The Chyrsallis Times

One of the great joys of my life has been leading Bible studies in a corrections facility called the Chrysallis House. Last night I had just a couple girls, but as is usually the case, I came away knowing that it was more for my own learning and encouragement than for theirs. It's no accident that I was assigned to this house. It is a place for healing and for regeneration. It is a home for hearts to find renewal.

I was so happy to see one of the girls pouring over the study books and desiring to know God. She was so animated, flipping through pages of poetry and reading her favorites. So what are you learning? I asked. "She's like a therapist," she told the guard with a laugh. But she surprised me when she blurted out a question that has apparently been churning inside awhile. She got serious and more reflective and then said, "Ever since I've started believing God, it seems like my life has gotten harder. What's going on with that?" Her honesty is so refreshing! "I pray, but I don't know if God's listening," she frowned. We needed to talk about timing and expectations.

The Lord steered us back to the chrysalis times. Have you ever heard the story of the kind and sympathetic onlooker who cut a butterfly loose from its cocoon? That butterfly who is so quickly “helped” and spared the struggle is actually crippled for life. Its wings never form, but remain dwarfed and whithered. That butterfly will never fly.

Why do we get so impatient? Why do we measure our days so frantically and think that God isn’t doing anything? If God immediately removed us from every challenge, how would we mature? How would we develop spiritual wings? There would be no real strength, no depth of character, indeed no real learning takes place without some struggle or pain.

C.S. Lewis put it this way: "God whispers in our pleasures.. but shouts in our pain. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world."

From there we turned to John 11 for a slow verse by verse accounting of the death and resurrection of Lazarus. There’s the frustrated confusion of the women--Lord, why weren’t you here sooner? And the binding graveclothes and the awful stink of the tomb, which could well describe how we feel about our circumstances at times. But it always comes down to God’s glory, his plan. How awesome is our God!

Can't we trust him with our times and trials? Even though the hole is small and our limbs are weak, can we just learn to rest and believe that He’s going to give us the strength that we need and teach us to fly when the time is right? Can't we learn to exercise the limbs of faith?

He is the resurrection and the life! He has complete power over every circumstance, but he also works on his own schedule.

Jesus asked the women, "Didn't I tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?" (Jn 11:40)

Dear Jesus, just as you lifted your eyes to heaven and thanked the Father for hearing you right before calling Lazarus to come out of his grave, I thank you, Lord, for hearing me as I pray for my readers tonight.

I ask that you call them out from whatever holds them back, out from the stench of death and the hopelessness that surrounds us.

Roll the stones away, dear God, call us out from spiritual darkness and deception. Remove the things that bind us--the faithlessness and hardheartedness that separate us from you!
Amen.