An Unseen Path Home
The Monarch Butterfly's Instinct and Our Trust in God's Guidance
Tom Ellsworth is a coach to pastors, church consultant, and pulpit supply pastor. Recently, I came across this story that he shared. I found it meaningful and I trust that you do as well.
The monarch butterfly is as amazing as it is beautiful.
Because the monarch caterpillar eats the toxic milkweed plant, the monarch butterfly is also toxic and will make birds and other predators sick. The monarch’s orange, black, and white coloration is a warning to birds: “I don’t make a good lunch.” This is called aposematism, or a warning coloration. It is God’s way of protecting the monarch butterfly.
The viceroy butterfly is not poisonous but looks almost identical to the coloration of the monarch. Consequently, birds won’t eat it either. It is amazing how many ways God protects his creation.
The most amazing characteristic of the monarch butterfly is its annual migration to the warmer climates in Mexico each winter. The monarch isn’t the only butterfly to migrate, but it is unique in its long, two-way migration.
Here is the fascinating part: the one that leaves the Midwest in the fall of the year is not the one that returns in the spring of the year!
In February and March, the monarch butterflies that have been wintering in Mexico rouse from their slumber and start their flight back north. Somewhere in Texas, the monarch will mate, lay eggs, and die.
The first new generation—caterpillar, chrysalis, butterfly—is born in March/April, the second generation in May/June, the third in July/August. Each generation’s lifespan is 4–6 weeks.
Consequently, the monarch that returns to the Midwest in the summer is three or four generations removed from the ones that flew south the previous autumn.
Their story gets better.
The fourth generation, born in September/October, is known as the “super generation” because it can live 6–8 months.
As temperatures drop, these graceful butterflies take to the skies, traveling up to 100 miles per day at 10,000 feet to ride the air thermals and conserve energy. They use a “sun compass” to maintain a southwesterly flight path until reaching the same annual wintering spots in Mexico.
But remember, those that return to the Midwest are the “great-great-grandchildren” of the monarchs that started the journey earlier that spring.
How can they possibly know the way back when they’ve never traveled that way before?
Only the Creator knows how—because He is the one who created the monarch and the milkweed to share such a unique dependence. And if God can get a tiny, delicate butterfly to a home it has never seen or visited, don’t you think He can get you to your unseen, not-yet-visited eternal home?
What an amazing Lord we serve!
“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse” (Romans 1:20).