Monarch Butterfly

Faith on Wings

Floating along on the zephyrs of late summer and early autumn, clad in regal orange and black, the Monarch Butterfly makes it way south on its amazing migration.

It feels the draw, hears the call that drives it inexorably to its ancestral home, the overwintering place of the species high in the mountains of central Mexico some thousands of miles away. Many of its fellows from the northern United States may make a migration journey of up to 6,000 miles, all on those delicate, beautiful wings.

There is a place in Mexico, a series of twelve mountaintops at roughly 10,000 feet elevation, where the Oyamel fir trees that cloak the peaks provide the perfect micro-climate, the delicate balance of cool altitude without freezing, moisture without rain, and the winter sunshine of southern exposure. There a weary and tattered butterfly can join myriad millions of its fellow travelers in a place of exquisite beauty and peace while much of the rest of its world is plunged into the cruel grip of the dead of winter.

But the true miracle of the Monarch is not the great distance it can travel, nor the wonder of its necessary migration. Neither is it the butterfly’s ability to find the one tiny spot on earth from where its entire species originates and to which it must return.

No, the real miracle is this: the butterfly that navigates unerringly and migrates for thousands of miles to its ancestral home has never been there before!

In autumn fields and pastures across North America, tiny white eggs hatched out into tiny caterpillars. Ringed in green, white and yellow, these voracious eaters have a preference for milkweed, even though the “milk” of its sap contains bitter alkaloids that make it distasteful to most other creatures.

Two weeks later the caterpillar finds a spot on the underneath of a leaf and forms into a chrysalis where it undergoes a metamorphosis, a change in form. Ten days later the new creature emerges, having been transformed from a lowly caterpillar into a glorious Monarch Butterfly.

Taking flight on jeweled wings, it heads south, drawn by a force that defies explanation. As it floats on gentle breezes it stops to sip nectar from a variety of flowers along the way. Some of the alkaloids from its previous “life” as milkweed-eating caterpillar are still in its tissues, and make the butterfly taste bitter to any birds that try to eat it.

South and west it navigates, traveling many miles each day. It doesn’t know where it is going; it has never traveled this way before. It only knows it must heed the inner call and fly until it finally reaches its destination, its long-sought haven, home of its fathers.

Note again that this new traveler has never been to the overwintering forests. Neither have its parents nor grandparents. An incredible four generations earlier, February’s hatchlings– this one’s great-grandparents– left the high forest of Mexico and headed north. The next three generations hatched, lived, and died here in the U.S., each complete life cycle lasting a mere 6-8 weeks.

And they never had a thought of migration.

But the fourth generation, born in late summer as caterpillars and born again in early fall as butterflies, are compelled by instinct to head for the high havens. They are specially designed to be hardy enough to live longer than all three former generations combined; they are fit and ready for the journey.

And nothing can stop them.

Now God has woven the principles of His spiritual Truths throughout the natural creation, and so as Christians we find revealed in nature our own purpose, our own story. So it is with the magnificent Monarch.

Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” John 3:3

Just as the lowly caterpillar which gorges on the bitterness of the world must be transformed, so we must also die to this world, be buried in Christ (our holy chrysalis), and be born again to a new life and existence.

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Romans 12:2

Just as the adult butterfly soars on breezes and sips nectar, so we live and soar on the wings of faith, lifted along by the winds of the Holy Spirit. Along the way we are provided for by the Providence of God according to the sweetness of His Word.

Also like the butterfly we leave a bad taste in the mouth of the world. This fallen earth and the powers of the air have no stomach for us, no place for us in its system, and so we are at odds with the world. We are never at home down here. For within our heart there is an unheard call, an invisible but powerful pull that keeps our eyes lifted upward and our spirits moving onward. Though we have never been there, we hear the unmistakable call of our Homeland, that most wonderful of havens where our long and perilous journey will come to an end.

Driven by the power of a new nature and a faith that defies explanation, we hear our Heavenly home beckon us to a place where we will join a multitude beyond measure of our own kind, a place of peace and rest.

And nothing can stop us.

Weary and tattered we will one day finally reach our High Haven, a place of exquisite beauty. There we will meet the One Who created, called and carried us all the way. There we will know true fulfillment, and the inexpressible joy that will make the perils of the journey worthwhile.

For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them. Heb 11:14-16

Like Monarch Butterflies we, children of the One True Monarch, are flying Home.

God Bless,

~Johnny

Updated and reposted 10-3-19

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