood is born of His Fatherhood." Our transformation does not create our identity. It reveals the identity that has always been held in the Father's heart.

The more I sat with the butterfly's story, the more I wondered if creation has been telling this story from the beginning. Perhaps the butterfly simply gives us eyes to see it more clearly. Christ reveals its fulfillment, and in Him we begin to recognize that our own transformation is not about becoming someone else, but becoming who the Father has always intended us to be.

Perhaps that is why the butterfly has always fascinated us.

It is not just telling its own story.

It is beautifully telling ours.