Tuesday, August 12th, 2025
Two years ago my children and I observed our first butterfly metamorphosis from the butterfly house that takes up residence in our home this time of year. It was a deeply moving experience for me. God spoke to me through the whole process. Each summer, as we invite more hungry caterpillars into our home, I experience a new part of the process through which God reveals a new spiritual truth.
In this chapter of my life, God has been calling me to enter the secret place with Him. I had always thought I was spending quality time with God, but the more I purpose to go deeper into the secret place, the more I realize what I had was not secret-level. You know what is a lot like a secret place? A chrysalis. Look at what Webster’s 1828 defines as a chrysalis: in this form, the animal is in a state of rest or insensibility; having no organs for taking nourishment, nor wings, nor legs. My interpretation here is that the “flesh” is completely shut off. This is what makes it incredibly hard to enter a secret place.
When you live in an 1,800 square foot house with six two-legged inhabitants is not easy to go somewhere by yourself. When I enter the secret place there are often scriptures boldly declared, Holy Spirit-led worship songs, much note writing and often many tears streaming down my face. It’s hard for me to get to that place with five other sets of eyes on me. The other day I actually went outside and sat on the trampoline in the shade. Everyone else was inside the house. The trampoline became my secret place. And this is where I got the revelation about the chrysalis being like a secret place. I happened to also be in Psalm 27 that day. Verse 5 says this:
5 For in the time of trouble
He shall hide me in His pavilion;
In the secret place of His tabernacle
He shall hide me;
He shall set me high upon a rock.
Isn’t that amazing? Being in the secret place with God isn’t about all the checklist items we should do for God. It’s about trusting Him enough that we will surrender our time and our flesh to His infinite love. We are establishing a place where we can encounter being so hidden away with Him that the only direction we can go is up. Higher up to His rock.
Final Thoughts…
With our most recent chrysalis, the kids and I actually got to watch almost the whole process as it changed from a caterpillar to a chrysalis. We could see the external skin layer start to separate and reveal the beautiful light green shade of the monarch chrysalis. It took about 3 minutes of wiggling and even some gyrating for the caterpillar to work that outside layer of skin off and reveal the shiny chrysalis inside. It took visible effort. The layer of balled up caterpillar skin actually popped off when it was finished. Even that in itself feels sermon-worthy. Before the caterpillar could enter its secret place it had to remove some old-skins. This feels like repentance. This feels like a great way to start a stint in the secret place. What is the result of our making the effort to enter our own chrysalis secret place? We will explore that on the next blog.