Behold, All Things are Made NEW!
Testimony
36 x 48 acrylic on stretched canvas
This was painted at The Worship Center in Durham, NC Nov. 2011, at the God on the Move Conference with David Dodd.
I came across this photo a year or so ago and contacted the woman that took it, Sue Boughton. I told her how I paint as worship and asked if I could paint it, thankfully, she said YES! I’ve kept it all this time in a special folder filled with inspirational photos I’ve taken or found online. This was week two of a move of God, not a planned meeting, but a continuation of what God did the week before, so I was not planning to paint, and had to prepare quickly. So, I went to my folder for inspiration, and immediately this image jumped out at me, and I knew it was the ONE I was to paint.
This butterfly seemed to represent what God was doing among us and in the body as a whole. It speaks of a completely new thing that comes from dying to the old so that the new can be born. It requires the caterpillar to hang from a branch upside down and die, how it changes is a mystery. It seems that God is doing a new thing among us, in this meeting and everywhere, and it will require us to let go of the old wine skins. The butterfly must press his own way out of the chrysalis, you cannot help it, same with this move, it has to be God, and it has to be birthed naturally, we have to let go of trying to control or force it, or it will NEVER fly. The color of the body, black and white is about unity that must come between the races, it also speaks of making things plain, or black and white, rightly dividing the word and about intercession that will hold the wings in place. The color in the wings, Yellow and Orange speak of His Glory, fire, evangelism and revival, all things we have been crying out for without which, we will have no change. Monarchs migrate miles and miles, and we will have to travel too, go outside the church walls to touch and bring in the lost. The fragility of the butterfly tells how careful we must be to handle this new move. Everyone knows you cannot hold a butterfly by its wings or you will remove the scales it needs to fly or risk breaking them. Like this next move, the butterfly is perched on the fingers of a child. David had preached on Sampson, and how a child led him by the hand to the pillars when he was blind, how that represented the church in the last days, how it has lost its vision and God will use the young to be her eyes. It is on the tips of the fingers showing that any minute now, it will take flight!!! It is time for all the believers to be mobilized and FLYING. That is my prayer!
I came across this photo a year or so ago and contacted the woman that took it, Sue Boughton. I told her how I paint as worship and asked if I could paint it, thankfully, she said YES! I’ve kept it all this time in a special folder filled with inspirational photos I’ve taken or found online. This was week two of a move of God, not a planned meeting, but a continuation of what God did the week before, so I was not planning to paint, and had to prepare quickly. So, I went to my folder for inspiration, and immediately this image jumped out at me, and I knew it was the ONE I was to paint.
This butterfly seemed to represent what God was doing among us and in the body as a whole. It speaks of a completely new thing that comes from dying to the old so that the new can be born. It requires the caterpillar to hang from a branch upside down and die, how it changes is a mystery. It seems that God is doing a new thing among us, in this meeting and everywhere, and it will require us to let go of the old wine skins. The butterfly must press his own way out of the chrysalis, you cannot help it, same with this move, it has to be God, and it has to be birthed naturally, we have to let go of trying to control or force it, or it will NEVER fly. The color of the body, black and white is about unity that must come between the races, it also speaks of making things plain, or black and white, rightly dividing the word and about intercession that will hold the wings in place. The color in the wings, Yellow and Orange speak of His Glory, fire, evangelism and revival, all things we have been crying out for without which, we will have no change. Monarchs migrate miles and miles, and we will have to travel too, go outside the church walls to touch and bring in the lost. The fragility of the butterfly tells how careful we must be to handle this new move. Everyone knows you cannot hold a butterfly by its wings or you will remove the scales it needs to fly or risk breaking them. Like this next move, the butterfly is perched on the fingers of a child. David had preached on Sampson, and how a child led him by the hand to the pillars when he was blind, how that represented the church in the last days, how it has lost its vision and God will use the young to be her eyes. It is on the tips of the fingers showing that any minute now, it will take flight!!! It is time for all the believers to be mobilized and FLYING. That is my prayer!
Intercession
I also had something personal in my heart that the painting meant to me as well. I did not tell anyone, because it was for intercession. Then, on the very last night, a young man that I had spoken with before, walked me to my car and suggested that I paint something for a certain reason. It was the exact same reason I painted it this butterfly, what was in my heart before the Lord. He had no idea, but it confirmed and encouraged me, that the LORD my God saw, that He knew the cries of my heart, and He loved me. It was like He was winking at me…and saying, “I will do this for you Daughter.”
The caterpillar does all the work but the butterfly gets all the publicity. ~ George Carlin
What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly. ~Richard Bach
I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free. ~Charles Dickens
We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.
If nothing ever changed, there'd be no butterflies.
"Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly."
What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly. ~Richard Bach
I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free. ~Charles Dickens
We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.
If nothing ever changed, there'd be no butterflies.
"Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly."
