Tackling Big Problems

A few days ago, I made a new friend.

Her name is Mabel.

And she is a caterpillar.

A yellow, black, and white stripey monarch caterpillar, to be precise.

When I found her chowing down on a tiny milkweed bush in the garden center I was perusing through, I was entranced. Of course, I had to buy the plant that housed such a precious gift of nature! And guys, I’m so glad I did.

As I’ve been studying her—eyes wide and transfixing, like a little kid—the Lord’s been teaching me life lessons from this unlikely, caterpillar source …

Over the two weeks she has to go from tiny hatchling to full-size, ready-to-make-a-chrysalis caterpillar, Mabel has to grow at a rapid rate of two thousand percent. This means that she’s eating milkweed—and only milkweed—pretty much constantly.

When she finds a leaf she wants to devour, she’ll nibble at its base (where it emerges from the main stem), and then travel to the other side, starting her meal at the very tip of the leaf.

While I have no clue why she first eats away at some of the base (is she marking her territory? Testing to see if the leaf is strong enough to hold her weight? Only God can answer such mysteries), it’s telling that she tackles the humongous buffet before her by traveling to the furthest section of the leaf and backtracking toward the sturdiest, stem-attached part of it.

Relating this to fear-fighting, it’s helpful to allow ourselves to think of the worst possible situation (aka, the furthest, tiniest part of the leaf) before traveling back to more rational, Truth-based territory.

We can rewire our thought connections by addressing the worse case scenario, pondering how likely it is to happen, and then renewing our minds with what is most likely to occur.

And this takes time; is a slow and steady effort.

As Mabel’s eating habits reveal, it can take a long time for her to devour a single leaf—just as it can take us months, years, decades to tackle a deep-seeded area of unbelief—but small efforts lead to big accomplishments.

Bite after bite, step after step as her tiny little feet backtrack along the leaf, she works her way through an obstacle that’s as big as she is … and we can do the same (not literally with eating, but you catch my drift).

Plus, the amazing thing about our Creator is that He’s not only designed her—and us—with the instincts/intellect we need to persist in our leaf-eating/fear-fighting missions …

But He’s also watching over us each step of the way.

Like I did, with my hand hovering beneath Mabel’s body, so that, whenever she did lose her balance and tumble off a leaf, she’d fall a mere inches into my hand, rather than multiple feet onto the patio floor.

When we fall, His hand’s there to catch us, minimizing the damage and hurt and pain that the Enemy intends to inflict on us.

And if we let Him, He’ll guide us back to the next leaf we have to undertake …

Bite by bite, step by step, thought by thought.