Why we need problems
I was reading this week about a man who found a cocoon of an emperor moth. He took it home so he could watch the moth come out of the cocoon. One day a small opening appeared. The man sat and watched the moth struggle for a while trying to get it’s body through the little hole. Then it stopped making any progress. The moth seemed completely stuck.
So the man takes a small pair of scissors and he makes the opening of the cocoon larger so that the moth could escape. The moth emerged, but with a swollen body and shriveled wings. The man thought that in time the moth’s wings would expand and it’s body would contract to a normal size for a moth. It never did. In fact, the moth was never able to fly.
The man did not realize the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the moth to get through the tiny opening were God’s way of forcing fluid from the body INTO the wings so that the moth would be ready for flight once it had emerged from the cocoon.
So many times I catch myself thinking, “God, why don’t you take this problem away? Why don’t you remove this obstacle?” I forget so often that these very struggles taken away from me would cripple me from being what God wants me to be just like this man crippled the moth by removing it’s struggle. Problems, pain and adversity drive me to a greater dependence on God. The struggle increases my faith. The struggle produces something in me that comfort and ease could never produce.
1 Peter 5:10 sums it up pretty well: And after you suffer for a short time, God, who gives all grace, will make everything right. He will make you strong and support you and keep you from falling. I love this verse! God will make everything right. He also promises to make us strong and to support us. And even in the midst of the struggle, we don’t have to fall. The difficulty of the cocoon is essential for the development of the moth; difficulties in our lives are essential to our growth as well.
