Tell me: Are your coworkers caterpillars or butterflies? Creepy, slinking, sticky-fingered bugs … the kind you sweep off the porch? Or the colorful, graceful, winged creatures you watch with joy?

The answer is: both. We’re all both. A caterpillar is a butterfly-in-waiting. Those colleagues whose work habits annoy you or whose behaviors embarrass you are butterflies nonetheless. Think of them as in that awkward caterpillar stage.

This is Howard Butt Jr. of Laity Lodge. The Bible says that knowing Jesus doesn’t just make us better, it transforms us. When you consider the person at the next desk, whoever it is, good or bad, remember that he or she also is “in process.” Imagine that person one day transformed—in the high calling of our daily work.

“And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”— 2 Corinthians 3:18