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 shrivelled 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 small opening 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 through all 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.