The Deeper Scratch

In C.S. Lewis's The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the insufferable boy Eustace Scrubb falls asleep on a dragon's hoard and wakes to discover he has become a dragon himself. His greed has quite literally consumed him. Desperate to be free, Eustace begins scratching at his scales, peeling them away layer by layer. Each time he thinks he has shed the last of it, he looks down and finds yet another layer of dragon skin underneath. He cannot go deep enough.

Then Aslan appears. "You will have to let me undress you," the great Lion says. And his claws cut far deeper than Eustace's own scratching ever could. It is painful — Eustace describes it as hurting worse than anything he has ever felt — but when Aslan throws him into the water afterward, the boy emerges whole, soft-skinned, and finally himself again.

Every pastor has sat with someone who has tried desperately to heal themselves. They have read the books, changed the habits, moved to a new city, started over. And still the wound remains, layer beneath layer. Lewis understood what Scripture has always taught — that the deepest healing requires a hand other than our own.

The prophet Jeremiah cried out, "Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed" (Jeremiah 17:14). Not "help me heal myself." Not "guide my self-improvement." Heal me. Sometimes the most courageous prayer we can offer is simply to stop scratching and let the Healer go deeper than we ever dared.