Free To Enjoy the Butterflies!!

Photo prise le 5 mai 2006 (© majamarko / Flickr)

Do you like butterflies? Do you know the colors you see on butterflies are not from pigmentation, but rather they are a reflection of light? It’s true! I was watching God of Wonders when I discovered this awesome truth!

Butterflies were created with microscopic bio-photonic scales and the colors you see reflect the light of the sun.  Does this sound similar to someone else God created?

Like you and me…we are created in the image of God and if you are a Christian you can reflect the Light of the Son (Jesus Christ).  The Light that shines in you is not from you but from Him.

It was through this revelation that God has freed me from something I had been struggling with off and on in my life…OK I’m about to be transparent so please give grace:

Envy. Jealousy.

There I said it. I confessed it and God has cleansed me and I repent-turn from my sin of envy and jealousy and turn to Jesus Christ, the One who is able to keep me by the power of His Holy Spirit. Now He wants me to share with you…

Because of my insecurities of being a Mother I would sometimes feel green towards other Mothers. I would compare myself to her. I can’t cook like that. I can’t draw like that. I can’t write like that. I can’t…the list went on.  Instead of enjoying how God created them I was stuck on what He didn’t create in me. I forgot that He already created in me a clean heart–but I acted as an unbeliever. I had an ungrateful, un-thankful and critical heart which made for a lonely journey.

It was lonely because I didn’t allow myself to get close to anyone and God had to protect the woman–He was not going to allow me to hold the heart of another woman if I had envy and selfish ambition.  He told me this in James 3:13-18:

“Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.”

When God speaks, I listen.  His Words cut to the core of my green heart and now that I knew what the problem was, I knew how to pray.  I prayed for wisdom from heaven, I prayed I would be a peacemaker sowing peace to reap a harvest of righteousness for His kingdom.  I prayed I would abide and remain in Jesus Christ because I knew apart from Him I could only bear artificial fruit. I couldn’t ‘fake it’ I needed Him to surgically remove this root of bitterness and envy and help me to see other women as He does…then He gave me the butterfly. Wow, wow, wow!

As I heard how butterflies  reflect light I pondered all the different kinds of butterflies that are out there I realized they are doing what He created them to do and they are ‘being‘ what He created them to be…reflect light.  When I surrendered and gave God my green heart and when I prayed for His wisdom guess what happened?

I could see the hearts of other women (saved and unsaved)! I could be gracious and compassionate regardless how they reflected (or didn’t reflect) His Light.  And NOW I knew what I was supposed to do…pray.

Pray and thank the Lord for how He made those that reflect His Light–love them and thank them for their obedience and glorify God with them!

Pray for and LOVE those that do not yet shine His Light, or have green hearts toward me or are flickering.

In all cases, love and thank the Creator for the created.

So now I am free to enjoy the Butterflies…not just the ones outside flying around but the ones I see all around me. Women who love God and serve Him and share Him with others.  Women who are far from Him.  I now refuse to be used against God and I choose love.  I do this because I love Him.

You can’t sow what you don’t know.  Now I am ready to teach my children how to appreciate how God uniquely created them and others to reflect His Son. I’m glad I have this stone of remembrance that I can visit the next time I am tempted to look at others and not the Author and Perfecter of my Faith-Jesus Christ.

What about you? Do you appreciate the gifts, talents, creativity of others or do you let insecurities keep you from appreciating them limiting your ability to glorify God?

I’m praying for you dear reader. If you do not know our Creator, I pray He will draw you to Himself and open your eyes to see His glory and give you a new heart and put His Spirit inside you. I pray He will surround you with saints in Light that are loving you to Jesus Christ.

For my brethren I pray that we ‘may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that [we] will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light.” (Colossians 1:9-12)

Praying my daughter is a wise woman who fears the Lord and sees herself and others as God sees

“But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does.” James 1:22-25