September 12, 2008
A few weeks ago, our family began to notice a strange phenomenon taking place among our tomato plants. They had grown tall, lush, and fruitful with clumps of both orange from their ripening fruits as well as yellow blossoms, like golden stars, decorating their vines. But suddenly we began to notice that leaves at the very tops were being inexplicably shaved from the plants.
If this had taken place when the plants were still young and small or if it were happening only near the bottom of the plant, we might have supposed that yard critters, such as rabbits, had managed to find ways into the cages and were enjoying the fine cuisine. But the leaves being sheared off were nearly six feet off the ground. We ruled birds out for various reasons and finally concluded that it had to be an insect of some kind.
We looked and looked, searched and searched through the tomato vines, but could not find anything suspicious. So we determined to just keep our eyes opened, waiting to catch whatever naughty little culprit was responsible. In the meantime, we continued to find every morning that a few more leaves had been clipped from our tomato plants.
But then one evening, we saw hanging as placidly as the leaves about it, an enormous green caterpillar. Our children, on a recommendation from their mother, consulted a book on North American wildlife (handy for these impromptu learning opportunities). They concluded that it was either a Luna Moth or a Cecropia Moth. While the caterpillar in question was far too swollen for us to be sure exactly which kind it was, we had several weeks prior discovered a beautiful Luna Moth (a kind of Giant Silk Moth) which we had scrutinized until it decided that it no longer liked being scrutinized and so flew up and over the house to unknown destinations.
We gazed for a moment admiringly at its swollen progeny, but then, in the end concluded that this caterpillar needed to make its happy home some place other than our tomato plants. We consequently removed it to a new location (far from the tomato plants) and have had no further grazing problems.
The whole little episode with the tomatoes and the caterpillar, was more than a bit reminiscent of Eric Carle’s children’s book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, but also served as a catalyst (or should I say, “caterpillaryst?”) in my mind for thoughts regarding a spiritually rewarding life.
Keep in mind that the great goal in the Christian life is true knowledge of God. Not merely knowing “about” Him, but knowing Him – intimately and profoundly! The Scriptures assume this and present this theme repeatedly from what is called the great “Shema” (in Deuteronomy 6:4-5) to the declaration of the two “greatest commandments” by Jesus to crowds who were lost and straying, eager to hear this special message from a God Whom they perhaps believed was as far off as the unreachable stars (see Matthew 22:37-38, Mark 12:29-31, and Luke 10:27-28).
If such true knowledge of God is the theme of the Christian life, (and if you’re still in doubt about this then read Jesus’ prayer in John 17, especially verses 2 and 3) we must then recognize that there are as many “caterpillars” in the gardens of our souls as there are among the gardens in which we grow our flowers and vegetables.
Little attitudes subtly nibble away at our spiritual stature, shearing from us our capacity to be nourished with the simple and yet incredible love of our Father in heaven. We most likely don’t consider such attitudes to be capable of such harm, believing them to be harmless enough, but little prejudices, resentments, envies, and worries have power to climb through the vine of fellowship that binds us to Jesus and shear from us attitudes of joy, contentment, thankfulness, and peace. And when these fruits begin to fail to materialize in our relationship with God, our growth becomes stunted. We at best are slow and meager in our harvest of glory for Him through our lives. But too often we stop growing altogether and become susceptible to various kinds of spiritual blight that will try to choke out all remnants of His love within us.
Our challenge is therefore simple. As in the case of our little garden, we learn to look for little things that slowly eat at us. Not only that, but as we prayerfully meditate in His Word, the Bible, we learn what we’re looking for.
Such “caterpillars” range from greed to lust and from pride to fear. Allowing these persistently parasitic attitudes the freedom to linger in your life, will most assuredly render you incapable of true and unfettered fellowship with God. Not only that, it also makes fellowship with other believers impossible. These “caterpillars” have a way of wandering from our own leaves onto the leaves of others. Those who become thoroughly “eaten up” become hazardous to the church. Things can become so bad that they require radical intervention such as is employed in 1 Corinthians 6 when Paul addresses this kind of issue in the church in Corinth.
“…Now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a Brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat” (1 Corinthians 5:11 NIV).
Given the stakes involved, be sure to make it your habit to sit prayerfully in the Lord’s presence (in a personal time of prayer and reading His Word), and allow God to help you remove the “caterpillars” that may be at work in your heart and mind. Let Him move them far from you so that your spiritual life might become lush and fruitful, bearing a lovely harvest of spiritual fruits in your relationship with God.
(Thom Mollohan and his family have ministered in southern Ohio the past thirteen years and is the author of The Fairy Tale Parables: Classic Fairy Tales Pointing to God's Love and Truth. He is the pastor of Pathway Community Church and may be reached for comments or questions by email at pastorthom@pathwaygallipolis.com).
