The Caterpillar and the Bee
A bee, flying proudly around the garden, approached a caterpillar sitting on a shrub. "I don't know how you can stand to be alive," the bee said. "I'm valuable to the world with my honey and wax, I can fly anywhere I want, and I'm beautiful to behold. But you're just an ugly worm, not good for anything. While I soar from bloom to bloom feasting on nectar, all you can do is creep around and chew on a stem."
"What you say may be true," replied the caterpillar, "but my Maker must have put me here for some purpose, so I trust him for my future."
"You have no future," said the bee. "You'll be crawling through the dirt for the rest of your life. If you ask me, you'd be better off choking on a leaf."
Sometime later the flowers in the garden woke to find that the bee and the caterpillar had both disappeared. All that they could see now was a shriveled yellow body hanging from the edge of a spider web and a magnificent butterfly flexing its wings in the sun.
* This story reminds us that we cannot predict the future, either for others or for ourselves.
*This story teaches us to trust in God rather than in the opinion of men.
The Wise One
High in the mountains of a distant land there once lived a man so incredibly old that his life no longer had any plot. He was so old that his very name had faded from the memories of all those around him, and he was known only as "The Wise One." He spent his later days hearing and commenting on people's problems and sitting among a dozen or two disciples who waited patiently to hear all that was asked of him and all that he spoke. Sometimes an entire day would pass when not a syllable opened his lips; whether this was from a temporary lack of strength or simply because he had nothing to say, no one knew.
While his reputation among his disciples and a few others was that he possessed amazing wisdom and insight, many people thought him to be an idle and incoherent fool because, they said, he never provided a practical solution to the problem he was asked about. Instead he would ask a simplistic question or tell a story whose point was so obscure that many left his presence shaking their heads.