Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!

“For who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has become His counselor?”
 “Or who has first given to Him
And it shall be repaid to him?”

For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.

~Romans 11:33-36

The moment when a butterfly emerges from a chrysalis displays the power and wisdom of the Lord in a very unique way that is unlike any other. After literal hours of preparation, it only takes about 2 minutes for the new butterfly to emerge. Thirty to forty minutes later, the butterfly’s wings are fully expanded. It is ready to take its first flight only a few hours later.

This miraculous transformation is the magnificent finale to the change the Lord works inside the chrysalis when He transforms a caterpillar—essentially a worm whose only job is to eat constantly for almost 2 weeks—into a fully-functioning butterfly that has all the needed equipment to fly, pollinate, reproduce, and even migrate up to 3,000 miles. He placed special parts called imaginal disks inside the caterpillar, which eventually become the parts of the grown butterfly inside the chrysalis over the course of about 10 days.

This is not unlike the transformation that He works in us in salvation. He takes a wretched, sinful heart–whose thoughts are only evil continually–and gives us a new heart of flesh that desires to please Him. He takes us, His enemies, and transforms us into His children and workers in His Kingdom. He gives us everything we need both physically and spiritually to walk in the good works He has prepared for us, granting us His Spirit to guide and seal us. His grace and power are sufficient to carry us and comfort us through the long, arduous journeys, and to delight us by the calm and still waters. Indeed, as Paul says in Romans 8:32, “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?”

After considering such wonderful and awesome things, one is left to say, with Paul: “For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.”