Transformation

 "What do you call these flowers?" I asked the landscape gardener at the park where we took a morning walk today. The pretty orange and yellow flowerets on tall stems were covered with Monarch butterflies.

"Butterfly Weed," she explained.  "It's the only thing butterflies will eat."  Hmm. I thought I'd seen butterflies on other bright flowers as well.  She said that they do drink nectar from other flowers, but lay their eggs on these plants.  Then the resulting caterpillar feeds on the milky, poisonous leaves and stem of the plant.

I found out that butterflies are poison, having ingested the poison "milk" from infancy.  It is a natural defense against enemies.  Anything that eats the beautiful creature will get very sick, and will avoid doing it again.  "They're just milkweed," she finished.

I had no idea milkweed was good for anything! I could remember getting the sticky substance on my hands as a child picking flowers that make the world more beautiful.  Their initial diet as larva or caterpillars has protected them for their adult lives.  Sure enough, I looked at a stem and saw a green, yellow and black striped caterpillar, munching away, completely oblivious of a loving Creator who had planned ahead for its safety.

Butterflies present many life lessons.  As baby Christians, we learn to feed on the Word.  Filling our minds and lives with God's truth is a perfect defense against Satan's attacks.  He can't stand the Word of God and will flee from it.

Jesus used the Word of God against him in Matthew 4:4, when Satan tried to get him to turn stone into bread.  Jesus replied, "It is written, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." And when He was tempted by Satan to worship him, Jesus commanded, "Get thee hence, Satan, for it is written "Thou shall worship the Lord The Lord Thy God, and Him only shat thou serve." Satan then left Him alone.  The Word of God is also a deterrent to sin, as referenced in Psalm 119:11, "Thy Word have I hid in my heart, That I might not sin against God."

The life cycle of the butterfly is often compared to death and resurrection: the chrysalis, which for the larva is a time and place of rest in a dark place, representing death and burial, and the emerging of the butterfly as a beautiful, triumphant creature likened to our heavenly bodies in the resurrection. Or it is compared to becoming a new creature at salvation to go on to become something of light and beauty in this world.

Just as a butterfly is attracted to the Aclepi-as ruberosa--the milkweed's botanical name--because of its flowers and abundant nectar, may the world be attracted to Christians by their abundant life and "nectar".  The word the Bible uses for lifestyle is "conversation." Proverbs 16:24 says, "Pleasant are the words as an honeycomb, sweet to the soul and and health to the bones."  Now that's nectar!