TRANSFORMATION – A NEW CREATION
Transformation would be a lot better if it was easy, but it’s usually not. The only thing that’s easy about it is if you sit back and you enjoy what God is doing instead of fighting it. It reminds of the analogy of the transformation a butterfly has to go through.
One of my favorite jobs was when I worked in the Early Childhood Special Ed. For a couple of years, we brought in little caterpillars that became chrysalis, and the kids got to watch them come out and become monarch butterflies. I started studying this a little deeper. So the chrysalis is the little cocoon. Most of us think that they just curl themselves up in there, get wings, and pop out as a beautiful butterfly. They do, but actually what happens inside that chrysalis is disgusting. I’m sure it’s not fun for the caterpillar either, but the caterpillar dies to itself. It becomes nothing but these things called, “imaginal cells.” These cells help the caterpillar undergo the transformation to become the beautiful butterfly.
So when the little butterfly gets out of his cocoon, and it starts flying, I don’t think that that butterfly is thinking, “I wonder if I can go munch on a leaf and do the caterpillar things that I used to do,” because it has died to itself and it has become a brand new creation.
A NEW BELIEVER IN RECOVERY
I think of that caterpillar turning into a butterfly analogy… we really do have to die to ourselves. I have been walking with Jesus for 21 years, but to a new believer, what does that feel like to somebody who’s just walked away from a world of addiction? What does it feel like when they’ve only been free for a short period of time?
So I went and I asked one of our graduates, Lyle Craig, he was a former participant in Finding the Family. I walked into his office and I just said, “Okay, Lyle. What was easy about transformation and what was hard about transformation?” And immediately, he said, “Well, you know, it’s ongoing.” And I said, “Yeah, I know, it’s ongoing. So what makes it easy, and what makes it hard?” He said, “The easy part is going to church, praising God, listening to a good message from the pulpit and listening to Christian music.” It’s easy because it feels good to your spirit because your spirit is being transformed. He said, “The hard part about transformation is dying to yourself.” He said, “If you have to say, it isn’t that bad, then it’s probably something you shouldn’t be doing.” That’s so true. We fight the transformation process by saying, “It’s not that bad.” It’s literally like putting a roadblock up between us and the path that God has us on.
PROVERBS 3:5-6 NLT
So in the NLT translation of Proverbs 3:5-6, the end of verse 6 says, “He will tell you which path to take.” So as we’re being transformed, sometimes our eyes wander and we’re like, “Oh, look at that. That looks interesting. I think that would be fun.” That’s not going to be “that bad.” Sometimes we’re tempted to take a path that is not directed by God. Some of the translations say “He makes that path straight.” That’s a great way to think of it because sometimes I need him to say, “Get on the right path.” Even when it’s not sinful, but you know it’s not God’s will for your life, you need His guidance to remain on your path. His Will is good and pleasing and perfect (Romans 12:2) so if we remain on the path He has us on, then we’re not taking a diversion that’s going to take us way off course.