BBC
Radio Leicester Thought for the Day
©
John Denney 23 November 2003
I
had a crisis of conscience on Saturday. Ages
ago, I had booked to go on an all-day church seminar. And there was the Rugby World Cup final! Should I develop one of those “chills” that
only the Royal Family usually suffers from?
After an agonising internal debate, I arranged for my wife to video the
match and I went off to the seminar. And
I’m glad I did, for it was a very good seminar.
It was another struggle, but I managed to go through the whole day without
finding out the result, and I watched it when I got home at the end of the
afternoon. What a match! And what a result! Like millions of English people, I was
bursting with pride when our own Martin Johnson lifted the golden trophy in well-deserved
triumph.
One
of the things I learnt at the seminar was the experiment that a French
scientist carried out on processionary caterpillars. They march along, nose to tail, following
their leader in search of food. The
scientist nudged the leading caterpillar round until he joined up with the tail
end of the last caterpillar. On they all
marched in a circle, each one’s face firmly pressed to the rear end of the
caterpillar in front. Even when food was
placed within the circle, and outside it, they went round and round for day
after day, growing hungrier and weaker.
They would never grow and become butterflies.
Our
daily lives can sometimes seem a bit like that.
The same old routine. The same
tasks to accomplish. Round and round,
day in, day out, until we forget that we used to have a purpose for living; we
used to have a goal; we used to have a plan for our life.
God has a plan for each of us. He wants us to be everything he created us
for. He shaped us to join Jesus in the
work that He does[1]. In summary, that work is to reflect God’s
love into the world. So, are you going
to carry on marching along, looking neither to right nor left? Or are you going to become what God wants? Will you stay a caterpillar, or become a
butterfly? God promises that you too can
lift a golden trophy when one day He says, “Good work! You did your job well”.[2]
[1] (God) creates each of us by Christ Jesus to
join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do,
work we had better be doing. [Ephesians
2:10b]
[1] His master commended him: "Good
work! You did your job well. From now on be my partner.’ [Matthew 25:23]