When the time is right....

A while back somebody told me this story:
    A little boy was walking along and in the veld he found a cocoon, he picked it up and noticed that on the inside there was a butterfly struggling to come out.  He immediately took out his pocket knife and cut the cocoon open.  Very proud of himself, he helped the butterfly out and placed it on the nearest flower.  However, instead of spreading its wings to fly off, it fluttered weakly for a few moments and then fell over and died.  Dismayed the little boy ran home and told his father about the incident.  The father explained to the little boy that the butterfly needed to struggle its own way out of the cocoon in order to grow its wings strong enough to survive.   When the time was right it would have emerged from the cocoon, delicate yet strong.  This story made me think of us as humans.  So often, when we find ourselves in a difficult situation, we wait for somebody to come along and help us out.  Some knight in shining armour to fight our battle for us, some Samaritan to help carry the burden and often we will just give up the fight, but it is in the struggle, in overcoming, that our stength lies.  The butterfly is exquisitely and perfectly created by God, and the inborn struggle it has to go through is also part of God's perfect plan, it serves a devine purpose.  When the time is right, God's plan will reveal itself to us, and looking back we can see how it all worked together  to complete the picture.  Without that time spend in the cocoon, the struggle towards freedom, the caterpillar would forever stay just that, a caterpillar.  In Jer. 29: 11 the Lord promises that He has plans for us, plans that we may prosper, not plans to harm us, but when the time is right, His perfect time......