I’m Dancing With Butterflies and Clothed Like Wildflowers

“This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, hearing God with a childlike ‘What’s next, Papa?’” (Romans 8:15, MSG)

I sat at my desk, decidedly bored and unfulfilled but feeling trapped. The job I had worked so hard to attain felt like a burden I could no longer afford. I sensed time and joy slipping through my fingers. Helpless to change it, the desk was like a ball and chain tethering me to a life sentence of chronic stress and compromised values.

I glanced out the window looking for a moment of respite and that’s when I saw the butterflies. Thousands of them, dancing through the sky, resembling a scene from a children’s storybook.

Drawn outside, I danced and swirled and laughed as the butterflies floated around me.

It was the semi-migration of the snout-nosed butterfly. Some in central Texas consider this occurrence a nuisance because the small orange and brown travelers clog windshields and car grills as they make their way down the I-35 corridor. But for me, it was magical and surreal.

I cried tears of joy, sensing this was a gift from God — a special visit from the Holy Spirit — a touch of fairy godmother magic to draw my soul back to Him and remind me that dreams do come true.

The gift of the butterflies helped me see how He was wooing me. Luring me from the life-draining things I had given my time and soul to and calling me back to what mattered. It was another crack in the infrastructure of a life I had built that I couldn’t sustain.

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. — Voltaire

I knew what these butterflies meant

They were a signal to me that my days could be magical moments of seeing Him and His ways or they could be drudgery and demands from strangers.

I could choose to see life this way every day and give myself to Him and His plans for me or I could keep gripping to the existence that I believed offered security and provision.

No amount of security is worth the suffering of a mediocre life chained to a routine that has killed your dreams. — Maya Mendoza

Two years prior to the magical butterfly afternoon, I had made a decision to change positions at work, turning down a promotion and a raise for a chance to catch my breath and build a little margin into my life. I was too tired of giving away my best and couldn’t justify the cost any longer.

My decision had solely been based on intuition and a vision of what my life would look like depending on how I chose. The road with the promotion and raise looked like a funnel with me becoming trapped in the small end. It didn’t take a spiritual genius to discern this choice as a dead end, a trap, a constricting environment.

The other choice was represented by rolling meadows, flowering trees, winding creeks, and mountains in the distance. It felt like a choice that would lead to freedom or a variety of options. It sure seemed more peaceful than being squeezed into the small end of a funnel.

And yet, two years after that decision, I sat at my desk thinking I had jumped from the fire into the frying pan, being singed and seared only in a different way. I wanted out completely but had no logical, good reason to quit. In fact, it seemed irresponsible to quit after I had carefully made my decision to be where I was.

Making good decisions is hard and faith requires that we walk forward without knowing all the risks.

I didn’t see the flowers and the meadows and the mountains, so like all good perfectionists, I assumed I had chosen incorrectly.

But then the butterflies showed up and I began to see what that vision had represented after all. What do you want your life to look like, God was asking me? Drudgery and regret or dancing with butterflies?

He reminded me that He would provide. Trusting myself had only gotten me so far, now it was time to let Him show me the rest of the way.

Have you forgotten how to dance?

Are the chains of providing for yourself dragging you away from the magical adventure of receiving what Jesus has already provided? Can you take Him at His word when He tells you,

If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers — most of which are never even seen — don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. (Matthew 6:30–31, MSG)

When we untie ourselves from the shackles of personal gain, professional attainment, and the lie of self-sufficiency we can dance with butterflies everyday. We can be adventurously expectant, looking for God to show up all the time. Personally, I think this is God’s one big plan for our lives! What do you think?

This story is published in Koinonia — stories by Christians to encourage, entertain, and empower you in your faith, food, fitness, family and fun.

We are a Smedian Publication. Find out about us and how to write for us.