The
Butterfly Theory
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 it's 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 sniped 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 it's life crawling around with
a swollen body and shriveled wings. It never was 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 tiny opening were God's way of forcing
fluid from the body of the butterfly into it's wings so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved it's freedom from
the cocoon.
Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in OUR lives. If we were allowed to go through our lives without
any obstacles, it would cripple us. We would not be as strong as what we could have been. We could never fly!
