Friday, August 11, 2006

Monarch Butterflies and Japanese Bettle Traps

I discovered something rather unusual the other day. A Monarch in the Japanese Bettle Trap outside our house. Monarch butterflies have always held a special place in my heart. One of those reasons is because when my brother and I were younger we used to search high and low for the tiny caterpillars on the Milkweed across the street from us. We would take them home, and take care of them until they became butterflies. We had hundreds and many of them we named becaus they were special. One butterfly in particular was Zaccheus. By the name I am sure you are getting the fact that he was tiny. When he emerged as a butterfly he somehow or another got stuck in the crystalis causing him to only be half the size a normal butterfly should be. We knew he would never make it south and he didn't. He died after only a few days of living on our flowers outside our house. We kept him until he accidently got broken.
So back to the butterfly in the trap. He was flapping all around going crazy. His wings were getting damaged and many of his scales had been wipped off. I tried everything to get him out because I didn't want him to die in with all those nasty bettles. YUCK! First I tried a stick and then a flower, but he refused to even land on either of them. He almost acted even more frightened then he had when he was stuck. Finally I started to close the bottom half of the trap from the butterfly as he flew closer to the top. Some how he slipped back several times until finally He got stuck and I was able to carefully get him out of the trap where he flew away as fast as his wings could take him.
For the last couple of days I have been trying to find something in that story. There is so many thoughts you could get out of something like that.
The trap is sin and the butterfly is a Christian. Christians sometimes have a way of finding themselves in strange places where they get trapped by sin unable to get out. They flap around in panic only to cause damage to themselves. After awhile someone finds the Christian stuck and tries to give them aid, but the Chrisitian is so set on getting themselves out that they refuse all help. Finally weakening the Christian starts to fall in with the crowd, but as soon as he does the feeling of the others causes him to take flight again in hopes of escaping and all of a sudden he is cut of from the crowd and slowly lifted away from the problem and set free by a Savior.
Maybe it is a bit far fetched, but my expierence left me thinking. I am thankful there is a Savior who can Lift me up when I fall into sin.

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