Saturday, June 14, 2008

dragonfly

I spotted a dragonfly through my window and wondered about the extra set of wings it has.  It turns out that dragonflies actually can hover in place.  They can accelerate rapidly from a hover and catch their prey with studded legs that prevent escape.  I think the most interesting aspect of dragonfles is that they spend most of their lives in the larval stage, living underwater, breathing with gills and catching small fish or tadpoles with extendable jaws.  They actually live this way up to five years before climbing out of the water on a stem, and going through metamorphosis to become a creature of the air.  I don't know if the underwater nymph ever had dreams of a different kind of life, but it's hard to imagine a more different kind of experience as it moves out of the water.  It makes me consider how difficult it is to picture our heavenly life.  I suppose heaven is as different from earth as air is from water.  But just as the dragonfly must thrill to soar and hover after being limited to bumping along the bottom of a pond, I suspect we'll thrill to move in heaven's atmosphere with a new kind of body.
 
1 Corinthians 15:46 However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterward the spiritual. 47 The first man was of the earth, made of dust; the second Man is the Lord from heaven. 48 As was the man of dust, so also are those who are made of dust; and as is the heavenly Man, so also are those who are heavenly. 49 And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man.
 
blessings,
Rob Smith

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