It’s Monarch butterfly season here. We have 2 swan plants outside, covered in big, fat, stripy caterpillars. My daughter inspects them every day. We have 5 chrysalises at the moment, with another 2 set to form at any time. In about a week we’ll see the first of the beautiful, black, orange and white butterflies emerge.

The video above is full of Metamorphosis. Ignorance to comprehension, complacency to distress, dream to nightmare, despair to hope. Make your own list. Overarching it all is Jacob’s own transformation. A modern-day slave trader, Jacob treads the path of John Newton, who underwent the same metamorphosis more than 200 years before him. As with Newton, God is working a miracle in Jacob. But God does not wave a magic wand. There is a rebirth, but then a process of transformation that runs the entire rest of your life. It isn’t all plain sailing. People you thought would help you, don’t. You see setbacks. You let yourself down sometimes. Jacob is still working out his salvation with fear and trembling. As am I. But through it all God is present and He never, ever gives up. Amazing grace.